Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 14:4
And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
4. whither I go ye know, and the way ye know ] The true text seems once more to have been altered to avoid awkwardness of expression (see on Joh 13:26). Here we should read, Whither I go, ye know the way. This it half a rebuke, implying that they ought to know more than they did know they had heard but had not heeded (Joh 10:7; Joh 10:9, Joh 11:25). Thus we say ‘you know, you see,’ meaning ‘you might know, you might see, if you would but take the trouble.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Whither I go ye know – He had so often told them that he was to die, and rise, and ascend to heaven, that they could not but understand it, Mat 16:21; Luk 9:22; Luk 18:31-32.
The way ye know – That is, the way that leads to the dwelling-place to which he was going. The way which they were to tread was to obey his precepts, imitate his example, and follow him, Joh 14:6.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 14:4-6
Whither I go ye know
The interpellation of Thomas
Observe
I.
THAT A MAN MAY, IN SPIRITUAL THINGS, KNOW MORE THAN HE IS CONSCIOUS OF KNOWING. Ye know, We know not. It may be said that our Lord is only attributing a certain knowledge with a view to stirring up His disciples to think so that they may come to know distinctly, just as we say to a child, You know if you would only think. But here the fact stands that Thomas did not know, and yet Christ said he did. So a man may know, and yet not know that he knows. What was it that the apostles actually knew? They knew Christ–very imperfectly, but they did know Him. Thomass Lord, the same word that He used subsequently, in an association that leaves no room to doubt its signification, shows us this. Now Christ was the Way; and therefore in knowing Christ, he knew the Way, although he did not know Him as the Way. And more than this. Thomas and the rest were practically walking in the right way in believing in Christ. But not understanding that Christ was the Way, they did not understand that they were in the right way. Whence it follows that a man may be actually in the right way before he is quite conscious of it. This must be so; for being conscious of a thing means coming to a distinct consciousness of it as an existing fact. Then it must exist as a fact prior to consciousness. The time that may elapse between a man being in a certain condition and becoming conscious of it may vary according to circumstances.
II. THAT TO KNOW CHRIST IS TO BE IN THE RIGHT WAY. I am the Way. Christ had just told them of the Fathers house, and they were naturally anxious to know the way. But notice how He modifies the aspect of future blessedness. He now speaks of the Father Himself. For it is the Fathers presence that makes home–not a house built by the Father, however much the Fathers love may have been lavished on it for His childrens sake. To this Father Christ is the Way, and how His subsequent conversation shows. He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father Eph 2:18; Heb 10:19-20). There is no direct access for man to God. Christ is the way to God, and the way to God is the way to Heaven. And he who knows Christ, however imperfectly, is in the right way.
III. THOSE WHO REALLY KNOW CHRIST AS THE WAY WILL SOON LEARN THAT HE IS MUCH MORE TO THAN THE WAY ONLY. Christ adds the ample appendix, and the Truth and the Life. These three lead on, the one to the other. Religion begins in practical conformity to a Divine way, and so comes down to the level of the simplest and the feeblest. But when a man has walked some time in the Divine way, he begins to desire a fuller understanding of the reasons of the way. Then Christ comes as the Truth, disclosing the grounds on which religious duty rests, satisfying thus the speculative, as He formerly did the practical, faculty. Finally Christ reveals Himself as the Life. Then it is seen that religion is more than practice and knowledge, it is the communication of vital powers, of the powers of the life of God, of power to become the child of God; and that this new vitality in turn prompts to pious practice, and capacitates for spiritual perception. (W. Roberts.)
Christs farewell
It serves
I. TO EXERCISE FAITH IN CHRIST.
1. In His omniscience. For He knows
(1) Whither He goes (Joh 14:5).
(2) When He goes (Joh 14:5).
(3) For what purpose (Joh 14:7-15): to send the Comforter, etc.
2. In His truthfulness (Joh 14:7). For
(1) Jesus went to His Father.
(2) He sent the Comforter.
(3) The Comforter has fulfilled His mission.
II. FOR CONSOLATION WHEN WE FEEL THE PANG OF SEPARATION. For
1. Christ is omniscient. He alone knows
(1) Whither we go.
(2) When we are to go.
(3) Why we go.
2. Christ is truthful. Therefore we are certain that we go
(1) To the Father.
(2) At the hour appointed by Him.
(3) Because it is expedient and necessary for our own faith in
Gods omnipotent love and our sense of dependence on Him.
(Pastor Fricke.)
The way, unknown and yet well known
When you say to a man, You know the way, you mean Come. And in these words there lie a veiled invitation, and the assurance that they, though separated, might still find the road to the Fathers house, and so be with Him still. Observe
I. THE DISCIPLES UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE.
1. Christ says: Ye know the way and the goal. Thomas ventures flatly to contradict Him. Was Jesus right? or Thomas? or both? The fact is, they had heard plenty in the past as to where Christ was going. It had made some kind of lodgement in their heads, and, in that sense, they did know. It is this unused and unconscious knowledge of theirs to which Christ appeals.
2. The dialogue is an instance of what is true about us all, that we have in our possession truths given to us by Jesus Christ, the whole sweep and bearing of which we do not dream of yet. Time and circumstances and some sore agony of spirit are needed in order to make us realize the riches that we possess; and the practice of far more patient, honest, profound meditation is needed, in order that we may understand the things that are given to us of God. The life belts lie unnoticed on the cabin shelf as long as the weather keeps fine, but when the ship strikes people take to them.
3. All our knowledge is ignorance. And ignorance that confesses itself to Him is in the way of becoming knowledge. And we are meant to carry all our inadequate and superficial realizations of His truths into His presence, that, from Him, we may gain deeper knowledge, and a more joyous certitude in His inexhaustible truths.
II. OUR LORDS GREAT SELF-REVELATION WHICH MEETS THIS UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE. Of these three great words, the Way, the Truth, the Life, we are to regard the second and the third as explanatory of the first.
1. Note, then, as belonging to all three of these clauses that remarkable I am. We show the Way, Christ is it. We speak truth, Christ is it. Parents impart life, which they have received, Christ is life. He separates Himself from all men by that representation which He made when Calvary was within arms length. What did He think about Himself, and what should we think of Him?
2. And note that He here sets forth His unique relation to the truth as being one ground on which He is the Way to God.
(1) He is the Truth in reference to the Divine nature. It is not only His speech that teaches us, but Himself that shows us God. There is all the difference between talking about God and showing Him. Men reveal God by their words; Christ reveals Him by Himself and the facts of His life.
2. He is the Truth, inasmuch as, in His life, men find the foundation truths of a moral and spiritual sort. Whatsoever things are true, etc., He is these.
3. He is the Way because He is the Life. Dead men cannot walk a road. It is no use making a path if it starts from a cemetery. And Christ taught that men apart from Him are dead, and that the only life that they can have by which they can be knit to God is the Divine life which was in Himself. He is the Life–and, paradox of mystery and yet fact which is the very heart and centre of His gospel, His only way of giving His life to us is by giving up His physical life for us.
4. And what about people that never heard of Him. Ah! Christ has other ways of working than through His historical manifestation, He is that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. But for us to whom this Book has come, the law of my text rigidly applies. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. It is either–take Christ for the Way, or wander in the wilderness and forget your Father; take Christ for the Truth, or be given over to the insufficiencies of mere natural, political, and intellectual truths, and the shows and illusions of time and sense; take Christ for your life, or remain in your deadness separate from God.
III. THE DISCIPLES IGNORANCE AND THE NEW VISION WHICH DISPELS IT. If ye had known Me ye should have known My Father also, etc. Our Lord accepts for the moment Thomas standpoint. He supplements His former allegation of their knowledge with the admission of the ignorance which went with it as its shadow, and tells them that they did not know what they thought they knew so well, after so many years of companionship–even Himself. The proof that they did not is that they did not know the Father as revealed in Him, nor Him as revealing the Father. If they missed that, they missed everything.
1. The lesson for us is that the true test of the completeness and worth of our knowledge of Christ lies in its being knowledge of God the Father, brought near to us by Him. This saying puts a finger on the radical deficiency of all merely humanitarian views of Christs person. If you know anything about Jesus Christ rightly, this is what you know about Him, that in Him you see God. The knowledge of Christ which stops with the martyr, and the teacher and the brother, is knowledge so partial that even He cannot venture to call it other than ignorance.
2. And then our Lord passes on to another thought, the new vision which at the moment being granted to this unconscious ignorance that was passing into conscious knowledge. From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him. We must give that from henceforth, a somewhat literal interpretation, and apply it to the whole series of utterances and deeds of which the words of our text are but a portion. It is the dying Christ that reveals the living God. Conclusion: So He is your way to God. See that you seek the Father by Him alone. He is your truth; enrich yourselves by all the communicated treasures that you have already received in Him. He is your Life; cleave to Him, that the quick spirit that was in Him may pass into you and make you victors over all deaths, temporal and eternal. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Knowledge unconsciously possessed
A man may have grace and yet not know it; yea, he may think He hath it not, as we seek for the keys that are in our pocket: or think that we have lost a jewel that we have locked up in a chest; yea, as the butcher looketh for the candle that sticketh in his hat. (J. Tramp.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. And whither I go ye know] I have told you this so often and so plainly that ye must certainly have comprehended what I have said.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Christ, Joh 13:33 of the former chapter, had dignified his disciples with the familiar, loving title of little children. It is pleasant to consider how he continueth his discourse to them in such a dialect as a mother would speak to a little child crying after her, seeing her preparing herself to go abroad. The child cries: the mother bids it be still, she is but going to such a friends house. It still cries: she tells it, she is but going to prepare a place for it there where it shall bo much happier than it is at home. It is not yet satisfied: she tells it again, that though she goes, she will come again, and then it shall go along with her, and she will part no more from it. The child is yet impatient: she again endeavours to still it, telling it that it knoweth whither she goeth, and it knows the way, by which, if need be, it may come to her.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4-7. whither I go ye know . . .Thomas saith, Lord, we know not whither thou guest . . . Jesus saith,I am the way, c.By saying this, He meant rather to draw outtheir inquiries and reply to them. Christ is “THEWAY” to theFather”no man cometh unto the Father but by Me” He is”THE TRUTH”of all we find in the Father when we get to Him, “For in Himdwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col2:9), and He is all “THELIFE” that shall everflow to us and bless us from the Godhead thus approached and thusmanifested in Him”this is the true God and eternal life”(1Jo 5:20).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And whither I go ye know,…. They might have known, at least, whither he was going, since he had spoke of his Father’s house, and of his going to prepare a place for them there, and doubtless had some knowledge thereof, though very confused and imperfect:
and the way ye know: this also they might have known from some expressions of his, that the way to his Father’s house lay through sufferings and death, in which way they also were to follow him to his kingdom and glory. Though these words may be with an interrogation, “and whither I go do ye know? and the way do ye know?” which best agrees with Thomas’s answer, and removes all appearance of contradiction between Christ’s words and his.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Christ’s Consolatory Discourse. |
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4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. 5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. 8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? 10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
Christ, having set the happiness of heaven before them as the end, here shows them himself as the way to it, and tells them that they were better acquainted both with the end they were to aim at and with the way they were to walk in than they thought they were: You know, that is, 1. “You may know; it is none of the secret things which belong not to you, but one of the things revealed; you need not ascend into heaven, nor go down into the deep, for the word is nigh you (Rom. x. 6-8), level to you.” 2. “You do know; you know that which is the home and which is the way, though perhaps not as the home and as the way. You have been told it, and cannot but know, if you would recollect and consider it.” Note, Jesus Christ is willing to make the best of his people’s knowledge, though they are weak and defective in it. He knows the good that is in them better than they do themselves, and is certain that they have that knowledge, and faith, and love, of which they themselves are not sensible, or not certain.
This word of Christ gave occasion to two of his disciples to address themselves to him, and he answers them both.
I. Thomas enquired concerning the way (v. 5), without any apology for contradicting his Master.
1. He said, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest, to what place or what state, and how can we know the way in which we must follow thee? We can neither guess at it, nor enquire it out, but must still be at a loss.” Christ’s testimony concerning their knowledge made them more sensible of their ignorance, and more inquisitive after further light. Thomas here shows more modesty than Peter, who thought he could follow Christ now. Peter was the more solicitous to know whither Christ went. Thomas here, though he complains that he did not know this, yet seems more solicitous to know the way. Now, (1.) His confession of his ignorance was commendable enough. If good men be in the dark, and know but in part, yet they are willing to own their defects. But, (2.) The cause of his ignorance was culpable. They knew not whither Christ went, because they dreamed of a temporal kingdom in external pomp and power, and doted upon this, notwithstanding what he had said again and again to the contrary. Hence it was that, when Christ spoke of going away and their following him, their fancy ran upon his going to some remarkable city or other, Bethlehem, or Nazareth, or Capernaum, or some of the cities of the Gentiles, as David to Hebron, there to be anointed king, and to restore the kingdom to Israel; and which way this place lay, where these castles in the air were to be built, east, west, north, or south, they could not tell, and therefore knew not the way. Thus still we think ourselves more in the dark than we need be concerning the future state of the church, because we expect its worldly prosperity, whereas it is spiritual advancement that the promise points at. Had Thomas understood, as he might have done, that Christ was going to the invisible world, the world of spirits, to which spiritual things only have a reference, he would not have said, Lord, we do not know the way.
II. Now to this complaint of their ignorance, which included a desire to be taught, Christ gives a full answer, Joh 14:6; Joh 14:7. Thomas had enquired both whither he went and what was the way, and Christ answers both these enquiries and makes good what he had said, that they would have needed no answer if they had understood themselves aright; for they knew him, and he was the way; they knew the Father, and he was the end; and therefore, whither I go you know, and the way you know. Believe in God as the end, and in me as the way (v. 1), and you do all you should do.
(1.) He speaks of himself as the way, v. 6. Dost thou not know the way? I am the way, and I only, for no man comes to the Father but by me. Great things Christ here saith of himself, showing us,
[1.] The nature of his mediation: He is the way, the truth, and the life.
First, Let us consider these first distinctly. 1. Christ is the way, the highway spoken of, Isa. xxxv. 8. Christ was his own way, for by his own blood he entered into the holy place (Heb. ix. 12), and he is our way, for we enter by him. By his doctrine and example he teaches us our duty, by his merit and intercession he procures our happiness, and so he is the way. In him God and man meet, and are brought together. We could not get to the tree of life in the way of innocency; but Christ is another way to it. By Christ, as the way an intercourse is settled and kept up between heaven and earth; the angels of God ascend and descend; our prayers go to God, and his blessings come to us by him; this is the way that leads to rest, the good old way. The disciples followed him, and Christ tells them that they followed the road, and, while they continued following him, they would never be out of their way. 2. He is the truth. (1.) As truth is opposed to figure and shadow. Christ is the substance of all the Old-Testament types, which are therefore said to be figures of the true, Heb. ix. 24. Christ is the true manna (ch. vi. 32), the true tabernacle, Heb. viii. 2. (2.) As truth is opposed to falsehood and error; the doctrine of Christ is true doctrine. When we enquire for truth, we need learn no more than the truth as it is in Jesus. (3.) As truth is opposed to fallacy and deceit; he is true to all that trust in him, as true as truth itself, 2 Cor. i. 20. 3. He is the life; for we are alive unto God only in and through Jesus Christ, Rom. vi. 11. Christ formed in us is that to our souls which our souls are to our bodies. Christ is the resurrection and the life.
Secondly, Let us consider these jointly, and with reference to each other. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; that is, 1. He is the beginning, the middle, and the end. In him we must set out, go on, and finish. As the truth, he is the guide of our way; as the life, he is the end of it. 2. He is the true and living way (Heb. x. 20); there are truth and life in the way, as well as at the end of it. 3. He is the true way to life, the only true way; other ways may seem right, but the end of them is the way of death.
[2.] The necessity of his mediation: No man cometh to the Father but by me. Fallen man must come to God as a Judge, but cannot come to him as a Father, otherwise than by Christ as Mediator. We cannot perform the duty of coming to God, by repentance and the acts of worship, without the Spirit and grace of Christ, nor obtain the happiness of coming to God as our Father without his merit and righteousness; he is the high priest of our profession, our advocate.
(2.) He speaks of his Father as the end (v. 7): “If you had known me aright, you would have known my Father also; and henceforth, by the glory you have seen in me and the doctrine you have heard from me, you know him and have seen him.” Here is, [1.] A tacit rebuke to them for their dulness and carelessness in not acquainting themselves with Jesus Christ, though they had been his constant followers and associates: If you had known me–. They knew him, and yet did not know him so well as they might and should have known him. They knew him to be the Christ, but did not follow on to know God in him. Christ had said to the Jews (ch. viii. 19): If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; and here the same to his disciples; for it is hard to say which is more strange, the wilful ignorance of those that are enemies to the light, or the defects and mistakes of the children of light, that have had such opportunities of knowledge. If they had known Christ aright, they would have known that his kingdom is spiritual, and not of this world; that he came down from heaven, and therefore must return to heaven; and then they would have known his Father also, would have known whither he designed to go, when he said, I go to the Father, to a glory in the other world, not in this. If we knew Christianity better, we should better know natural religion. [2.] A favourable intimation that he was well satisfied concerning their sincerity, notwithstanding the weakness of their understanding: “And henceforth, from my giving you this hint, which will serve as a key to all the instructions I have given you hitherto, let me tell you, you know him, and have seen him, inasmuch as you know me, and have seen me;” for in the face of Christ we see the glory of God, as we see a father in his son that resembles him. Christ tells his disciples that they were not so ignorant as they seemed to be; for, though little children, yet they had known the Father, 1 John ii. 13. Note, Many of the disciples of Christ have more knowledge and more grace than they think they have, and Christ takes notice of, and is well pleased with, that good in them which they themselves are not aware of; for those that know God do not all at once know that they know him, 1 John ii. 3.
II. Philip enquired concerning the Father (v. 8), and Christ answered him, v. 9-11, where observe,
1. Philip’s request for some extraordinary discovery of the Father. He was not so forward to speak as some others of them were, and yet, from an earnest desire of further light, he cries out, Show us the Father. Philip listened to what Christ said to Thomas, and fastened upon the last words, You have seen him. “Nay,” says Philip, “that is what we want, that is what we would have: Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” (1.) This supposes an earnest desire of acquaintance with God as a Father. The petition is, “Show us the Father; give us to know him in that relation to us;” and this he begs, not for himself only, but for the rest of the disciples. The plea is, It sufficeth us. He not only professes it himself, but will pass his word for his fellow-disciples. Grant us but one sight of the Father, and we have enough. Jansenius saith, “Though Philip did not mean it, yet the Holy Ghost, by his mouth, designed here to teach us that the satisfaction and happiness of a soul consist in the vision and fruition of God,” Psa 16:11; Psa 17:15. In the knowledge of God the understanding rests, and is at the summit of its ambition; in the knowledge of God as our Father the soul is satisfied; a sight of the Father is a heaven upon earth, fills us with joy unspeakable. (2.) As Philip speaks it here, it intimates that he was not satisfied with such a discovery of the Father as Christ thought fit to give them, but he would prescribe to him, and press upon him, something further and no less than some visible appearance of the glory of God, like that to Moses (Exod. xxxiii. 22), and to the elders of Israel, Exod. xxiv. 9-11. “Let us see the Father with our bodily eyes, as we see thee, and it sufficeth us; we will trouble thee with no more questions, Whither goest thou?” And so it manifests not only the weakness of his faith, but his ignorance of the gospel way of manifesting the Father, which is spiritual, and not sensible. Such a sight of God, he thinks, would suffice them, and yet those who did thus see him were not sufficed, but soon corrupted themselves, and made a graven image. Christ’s institutions have provided better for the confirmation of our faith than our own inventions would.
2. Christ’s reply, referring him to the discoveries already made of the Father, v. 9-11.
(1.) He refers him to what he had seen, v. 9. He upbraids him with his ignorance and inadvertency: “Have I been so long time with you, now above three years intimately conversant with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? Now, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Wilt thou ask for that which thou hast already?” Now here,
[1.] He reproves him for two things: First, For not improving his acquaintance with Christ, as he might have done, to a clear and distinct knowledge of him: “Hast thou not known me, Philip, whom thou hast followed so long, and conversed with so much?” Philip, the first day he came to him, declared that he knew him to be the Messiah (ch. i. 45), and yet to this day did not know the Father in him. Many that have good knowledge in the scripture and divine things fall short of the attainments justly expected from them, for want of compounding the ideas they have, and going on to perfection. Many know Christ, who yet do not know what they might know of him, nor see what they should see in him. That which aggravated Philip’s dulness was that he had so long an opportunity of improvement: I have been so long time with thee. Note, The longer we enjoy the means of knowledge and grace, the more inexcusable we are if we be found defective in grace and knowledge. Christ expects that our proficiency should be in some measure according to our standing, that we should not be always babes. Let us thus reason with ourselves: “Have I been so long a hearer of sermons, a student in the scripture, a scholar in the school of Christ, and yet so weak in the knowledge of Christ, and so unskilful in the word of righteousness?” Secondly, He reproves him for his infirmity in the prayer made, Show us the Father. Note, Herein appears much of the weakness of Christ’s disciples that they know not what to pray for as they ought (Rom. viii. 26), but often ask amiss (Jam. iv. 3), for that which either is not promised or is already bestowed in the sense of the promise, as here.
[2.] He instructs him, and gives him a maxim which not only in general magnifies Christ and leads us to the knowledge of God in him, but justifies what Christ had said (v. 7): You know the Father, and have seen him; and answered what Philip had asked, Show us the Father. Why, saith Christ, the difficulty is soon over, for he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. First, All that saw Christ in the flesh might have seen the Father in him, if Satan had not blinded their minds, and kept them from a sight of Christ, as the image of God, 2 Cor. iv. 4. Secondly, All that saw Christ by faith did see the Father in him, though they were not suddenly aware that they did so. In the light of Christ’s doctrine they saw God as the father of lights; in the miracles they saw God as the God of power, the finger of God. The holiness of God shone in the spotless purity of Christ’s life, and his grace in all the acts of grace he did.
(2.) He refers him to what he had reason to believe (Joh 14:10; Joh 14:11): “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and therefore that in seeing me thou hast seen the Father? Hast thou not believed this? If not, take my word for it, and believe it now.”
[1.] See here what it is which we are to believe: That I am in the Father, and the Father in me; that is, as he had said (ch. x. 30), I and my Father are one. He speaks of the Father and himself as two persons, and yet so one as never any two were or can be. In knowing Christ as God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, and as being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, we know the Father; and in seeing him thus we see the Father. In Christ we behold more of the glory of God than Moses did at Mount Horeb.
[2.] See here what inducements we have to believe this; and they are two:–We must believe it, First, For his word’s sake: The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. See ch. vii. 16, My doctrine is not mine. What he said seemed to them careless as the word of man, speaking his own thought at his own pleasure; but really it was the wisdom of God that indited it and the will of God that enforced it. He spoke not of himself only, but the mind of God according to the eternal counsels. Secondly, For his works’ sake: The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth them; and therefore believe me for their sake. Observe, 1. The Father is said to dwell in him ho en emoi menon—he abideth in me, by the inseparable union of the divine and human nature: never had God such a temple to dwell in on earth as the body of the Lord Jesus, ch. ii. 21. Here was the true Shechinah, of which that in the tabernacle was but a type. The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily, Col. ii. 9. The Father so dwells in Christ that in him he may be found, as a man where he dwells. Seek ye the Lord, seek him in Christ, and he will be found, for in him he dwells. 2. He doeth the works. Many words of power, and works of mercy, Christ did, and the Father did them in him; and the work of redemption in general was God’s own work. 3. We are bound to believe this, for the very works’ sake. As we are to believe the being and perfections of God for the sake of the works of creation, which declare his glory; so we are to believe the revelation of God to man in Jesus Christ for the sake of the works of the Redeemer, those mighty works which, by showing forth themselves (Matt. xiv. 2), Show forth him, and God in him. Note, Christ’s miracles are proofs of his divine mission, not only for the conviction of infidels, but for the confirmation of the faith of his own disciples, Joh 2:11; Joh 5:36; Joh 10:37.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Ye know the way ( ). Definite allusion to the puzzle of Peter in 13:36f. The path to the Father’s house is now plain.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I go [] . Withdraw from you. See on 8 21.
Ye know, and the way ye know [, ] . The best texts omit the second ye know, and the and before the way; reading, whither I go ye know the way.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And whither I go ye know,” (kai hopou ego huago oidate) “And where I go away you all know,” perceive or comprehend the way to come there. You know the direction I am taking by the way of the cross, Joh 10:18; Mat 26:2; Luk 24:7.
2) “And the way ye know.” (ten hodon) “As well as the path, road, or way.” They also knew, the way of death through which He must pass to redeem them, Isa 53:1-12; Mat 26:31-32.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
4. And whither I go you know. As we need no ordinary fortitude, that we may patiently endure to be so long separated from Christ, he adds another confirmation, that the disciples know that his death is not a destruction, but a passage to the Father; and next, that they know the way which they must follow, that they may arrive at the participation of the same glory. Both clauses ought to be carefully observed. First, we must see Christ, by the eyes of faith, in the heavenly glory and a blessed immortality; and, secondly, we ought to know that he is the first-fruits of our life, and that the way which was closed against us has been opened by him.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.The better reading is, And whither I go, ye know the way, i.e., Ye know that I am the way to the Father, whither I am going. (Comp. Joh. 14:6, and Joh. 13:33.) They did not, indeed, fully know this, but the means of knowing it was within their reach, and His own words had declared it. (Comp., e.g., Joh. 10:1; Joh. 11:25.) They ought to have known it, and His words now are meant to contrast what they ought to have known with what they really did know, in order that He may more fully instruct them. To know our ignorance, is the first step to its removal.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Whither the way ye know It was a way which they knew; for it was the way which both Enoch and Elijah went before him, as they had learned from their Old Testament instructions. But though it was a way which they knew, they did not know that that was the way which Jesus was to take. Hence they both knew the way and yet knew not the way, as Thomas immediately declares. Jesus spoke truth; and Thomas, though apparently contradicting Jesus, also spoke truth.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“And where I am going, you know the way there.”
He first stresses that they know the way to where He is going, an that where He is going is to His Father’s dwelling place. He has previously taught them, and revealed to them, the way into the Father’s favour and presence through ‘eating and drinking’ Him by response to His words (Joh 4:13-14; Joh 6:35; Joh 7:38). Now He stresses in an even deeper sense that He is ‘the way’. It is by personal response to Him as the Way that they will know truth and life. So when He has gone they need not fear, for the way will still be the same. He has shown them the way there, the way to eternal life, through believing fully in Him (Joh 3:15-16; Joh 7:38), and that is the way that they must take.
(The above rendering is probably the correct one, but many very good authorities have ‘you know where I am going and you know the way there’, which ties in more specifically with the words of Thomas. It is this very fact however which makes it the easier reading, thus making it more suspect as such an alteration is more likely. In view of the manuscript evidence the change must have occurred very early on. Papyrus 66, a very early testimony to the text, has our reading in the text and the alteration in the margin).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Their Certainty For The Future Lies In Their Knowing Him As The One Who Is The Way To The Father And Is The One Who Fully Reveals the Father ( Joh 14:4-11 ).
Having made clear their final destiny Jesus now ensures that they recognise that their way of entry to the Father is through response to Him as the One Who alone truly reveals the Father in all His fullness. This is so to such an extent that to have seen Him is to have seen the Father. As John says in the Prologue, ‘No man has seen God at any time. The only true Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known’ (Joh 1:18). Note that this ‘seeing’ is emphasised in such a way as to take it beyond simply the idea of analogy. It is not that in Him they have had a glimpse of what the Father is like, or that they have seen something of the Father in His behaviour and teaching, but rather that to have seen Him is actually to have seen the Father revealed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 14:4-5 . In order now to lead the disciples to that which, on their side, in respect of the promise contained in Joh 14:3 , was the main practical matter, He says, arousing inquiry: And whither I go ye know the way (so, according to the amended reading, see critical notes) which leads thither, namely, to the Father. And the disciples, had they already been more susceptible to the communications of the Lord respecting His higher Messianic destiny, must have known it, this way, since Christ had already so frequently set Himself forth as the only Mediator of salvation, as in chap. 6, Joh 10:1 ff., Joh 11:25 , et al. He means, that is, not the way to suffering and death , which He Himself is about to tread (Luther, Jansen, Grotius, Wetstein, also Tholuck and Luthardt), but the way designated in Joh 14:6 ( He Himself is that way !) along which every one is directed who would attain to that glorious fellowship with the Father.
is an anacoluthon, with the emphasis of the certainty of the near and blessed completion, and has the accent of self-conscious and unique pre-eminence.
Thomas, as in Joh 20:25 , speaks the language of sober, hesitating intelligence, not of dejection, at the approaching suffering of the Lord, as Ebrard thinks. He seeks information ; , , , Euth. Zigabenus. The heavenly , however distinctly Jesus had already designated it, Thomas did not yet know clearly how to combine with his circle of Messianic ideas; but he desired to arrive at clearness . That Thomas is here cited without the name , which is added in Joh 11:16 , Joh 20:24 , Joh 21:2 , is accidental, and without the design which Hengstenberg imports (that he does not speak here according to his individual spiritual character).
, . . .] “Quodsi ignoretur, quae sit meta , non potest via sub ratione viae concipi,” Grotius.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
Ver. 4. And whither I go ye know ] Some little knowledge they had, such as Thomas in the next verse denies to be any at all; yet Christ acknowledgeth it. The tenor of the new covenant requires no set measures of grace. The first springings in the womb of grace are precious before God, Eph 2:1 ; he blesseth our buds, Isa 61:11 , and in our dunghill of ignorance can find out his own part of knowledge, as here.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
4. ] And where (whither) I go ye know the way. They might have known, and doubtless did know in some sense; but, as Lampe remarks, “interdum quis laudatur ut officii sui moneatur.” We use thus ‘ you know ,’ leaving to be supplied, ‘ if you would give the matter thought .’
, to the Father; (in our Lord’s own case, of which this verse treats), His death .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 14:4-7 . A second interruption occasioned by Thomas .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Joh 14:4 . . The is emphatic: the disciples knew the direction in which He was going.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
John
THE WAY
Joh 14:4 – Joh 14:7
Our Lord has been speaking of His departure, of its purpose, of His return as guaranteed by that purpose, and of His servants’ eternal and perfect reunion with Him. But even these cheering and calming thoughts do not exhaust His consolations, as they did not satisfy all the disciples’ needs. They might still have said, ‘Yes; we believe that You will come back again, and we believe that we shall be together; but what about the parenthesis of absence?’ And here is the answer, or at least part of it: ‘Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know’; or, if we adopt the shortened form which the Revised Version gives us, ‘Whither I go ye know the way.’
When you say to a man, ‘You know the way,’ you mean ‘Come.’ And in these words there lie, as it seems to me, a veiled invitation to the disciples to come to Him before He came back for them, and the assurance that they, though separated, might still find and tread the road to the Father’s house, and so be with Him still. They are not left desolate. The Christ who is absent is present as the path to Himself. And so the parenthesis is bridged across. Now in these verses we have several large and important lessons which I think may best be drawn by simply seeking to follow their course.
I. Observe the disciples’ unconscious knowledge.
‘We know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the way?’ Was Jesus right? was Thomas right? or were they both right? The fact is that Thomas and all his fellows knew, after a fashion, but they did not know that they knew. They had heard much in the past as to where Christ was going. Plainly enough it had been rung in their ears over and over again. It had made some kind of lodgment in their heads, and, in that sense, they did know. It is this unused and unconscious knowledge of theirs to which Christ appeals, and which He tries to draw out into consciousness and power when He says, ‘You know whither I am going, and you know the road.’ Is not that exactly what a patient teacher will do with some flustered child when he says to it: ‘Take time! You know it well enough if you will only think’? So the Master says here: ‘Do not be agitated and troubled in heart. Reflect, remember, overhaul your stores, and think what I have told you over and over again, and you will find that you do know whither I am going, and that you do know the way.’
The patient gentleness of the Master with the slowness of the scholars is beautifully exemplified here, as is also the method, which He lovingly and patiently adopts, of sending men back to consult their own consciousness as illuminated by His teaching, and to see whether there is not lying somewhere, unrecked of and unemployed in some dusty corner of their mind, a truth that only needs to be dragged out and cleaned in order to show itself for what it is, the all-sufficient light and strength for the moment’s need.
The dialogue is an instance of what is true about us all, that we have in our possession truths given to us by Jesus Christ, the whole sweep and bearing of which, the whole majesty and power and illuminating capacity of which, we do not dream of yet. How much in our creeds lies dim and undeveloped! Time and circumstances and some sore agony of spirit are needed in order to make us realise the riches that we possess, and the certitudes to which our troubled spirits may cling; and the practice of far more patient, honest, profound meditation and reflection than finds favour with the average Christian man is needed, too, in order that the truths possessed may be possessed, and that we may know what we know, and understand ‘the things that are given to us of God.’
In all your creeds, there are large tracts that you, in some kind of a fashion, do believe; and yet they have no vitality in your consciousness nor power in your lives. And the Master here does with these disciples exactly what He is trying to do day by day with us, namely, fling us back on ourselves, or rather upon His revelation in us, and get us to fathom its depths and to walk round about its magnitudes, and so to understand the things that we say we believe.
All our knowledge is ignorance. Ignorance that confesses itself to Him is in the way of becoming knowledge. His light will touch the smoke and change it into red spires of flame. If you do not know, go to Him and say, ‘Lord! I do not.’ An accurate understanding of where the darkness lies is the first step to the light. We are meant to carry all our inadequate and superficial realisations of His truth into His presence, that, from Him, we may gain deeper knowledge, a firmer faith, and a more joyous certitude in His inexhaustible lessons. In every article and item of the Christian faith there is a transcendent element which surpasses our present comprehension. Let us be confident that the light will break; and let us welcome the new illumination when it comes, sure that it comes from God. Be not puffed up with the conceit that you know all. Be sure of this, that, according to the good old metaphor, we are but as children on the shore of the great ocean, gathering a few of the shells that it has washed to our feet, itself stretching boundless, and, thank God, sunlit, before us. ‘Ye know the way.’ ‘Master, we know not the way.’
II. Observe here, in the second place, our Lord’s great self-revelation which meets this unconscious knowledge.
There are no words of the Master, perhaps, to which my previous remarks are more necessary to be applied than these. We know; and yet oh! what an overplus of glory and of depth is here that we do not know and never can know. The most fragmentary and inadequate grasp of them with heart and mind will bring light to the mind and quietness and peace to the heart; but the whole meaning of them goes beyond men and angels. We can only skim the surface and seek to shift back the boundaries of our knowledge a little further, and to embrace within its limits a little more of the broad land into which the words bring us. So just take a thought or two which may tend in that direction.
Note, then, as belonging to all three of these clauses that remarkable ‘I am.’ We show a way, Christ is it. We speak truth, Christ is it. Parents impart life, which they have received, Christ is Life. He separates Himself from all men by that representation that He is not merely the communicator or the teacher or the guide, but that He Himself is, in His own personal Being, Way, Truth, Life. He said that, when Calvary was within arm’s-length. What did He think about Himself, and what should we think of Him?
And then note, further, that He sets forth His unique relation to the truth as being one ground on which He is the Way to God. He is the Truth in reference to the divine nature. That Truth, then, is not a mere matter of words. It is not only His speech that teaches us, but Himself that shows us God. His whole life and character, His personality, are the true representation within human conditions of the Invisible God; and when He says, ‘I am the Way and the Truth,’ He is saying substantially the same thing as the great prologue of this Gospel says when it calls Him the Word and the Light of men, and as Paul says when he names Him ‘the Image of the Invisible God.’ There is all the difference between talking about God and showing Him. Men reveal God by their words; Christ reveals Him by Himself and the facts of His life. The truest and highest representation of the divine nature that men can ever have is in the face of Jesus Christ.
I need only remind you in a sentence about other and lower applications of this great saying, which do not, as I think, enter into the purpose of the context. He is the Truth, inasmuch as, in the life and historical manifestation of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Scriptures, men find foundation truths of a moral and spiritual sort. ‘Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,’ He is these, and all true ethics is but the formulating into principles of all the facts of the life and character of Jesus Christ.
Further, my text says He is the Way because He is the Life. On the one side God is brought to all hearts, and in some real sense to our comprehension, by the life of Jesus Christ, and so He is the Way. But that is not enough. There must be an action upon us as well as an action having reference to the divine nature. God is brought to men by the manifestation in Christ; and we, the dead, are quickened by the communication of the Life. The one phrase points to all His work as a Revealer, the other points to all His work upon us as life-giving Spirit, a Quickener and an Inspirer. Dead men cannot walk a road. It is of no use to make a path if it starts from a cemetery. Christ taught that men apart from Him are dead, and that the only life that they can have by which they can be knit to God is the divine life which was in Himself, and of which He is the source and the principle for the whole world. He does not tell us here what yet is true, and what He abundantly tells in other parts of this great conversation, that the only way by which the life which He brings can be diffused and communicated is by His death. ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.’ He is the Life, and-paradox of mystery and yet fact which is the very heart and centre of His Gospel-His only way of giving His life to us is by giving up His physical life for us. He must die that He may be the life-spring for the world. The alabaster box must be broken if the ointment and its fragrance are to be poured out; and ‘death is the gate of life’ in a deeper than the ordinary sense of the saying, inasmuch as the death of the Life which is Christ is the life of the death which we are.
And so, because, on the one hand, He brings a God to our hearts that we can love and trust, and because, on the other, He communicates to our spirits, dead in the only true death which is the separation from God by sin, the life by which we are knit to God, He is the Way to the Father.
And what about people that never heard of Him, to whom that Way has been closed, to whom that Truth has never been manifested, to whom that Life has never been brought? Ah! Christ has other ways of working than through His historical manifestation, for there is no truth more plainly taught in this great fourth Gospel than this, that that Light ‘lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ The eternal Word works through all the earth, in ways beyond our ken, and wherever any man has, however imperfectly, felt after and grasped the thought of a Father in the heavens, there the Word, which is the Light of men, has wrought.
But for us to whom this Book has come, for what people call in bitter irony ‘Christendom,’ the law of my text rigidly applies, and it is being worked out all round us to-day. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.’ And here we are, in this England of ours, and in our sister nations on the continent of Europe and in America, face to face as I believe with this alternative-either Jesus Christ the Revealer of God and the Life of men, or an empty Heaven. And for you, individually, it is either-take Christ for the Way, or wander in the wilderness and forget your Father. It is either-take Christ for the Truth, or be given over to the insufficiencies of mere natural, political, and intellectual truths, and the shows and illusions of time and sense. It is either-take Christ for your Life, or remain in your deadness, separate from God.
III. Lastly, we have here the disciples’ ignorance and the new vision which dispels it.
The lesson for us is that the true test of the completeness and worth of our knowledge of Christ lies in its being knowledge of God the Father, brought near to us by Him. This saying puts a finger on the radical deficiency of all merely humanitarian views of Christ’s person, however clearly they may see and admiringly extol the beauty of His character and the ‘sweet reasonableness’ of His wisdom. They all break down here, and are arraigned as so shallow and incomplete that they do not deserve to be called knowledge of Him at all. If you know anything about Jesus Christ rightly, this is what you know about Him, that in Him you see God. If you have not seen God in Him, you have not got to the heart of the mystery. The knowledge of Christ which stops with the Man and the Martyr, and the Teacher and the beautiful, gentle Brother, is knowledge so partial that even He cannot venture to call it other than ignorance. Oh! brethren, do our conceptions of Him meet this test which He Himself has laid down, and can we say that, seeing Him, we see in Him God?
And then our Lord passes on to another thought, the new vision which at the moment was being granted to this unconscious ignorance that was passing into conscious knowledge. ‘From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him.’ We must give that ‘from henceforth,’ as a note of time, a somewhat liberal interpretation, and apply it to the whole series of utterances and deeds of which the words of our text are but a portion. And, if so, we come to this-it was in the wisdom, and the gentleness, and the deep truths of that upper chamber; it was in the agony and submission of Gethsemane; it was in the meek patience before the judges, and the silent acceptance of ignominy and shame; it was in the willing, loving endurance of the long hours upon the Cross, that Christ inaugurated the new stage in His revelation of God and in His life-giving to the world. And it is from thenceforth and thereby that in the man Jesus, men know and see ‘the Father’ as they never did before. The Cross and the Passion of Christ are the unveiling to the world of the heart of God; and by the side of that new vision the fairest and the loftiest and the sweetest of Christ’s former manifestations and utterances sink into comparative insignificance. It is the dying Christ that reveals the living God.
So, dear friends, He is your way to God. See that ye seek the Father by Him alone. He is your Truth; grapple Him to your hearts, and by patient meditation and continual faithfulness enrich yourselves with all the communicated treasures that you have already received in Him. He is your Life; cleave to Him, that the quick Spirit that was in Him may pass into you and make you victors over all deaths, temporal and eternal. Know Him as a Friend, not as a mere historical person, or with mere head-knowledge, for to know a friend is something far deeper than to know a truth. ‘Acquaint thyself with Him and be at peace.’ ‘This is life eternal, to know,’ with the knowledge which is life and possession, ‘Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
know. Greek. oida. App-132. Most of the texts omit the second “ye know”, and read, “whither, &c., ye know the way. “
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
4.] And where (whither) I go ye know the way. They might have known, and doubtless did know in some sense; but, as Lampe remarks, interdum quis laudatur ut officii sui moneatur. We use thus you know,-leaving to be supplied, if you would give the matter thought.
, to the Father; (in our Lords own case, of which this verse treats), His death.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 14:4. , whither I am going) This is the summary of what precedes.[344]- , the way) This forms the statement of subject introductory to those things which follow.
[344] , ye know) More is attributed to believers than they give themselves credit for; comp. ver. 5 with this ver., Lord, we know not whither Thou goest.-V. g.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 14:4
Joh 14:4
And whither I go, ye know the way.-He had told them of the place and that he was the way. They ought to have understood this. [Jesus probably uttered these words to provoke questions such as follow. He was going to his Father from whom he came and the way by which he would go was the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, and the exaltation. (Mat 16:21; Mat 17:22; Mat 20:1
Joh 14:5
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
whither: Joh 14:2, Joh 14:28, Joh 13:3, Joh 16:28, Luk 24:26
and the: Joh 3:16, Joh 3:17, Joh 3:36, Joh 6:40, Joh 6:68, Joh 6:69, Joh 10:9, Joh 12:26
Reciprocal: Luk 5:35 – when Joh 13:33 – Ye Joh 13:36 – whither Joh 16:5 – Whither
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
4
This short verse has two important parts, namely, the place to which Jesus was going (to his Father’s house in Heaven), and the way to reach that place with reference to those who would go there after Him. The apostles should have known all this from the abundance of teaching Jesus had given them through the past three years.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
We should mark in these verses how much better Jesus speaks of believers than they speak of themselves. He says to His disciples, “whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” And yet Thomas at once breaks in with the remark, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” The apparent contradiction demands explanation. It is more seeming than real.
Certainly, in one point of view, the knowledge of the disciples was very small. They knew little before the crucifixion and resurrection compared to what they might have known, and little compared to what they afterwards knew after the day of Pentecost. About our Lord’s purpose in coming into the world, about His sacrificial death and substitution for us on the cross, their ignorance was glaring and great. It might well be said, that they “knew in part” only, and were children in understanding.
And yet, in another point of view, the knowledge of the disciples was very great. They knew far more than the great majority of the Jewish nation, and received truths which the Scribes and Pharisees entirely rejected. Compared to the world around them, they were in the highest sense enlightened. They knew and believed that their Master was the promised Messiah, the Son of the living God; and to know Him was the first step towards heaven. All things go by comparison. Before we lightly esteem the disciples because of their ignorance, let us take care that we do not underrate their knowledge. They knew more precious truth than they were aware of themselves. Their hearts were better than their heads.
The plain truth is, that all believers are apt to undervalue the work of the Spirit in their own souls, and to fancy they know nothing because they do not know everything. Many true Christians are thought more of in heaven while they live, than they think of themselves, and will find it out to their surprise at the last day. There is One above who takes far more account of heart knowledge than head-knowledge. Many go mourning all the way to heaven because they know so little, and fancy they will miss the way altogether, and yet have hearts with which God is well pleased.
We should mark, secondly, in these verses, what glorious names the Lord Jesus gives to Himself. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The fullness of these precious words can probably never be taken in by man. He that attempts to unfold them does little more than scratch the surface of a rich soil.
Christ is “the way,”-the way to heaven and peace with God. He is not only the guide, and teacher, and lawgiver, like Moses; He is Himself the door, the ladder, and the road, through whom we must draw near to God. He has opened the way to the tree of life, which was closed when Adam and Eve fell, by the satisfaction He made for us on the cross. Through His blood we may draw near with boldness, and have access with confidence into God’s presence.
Christ is “the truth,”-the whole substance of true religion which the mind of man requires. Without Him the wisest heathen groped in gross darkness and knew nothing about God. Before He came even the Jews saw “through a glass darkly,” and discerned nothing distinctly under the types, figures, and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Christ is the whole truth, and meets and satisfies every desire of the human mind.
Christ is “the life,”-the sinner’s title to eternal life and pardon, the believer’s root of spiritual life and holiness, the surety of the Christian’s resurrection life. He that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life. He that abideth in Him, as the branch abides in the vine, shall bring forth much fruit. He that believeth on Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live. The root of all life, for soul and for body, is Christ.
Forever let us grasp and hold fast these truths. To use Christ daily as the way,-to believe Christ daily as the truth,-to live on Christ daily as the life,-this is to be a well-informed, a thoroughly furnished and an established Christian.
We should mark, thirdly, in these verses, how expressly the Lord Jesus shuts out all ways of salvation but Himself. “No man,” He declares, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”
It avails nothing that a man is clever, learned, highly gifted, amiable, charitable, kind-hearted, and zealous about some sort of religion. All this will not save his soul if he does not draw near to God by Christ’s atonement, and make use of God’s own Son as his Mediator and Savior. God is so holy that all men are guilty and debtors in His sight. Sin is so sinful that no mortal man can make satisfaction for it. There must be a mediator, a ransom-payer, a redeemer, between ourselves and God, or else we can never be saved. There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder, between earth and heaven,-the crucified Son of God. Whoever will enter in by that door may be saved; but to him who refuses to use that door the Bible holds out, no hope at all. Without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Let us beware, if we love life, of supposing that mere earnestness will take a man to heaven, though he know nothing of Christ. The idea is a deadly and ruinous error. Sincerity will never wipe away our sins. It is not true that every man will be saved by his own religion, no matter what he believes, so long as he is diligent and sincere. We must not pretend to be wiser than God. Christ has said, and Christ will stand to it, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”
We should mark, lastly, in these verses, how close and mysterious is the union of God the Father and God the Son. Four times over this mighty truth is put before us in words that cannot be mistaken. “If ye had known Me, ye would have known my Father.”-“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”-“I am in the Father, and the Father in Me.”-“The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.”
Sayings like these are full of deep mystery. We have no eyes to see their meaning fully,-no line to fathom it,-no language to express it,-no mind to take it in. We must be content to believe when we cannot explain, and to admire and revere when we cannot interpret. Let it suffice us to know and hold that the Father is God and the Son is God, and yet that they are one in essence though two distinct Persons,-ineffably one, and yet ineffably distinct. These are high things, and we cannot attain to a full comprehension of them.
Let us however take comfort in the simple truth, that Christ is very God of very God; equal with the Father in all things, and One with Him. He who loved us, and shed His blood for us on the cross, and bids us trust Him for pardon, is no mere man like ourselves. He is “God over all, blessed forever,” and able to save to the uttermost the chief of sinners. Though our sins be as scarlet, He can make them white as snow. He that casts his soul on Christ has an Almighty Friend,-a Friend who is One with the Father, and very God.
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Notes-
v4.-[And whither I go ye know…way ye know.] This remarkable sentence was evidently meant to stir and cheer the disciples, by reminding them of what their Master had repeatedly told them. It is as though our Lord said, “Do not be cast down by my going away, as if you had never heard Me say anything about heaven and the way to heaven. Awake from your despondency, stir up your memories. Surely you know, if you reflect a little, that I have often told you all about it.” Is it not, again, like a tender parent saying to a frightened child, who says he knows not what to do, and is ready to sit down in despair, “Come: you know well enough, if you will only consider”?
Poole observes on this verse, “It is pleasant to notice how Christ continueth His discourse to the disciples, like a mother speaking to a little child crying after her when she prepares herself to go abroad. The child cries; the mother bids it be still, for she is only going to a friend’s house. It still cries; she tells it she is only going to prepare a place for it there, where it will be much happier than at home. It is not yet satisfied; she tells it again, that though she goes, she will come again, and then it shall go with her, and she will part from it no more. The child is yet impatient; she endeavoureth to still it, telling it that it knoweth whither it goeth, and it knows the way by which, if need be, it may come to her.”
Let us note that disciples often know more than they suppose or admit, but do not use their knowledge, or keep it ready for use. Ferus compares them to infants lying in their cradles, who have fathers and fortunes, but do not know it.
Let us note that Christ looks graciously on the little knowledge His people possess, and makes the most of it. He can make allowance for their minds being clouded by grief or trouble, and their consequent forgetfulness of truth for a season.
v5.-[Thomas saith unto Him, etc.] This verse shows how foolishly a disciple may talk under the influence of despondency. Here is one of the eleven faithful Apostles declaring flatly that they neither knew where their Master was going, nor the way! The saying is characteristic of the man. Thomas always appears a doubting, slow-minded believer. But we must not judge disciples too sharply for words spoken under deep distress. When the passions and affections are much stirred, the tongue often runs away with a man, and he speaks unadvisedly. Nor must we forget that disciples have very different gifts. All have not equally strong faith, clear understanding, and good memory.
Trapp quaintly remarks that believers in the frame of Thomas are like people who hunt for their keys and purses, when they have got them in their pockets.
v6.-[Jesus saith…I…way…truth…life.] This wonderful saying is a brilliant example of a foolish remark calling out a great truth from our Lord’s lips. To the ill-natured remark of the Pharisees we owe the parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke chapter 15); to the fretful complaint of Thomas we owe one of the grandest texts in Scripture. It is one of those deep utterances which no exposition can thoroughly unfold and exhaust.
When our Lord says, “I am the way,” He means, “the Father’s house is to be reached through my mediation and atonement. Faith in Me is the key to heaven. He that believeth in Me is in the right road.”
When our Lord says, “I am the truth,” He means, “The root of all knowledge is to know Me. I am the true Messiah to whom all revelation points, the truth of which the Old Testament ceremonies and sacrifices were a figure and shadow. He that really knows Me, knows enough to take him safe to heaven, though he may not know many things, and may be troubled at his own ignorance.”
When our Lord says “I am the life,” He means, “I am the Root and Fountain of all life in religion, the Redeemer from death and the Giver of everlasting life. He that knows and believes in Me, however weak and ignorant he may feel, has spiritual life now, and will have a glorious life in my Father’s house hereafter.”
Some think that the three great words in this sentence should be taken together, and that our Lord meant, “I am the true and living way.” Yet the general opinion of the best commentators is decidedly unfavourable to this view of the sentence. To my own mind it cuts down and impoverishes a great and deep saying.
Musculus remarks that no prophet, teacher, or apostle ever used such words as these. They are the language of one who knew that He was God.
[No man cometh…Father but by me.] Here our Lord teaches that He is not merely the way to our Father’s home in heaven, but that there is no other way, and that men must either go to heaven by His atonement or not go there at all. It is a clear distinct limitation of heaven to those who believe on Christ. None else will enter in there. Rejecting Christ they lose all.
We should mark carefully what an unanswerable argument this sentence supplies against the modern notion that it does not matter what a man believes,-that all religions will lead men to heaven if they are sincere,-that creeds and doctrines are of no importance,-that heaven is a place for all mankind-whether heathen, Mahometan, or Christian,-and that the Fatherhood of God is enough to save all at last, of all sects, kinds, and characters! Our Lord’s words should never be forgotten. “There is no way to the Father but by Me.” God is a Father to none but to those who believe in Christ. In short, there are not many ways to heaven. There is only one way.
“Coming to the Father,” in this place, we must remark, includes not only coming to Him in glory at the last, but coming to Him in a friendly relation for peace and comfort now in this life.
“By Me,” is literally, “through” Me,-as a door a gate, a road, a path, an entrance. It is an expression which would be peculiarly expressive to the Jews, taught from childhood to draw near to God only through the priests.
v7.-[If…known me…Father also.] This is a deep saying, like every saying which handles the mysterious union of the Father and the Son in John’s Gospel. The meaning seems to be, “If you had rightly, properly, and perfectly known Me, as the Divine Messiah, in all the fullness of my nature, you would then have known more of that Father to whom I am inseparably united. No one can rightly know Me without knowing the Father, because I and the Father are One.”
[And from henceforth…known…seen Him.] The meaning of these words seems to be, “Understand from this time forward, that in knowing Me you know the Father, and in seeing Me see the Father, so far as the Father can be seen and known by man.” Although the Son and the Father are two distinct persons in the Trinity, yet there is so close and mysterious a union between them that He who sees and knows the Son, in a certain sense, sees and knows the Father. Is it not written of the Son that “He is the express image of the Father”? (Heb 1:3.)
The whole difficulty of the verse arises from the extreme mysteriousness of its subject. The relation between the eternal Father and the eternal Son and the eternal Spirit, who, while three Persons, are one God, is precisely one of those things which we have no minds to take in, and no language to express. We must often be content to believe and reverence it, without attempting to explain it. This only we may lay down with certainty, as a great canon and maxim,-the more we know of Christ, “the more we know of the Father.”
v8.-[Philip…shew us the Father…sufficeth us.] We are not told Philip’s motive in making this request. Perhaps, like Moses, he and the other disciples had a pious desire to see a more full vision and revelation of God’s glory, as an authentication of their Master’s Divine mission. “Show me Thy glory.” (Exo 33:18.) Perhaps Philip’s petition is recorded to show how little clear knowledge the Apostles yet had of their Master’s nature, and how little they realized that He and the Father were One:-“If we could only see once for all the Divine Being whom Thou dost call the Father, it would be sufficient. We should be satisfied and our doubts would be removed.” At any rate we have no right to think that Philip spoke like the unbelieving Jews, who always pretended to want signs and wonders. Whatever sense we put on the words, we must carefully remember not to judge Philip too harshly. Living as we do in the nineteenth century, amidst light and creeds and knowledge, we can have faint ideas of the extreme difficulty that must have been felt by the disciples in fully realizing their Master’s nature, in the days when He was “in the form of a Servant,” and under a veil of poverty, weakness, and humiliation.
Melancthon remarks that Philip’s petition represents the natural wish of man in every age. Men feel an inward craving everywhere to see God.
v9.-[Jesus saith…so long time…Philip.] This verse is undoubtedly a gentle rebuke. The expression, “so long time,” is noteworthy, when we remember that Philip was one of the very first disciples whom Jesus called. (See Joh 1:43.) The meaning seems to be, “After three long years, Philip, dost thou not yet thoroughly know and understand who I am?”
[He…seen me…seen the Father.] This deep sentence can only mean, “He that hath thoroughly seen me with the eye of faith, and realized that I am the eternal Son, the Divine Messiah, hath seen as much of my Father, whose express image I am, as mortal man can comprehend.” There is so close and intimate a union between the persons in the Trinity, that he who sees the Son sees the Father. And yet we must carefully beware that we do not, like some heretics, “confound the Persons.” The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father.
Musculus observes that to see with bodily eyes is one thing, and to see with the eyes of faith quite another.
[And how sayest thou…show…Father.] This question is a further gentle rebuke of Philip’s ignorance. “What dost thou mean by saying, Show us the Father? What clear knowledge of Me canst thou have if thou canst ask such a question?”
Let us note how Jesus calls “Philip” by his name. It was doubtless meant to prick his conscience. “Thou, Philip, and old disciple, so ignorant! Ought not thou, after following and hearing Me for three years to have known better than this?”
v10.-[Believest thou not…I…in Father…in Me.] This question continues the rebuke to Philip. It means, “Dost thou not yet believe and realize what I have taught,-that there is a mystical union between Me and the Father, and that He is in Me and I in Him?”
This question surely seems to indicate that our Lord had often taught His disciples about the union between Himself and the Father. But, like many of the things He taught, the mighty truth passed over their heads at first, and was not remembered till afterwards. How little reason have ministers to complain if their teaching is little regarded, when this was Christ’s experience!
[The words that I speak…Father…works.] There can be little doubt that this is a very elliptical sentence. The full meaning must be supplied in this way. “The words that I speak to you I speak not independently of the Father; and the works that I do I do not do them independently of the Father. The Father who dwells in Me, speaks in Me and works in Me. My words are words given Me to speak, and my works are works given Me to do, in the eternal counsel between the Father and the Son. Both in speaking and working I and my Father are one. What I speak He speaks, and what I work He works.”
The whole difficulty of the verse arises from forgetting the close and mysterious and insoluble union between the Persons of the Trinity. How little we realize the fullness of the expression, “The Father dwelleth in Me.”
v11.-[Believe Me…in the Father…in Me.] Direct instruction follows the rebuke of the preceding verse. Our Lord repeats for the benefit not of Philip only, but of all the eleven, the great doctrine He had so often taught them. “Once more, I say, Believe, all of you, my words, when I say that I and the Father are so closely united that I am in Him and He in Me.”
The word rendered “believe” in this verse is in the plural number. Our Lord does not address Philip only, but the whole company of the Apostles.
What an example we have here of the necessity of repeating instruction over and over again. Our Lord had evidently taught these things before to the eleven, and yet they had either not understood or not remembered.
[Or else believe…works’ sake.] Here our Lord condescends to the weakness of the disciples. “If you will not believe the close union of Myself and the Father because of my word, believe it because of the works I work. They are such works as no one could work of himself, and without the Father.”
Let us carefully observe how our Lord here, as elsewhere, specially names His works, or miracles, as testimonies of His nature and Divine mission. To leave out miracles in the list of the evidences of Christianity is a great mistake.
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Joh 14:4. And whither I go away ye know the way. These words convey to the disciples the assurance that they already had the pledge and earnest of all that Jesus had spoken of; for their interpretation depends on the same principle as that formerly applied at chap. Joh 4:32. To know is not merely to know of; it is to have inward experience of. As, therefore, whither I go is the Fathers presence; as Jesus is the way to the Father; and as they have experimental knowledge of Him, they know the way. They might have feared that it was not so, that they had still much to be taught before they could anticipate with confidence the possession of their hope; and who was to teach them now? But Jesus says, Ye know me; and, in knowing me, ye know the way; it is already yours. Difficulties arise in their minds, the first of which is started by Thomas, and has reference to the way to the goal.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Ver. 4. And whither I go you know, and the way you know.
We translate according to the received reading, which has in its favor 14 Mjj., the Peschito and most of the manuscripts of the Itala. According to it, Jesus attributes to the disciples the knowledge both of the end and of the way. According to the Alexandrian reading: And whither I go, you know the way, He attributes to them only the knowledge of the way. The difference is not great. For if, according to the second reading, the knowledge of the end is not declared, it is certainly implied, and this by reason of Joh 14:2, where the end (the Father’s house) had been clearly pointed out. But did the apostles know the way to reach it? Yes and no; yes, since this way was Jesus and Jesus was what they knew better than anything else. No, in the sense that they did not know Him as the way. This is the reason why, if Jesus can say to them with truth: You know the way, Thomas can answer him with no less truth: We know it not. Preoccupied until then with another end, the earthly kingdom of the Messiah, their imagination had not transferred their hopes from the world to God, from the earth to heaven; they were thinking, in fact, like the Jews (Joh 12:34): We have heard that the Christ abides forever (on the earth, which is glorified by Him); how then dost thou say, The Son of man must be lifted up? Comp. Act 1:6. And this false end to a certain extent veiled the truth from them. It is Thomas, the disciple who was particularly positive in his spirit, who becomes here, as at other times, the organ of doubting thoughts and discouraged feelings which exist more or less in them all; comp. Joh 11:16, Joh 20:25.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
14:4 {3} And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.
(3) Christ alone is the way to true and everlasting life, for it is he in whom the Father has revealed himself.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus could say that the Eleven knew the way to the place where He was going because He had revealed that faith in Him led to eternal life (Joh 3:14-15). This had been a major theme of His teaching throughout His ministry. However, they did not understand Him as they should have (Joh 14:5).
These four verses answered Peter’s initial question about where Jesus was going (Joh 13:36). They also brought the conversation back to the subject of the glorification of the Father and the Son (Joh 13:31-32).