Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:5-7
Notes
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus shares, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The message is clear, without deviation, that the way to life is not by reaching the highest point of any nation, amassing the greatest wealth or gaining social prominence but through Jesus Christ. There are not several different ways and we get to choose; there is only one way. Jesus answers Thomas’s question by stating: He is going to the Father and He is how you get to him also.
The Way: Jesus does not merely show us the way, He is the way. Salvation arrives through a Person and not through deeds or intentions. We can follow the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule and even be a steady church member, but all that counts for nothing we don’t accept the Person. Many people think being a good person is enough, but every single person comes up short.
The Truth: Characterized as the nature of God and embodied in His son, Jesus Christ. We do not have to search for the truth, it has already been found. Christians should be well aware of truth as they have the life of Jesus and those who are not believers, and who seek the truth, it is available for the asking. And what is the truth? We find truth in the teachings of Jesus, in the life he led and evidence in His eternal life.
The Life: Because Jesus died for us as a bequest from God, the pathway to heaven, ripped and torn apart by the harrowing devastation of sin, was repaired and our path to life was restored. Jesus had been the only person to cheat death and as followers, those willing to lay down our lives and each carrying our own cross, we too can evade the finality of death and be restored to life eternal.
7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
While everyone is searching for God or a god, Jesus states that God is to be found in himself. To know Christ is to know God for they are one and yet, distinct. Again, Jesus implies He is the only way to the Father because they are part of the same Godhead. To know one is to know that other.
The chapter continues with Philip asking, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” With his enduring patience, Christ responds similarly to his remarks to Thomas. They have already seen the Father because the Father resides in himself. The words and wisdom Jesus shares with his disciples, and likewise with us, come from God and His authority. Besides God the Father and Jesus the Son later in the chapter, Jesus describes an advocate, a Spirit of truth, who will never leave us. The Trinity complete, we can stand firmly in the promise of restoration and full inheritance into the Kingdom of God, by accepting Jesus the Person and recognizing that he is the only way to salvation.
MEMORY VERses
Elizabeth Murray. Mountain Waterfall, c. 1855. The Art Institute of Chicago
Related Verses
More verses about salvation:
“The Bible is the one Word of the one God about the one way of salvation through the one Savior, Jesus Christ.“
—Graeme Goldsworthy
MANÁ 
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