Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one, no one, comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6.
Wow! That sounds pretty exclusive.
That can be extremely difficult for us to hear, to process and to understand especially in this day and age where it seems that everyone has their own truth, people want to do things their own way with consideration of the consequences to others, because after all it’s my life and I can do with it what I want when I want.
But that isn’t what Jesus says.
Jesus does not say, I am the way the truth and the life, you can get to the Father by the swami of Marrakesh. Jesus does not say, you are the way, you are your own truth whatever that truth may be for you, and you can do with your life whatever you want.
No, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. It sounds pretty exclusive because it is. Jesus means what he says. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except through him. There is no middle position.
Jesus is forcing a choice. You are either all in, or you are not. You are either with Jesus, or you are against him.
We have to grasp the nature of our human condition. It is not uncommon within our culture to see a shift to self-regard, self-affirmation, and even self-isolation seeing ourselves as totally independent entities unconnected with each other. And most times we do not identify ourselves as the problem, it is everybody else. If only everyone was more like me, we think, things would be much better.
The Biblical idea of sin is relational, the foundational relationship of our humanity which is our relationship with the very foundation and source of our being, God, and the brokenness of this foundational relationship with God shows up everywhere, in our relationships with others, and in our understanding of ourselves. Sin is a rebellion against who we really are being created in God’s likeness and image. In sin, we try to create God in our likeness and image. It is all backwards.
We need something beyond ourselves to rectify our condition. We need God to enter into our disfunction, our condition of estrangement and slavery to set us free.
God himself, through the person of Jesus, is the bridge that reconciles. Jesus Christ, God and man in one person, is the way, the truth and the life, and there is no other way to accomplish this restoration, this reconciliation; it is Jesus, and Jesus alone, who opens for us God’s immediate presence so that in Jesus, God draws near to us. You are I are saved by Christ himself on the cross, God and man joined perfectly together.
