John 14
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
In a fascinating 2017 article entitled “Italian Runner Wins Venice Marathon After All The Favorites Take A Wrong Turn,” we read the following:
It’s fair to say things were not supposed to go this way at the Venice Marathon.
It would’ve been little surprise if Kenya’s Gilbert Kipleting Chumba had won the race Sunday — or maybe it could have been his countryman David Kiprono Metto. And, in fact, both of those favorites were among the leaders roughly 16 miles into the marathon.
Then, they took a wrong turn.
A cluster of motorcycles and cars that had been in front of the runners left the planned route—as they were supposed to, Enrico Jacomini says…
But the small group of runners leading the race followed them anyway, straying more than 100 hundred meters off course and apparently onto a main thoroughfare…
Delayed by about 2 minutes…the favorites ultimately lost out to Eyob Ghebrehiwet Faniel, a local who was reportedly running in only his second marathon…
Now, he is the first Italian man to win the Venice Marathon in 22 years. He won the race in 2:12:16—which is better than all but two times set by Americans this year, according to Sports Illustrated.
“He was doing well,” Jacomini says, “and this was just a lucky circumstance.”
I believe my favorite part of the article may be what the winner, Eyob Faniel, said:
“Today’s race shows that the work is paying off,” Faniel said after the marathon, according to the IAAF. “It was not an easy race as I had to run alone on the Ponte della Libertà. I dedicate the win to myself as I have always believed in my work despite all the difficulties.”
I mean…I suppose what happened in that race might show that Faniel’s work is “paying off,” or it might show that those who were faster than him were just really dedicated to following the pace cars!
Enrico Jacomini concludes with the following:
“I’ve been following athletics for 55 years and I’ve been a part of the international federations, I’ve been manager of many organizations,” Jacomini adds. “And I’ve never seen anything like this.”[1]
Pretty amazing story! It illustrates something that is true of marathons as well as of life: Winning the prize depends a lot on choosing the correct way!
Tellingly, Jesus will use this word of Himself, in one of the most famous verses in the New Testament, John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Everybody follows a way.
We begin with a foundational spiritual truth: Everybody follows a way.
Let me repeat that: Everybody follows a way.
The question is not, “Which way do you claim to follow.” The question is, “Which way do you actually follow.” Your stated creed does not determine which path you are actually walking, which way you are actually following. Your life does. The fruit of your life reveals the way you have chosen.
There are many ways presented to us in life. Many of them are destructive. Many are also deceptive.
In Proverbs 14, we read:
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Do you see? Some ways “seem right.” Yet, they lead to death. I wonder if you have ever realized that you were walking one of these paths?
In Job 8, we find Bildad saying:
11 “Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? 12 While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. 3 Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish.
Whatever else we might think of Bildad’s counsel to Job, he was right on this point. These godless paths do not lend themselves to growth, to flourishing. Rather, they lead to calamity!
In Job 24, Job says:
13 “There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths.”
There is a path, then, for those who “rebel against the light.” Do you want to know what such a path is? It is a dark path. It is a dangerous path. There is no light there. No good will come of it.
Jesus spoke of two paths in Matthew 7.
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Everybody follows a way. The question is, which way are you following? Some ways promise life but lead to death and some ways are dark from the get-go, the path of those who rebel “against the light.”
So we begin with this: Understand that everybody walks a way. We must know the way we are walking. This call is rooted in God’s word. For, in Proverbs 4, we read:
26 Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.
When is the last time you “pondered the path of your feet”? When is the last time you assessed your way?
Jesus is the narrow way that allows no other ways.
Everybody follows a way. Many ways present themselves. But, in fact, only Jesus is the way. In John 14, we read:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
It is an amazing statement and a jarring statement! The world would call this a deeply problematic statement, for Jesus’ assertion of His own supremacy does not allow alternatives. Yet, it is the truth, the truth that saves, the only truth that can! Jesus is the way!
There is a little word that shows up three times in the Greek rendering of this famous statement. Watch closely:
Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή
Do you see it? That strange little letter that looks like an English “n” with one leg longer than the other and with that funny little mark above it? That is the Greek definite article. That is the word “the.”
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
In a pretty disappointing article over at Baptist News Global entitled “John 14:6—Inclusive or Exclusive?,” we read the following from one person who wants to say that John 14:6 is not particular or exclusive but rather inclusive. Watch how he tries to do this:
…others, like me, emphasize that John was writing to his particular community. When John wrote “no one” he meant “none of you.”…
In other words, this is not true for everyone, but it is true for Christians. From this point of view, John 14:6 says nothing about how those outside of Christianity can know God. This is how Christians know God, namely, by following the way of Jesus into the truth and life of God. For Christians, Jesus is the definitive revelation of God.
This means, on one hand, that Christians are free to treat with acceptance and respect adherents and participants of non-Christian religious (and secular) traditions without feeling obligated to impose Christian beliefs on them.[2]
Well, I will give the writer this: If John 14:6 is not exclusive—if Jesus is not the way—then, indeed, we should not feel “obligated to impose Christian beliefs” on non-believers. I assume he means by that clumsy phrase, there is no need for us to evangelize.
But, come now, this is not a good reading of John 14:6. Jesus is quite clearly saying that He and He alone is the way. There is no other.
There are other ways to distort John 14:6, other ways we can make it mean something other than what it means. Usually we do this when we impose our own assumptions and/or desires upon this verse. I tried to imagine how various groups in our society and in our churches might render John 14:6. For instance:
The Legalist Translation: “I am the way…if you’re good enough…and the truth…if you’re good enough…and the life…if you’re good enough.”
The Liberal Translation: “I am the way…if you feel like I am…and the truth…only if you don’t find that idea oppressive…and the life…not that other ways of doing life aren’t equally valid.”
The Universalist Translation: “I am a way, and a truth, and a life.”
The Atheist Translation: “I am…not here.”
The Pentecostal Translation: “I am alkdjfdoaiuhfeo aadkhjfopoj akdjdioenalknd.”
The Catholic Translation: “Sum via, veritas, vita.”
The Baptist Translation: “I am the way…though we’ve never done it this way before…and the truth…all in favor signify by saying “Aye!”…and the life…and all of God’s people said…”
The Agnostic Translation: “I might be the way, the truth, and the life…maybe.”
The Episcopalian Translation: “I (pronouns He/Him) am the way, and the truth-ish, and the life.”
Some of these are meant tongue-in-cheek, but the point remains: We find ways to sidestep the radical exclusivity of Jesus’ words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” We find ways to make this verse mean what we want it to mean. We must resist this temptation.
When we challenge each other to walk The Jesus Way—to face very situation, circumstance, attitude, relationship, and possibility with the question, “What is The Jesus Way here?”—we do so on the basis of Jesus’ own words that His way is superior to all others.
If you allow the possibility that other ways are equal to the way of Jesus, then you will not give yourself wholeheartedly to Jesus and His way!
The Jesus Way calls for a radical, stubborn, unflinching, uncompromising conviction that His way is superior.
In point of fact, The Jesus Way calls for a radical, stubborn, unflinching, uncompromising conviction that His way is superior, that He alone is Lord. To truly walk The Jesus Way, we must be utterly convinced of its singular and exclusive greatness.
In other words, we must have actual, genuine convictions that Jesus is Lord!
The problem is, in our day, such conviction seems to be lacking. It is lacking in the world, but that is as we would expect. We would not expect to find Christian convictions in lost people. Make no mistake, the lost world oftentimes does have strong convictions, just about the wrong things. The poet W.B. Yeats wrote:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity[3]
Which has led some to ask, “Why do those who know the least know it the loudest?”
It is indeed a scandal that the world holds to its mistakes with more passion and intensity than the church holds to her truths. The great tragedy of our day is that conviction concerning Jesus and His way is oftentimes lacking even in His own church! Os Guinness once wrote:
A generation characterized by “convictions” had been followed by one of “conventions” and was soon to be followed by one of “addictions.”[4]
That is, sadly, too true, and perhaps especially of churches that lack genuine conviction concerning Jesus. From conviction to convention to addiction. When we lose our guiding convictions concerning Jesus and His way, we inevitably turn inward and are distorted in the process. When the church loses genuine conviction about Jesus, she will become addicted to any number of things: growth, materialism, church culture, performance, etc.
But this must not happen. The church must be comprised of people who are willing to stake their very lives on Jesus and His way! Cultural Christianity is simply incapable of treasuring The Jesus Way and walking it with total commitment. It lacks the fortitude. It lacks the conviction.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it like this:
These are the people who decide to take up Christianity instead of being taken up by Christianity. They have never known this feeling of constraint, this feeling of, “I can do no other, so help me, God,” that they must, that everything else has to be excluded, that the truth has so come to them that they must accept it.[5]
What, then, does conviction look like? This is what conviction looks like:
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10)
Genuine heart-belief leading to robust public confession.
If we believe that Jesus really is the way, we will not be embarrassed of it or bashful about it. We will herald it. We will proclaim it. The gospel will be our song. We will gossip the gospel, talk up the gospel, live out the truths of the gospel.
I ask you, what way are you walking?
A modern, amateur poet has bemoaned both the allure and the damage of the wrong path when he wrote these heartbreaking words:
I keep walking down the wrong path.
This path always leads to destruction.
One mistake after the other.
However, doing this,
walking down this path makes me feel free.
Free to do what I want and when I want.
Yet, this freedom is harming me.
It’s a love hate relationship,
that I just can’t seem to brake from.
It has me locked in chains.
I try to brake free from the chains,
the smothering chains.
I don’t think there are even keys to let me out.
I will be stuck here forever.
Stuck always going down the wrong path,
always feeling hurt and shameful.
I don’t even see the light.
There is no light at the right path to lead me.
I will forever walk down the wrong path,
and forever hurt myself.[6]
I want to say to this poet: But you can leave the way that leads to death! There is light on the path to life. Jesus is the way. And Jesus loves you. And Jesus invites you to receive Him and walk His way.
Would you walk The Jesus Way? Place your faith in Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/23/559492173/italian-runner-wins-venice-marathon-after-all-the-favorites-take-a-wrong-turn?utm_medium=RSS&%3Butm_campaign=storiesfromnpr
[2] https://baptistnews.com/article/john-14-6-inclusive-or-exclusive/
[3] W.B. Yeats quoted in: Philip Yancey. What’s So Amazing About Grace. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), p.224.
[4] Os Guinness. The Devil’s Gauntlet. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1989), p.6.
[5] Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure (David Martyn Lloyd-Jones) – Highlight Loc. 740-42 | Added on Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 08:34 AM
[6] https://allpoetry.com/poem/8867125-Wrong-path-by-mcpetersen81