John 14:1-7

In chapter 13:1-30, John related the last major event (the Last Supper) that took place between Jesus and His disciples before He went to the cross. In chapters 13:31-38 and 14-16, John relates the last major discourse that Jesus gave to His disciples before He went to the cross. These three chapters are probably the clearest and fullest record of Jesus’ own teaching that we have anywhere in the Scriptures about His death and the things that would follow. Jesus has told His disciples that He is going where they cannot follow, and He has told Peter that he would deny Him; these were such heavy and sorrowful truths that He changes course and begins to give them words of comfort, words that explain the purpose of this difficult news. Eventually, He will pick up again with His themes of true discipleship, and so on; but for now, His message is one of explanation and comfort.

¹"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. ²In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. ⁴You know the way to the place where I am going." ⁵Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we don't know where You are going, so how can we know the way?" ⁶Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. ⁷If you really knew Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him."

Jesus mentions the Father some 13 times in the first 13 verses, and this has prompted many theologians to call this portion of the text, “Jesus’ Father Sermon.” He comforts the fearful and sorrowful disciples by directing their thoughts to the Father, in whom they already believe with fervent faith, as v1 declares. Jesus knows their hearts are troubled, so He says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” And Jesus, being the great physician, here the great Cardiologist, offers much in the way of remedy for heart-trouble. He has said that His own heart was troubled on numerous occasions. And from this we can learn that the reason we don’t have to be troubled is because Jesus has been troubled for us. Why should our hearts be troubled if we believe in God?

The disciples are, of course, sorrowful over the news of Jesus’ departure – yet He tells them not to be sorrowful, but instead to trust in Him – they already trust the Father. If they really believed that God the Father loved them, they would trust Jesus, and thereby be certain that He was not about to do something that was not for their good. On the contrary, He was going to prepare for them something far better even than His physical presence with them at that time – a place where they could dwell in the house of the Father and be with Jesus, there in the Father’s presence, forever. To understand fully what Jesus is saying, we must remember where He is going at this particular time, and why He is about to leave the disciples: He is going to His death on the cross – and that is how He is going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s presence. God the Father is holy and just, and will not tolerate sinful men in His house. But according to the Father’s gracious will, Jesus was about to make a way for this unthinkable reality to happen. He was about to prepare a way for sinful men to dwell with the holy God. And the way that He was going to do that involved His leaving the disciples for death on the cross. Of course, the later verses speak of Jesus’ coming to take us up to be with Him, by which He must mean His return to take us up to heaven – but the way that He prepared this place to which He would ultimately take us was nothing other than His immediate leaving of the disciples, in order to offer Himself up on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice for their sins.

At this point, Jesus tells the disciples that they already know the way to this place that He is preparing. But the disciples, or at least Thomas in particular, do not yet understand and so ask, “How can we know the way if we do not even know where You are going?” But Jesus Himself is the Way, and they do know Jesus. If they know the Way, then they will surely arrive at the end, which is life in the knowledge of God. In fact, if they know Jesus, they already know God, and have already seen Him – something that no one has done apart from the Son who reveals Him (John 1:18). True life consists of knowing the Father (John 17:3); and there is no life, no truth, and indeed, no way to pursue after either apart from the Father’s greatest self-revelation to man, which is Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life!

Notice that Jesus says, “You know the way,” and Thomas replies, “We can’t know the way.” Thomas is not intentionally, but rather indirectly, refuting Jesus. It is therefore sinful to deny the truth of what Jesus says, even when we don’t understand it. Furthermore, Thomas’ lack of faith is seen in his question, “How can we know the way?” And Jesus answers this question despite the disrespect of his disciple. When Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” He is claiming to be the way – the gate as we saw earlier (the entrance or the beginning) – and the life – the resurrection (the destination or the end) as we saw earlier. But what does He mean by saying, “I am the truth”? This fits perfectly with John’s style, and so there’s no doubt as to why John included this statement in the account. Jesus fulfills the Tabernacle imagery. He is the truth in the sense that He is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament types and shadows. Everything comes to its fruition in Jesus, and therefore, He is the truth (the route).

Calvin says, “If any man turn aside from Christ, he will do nothing but go astray; if any man do not rest on Him, he will feed elsewhere on nothing but wind and vanity; if any man, not satisfied with Him alone, wishes to go farther, he will find death instead of life.” Thomas A’Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, says, “Without the way, there is no going; and without the truth there is no knowing; and without the life there is no living.”