The Donkey and the Elephant

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TRUTH! Thank you for sharing with us Pastor Richard Mansfield of New Beginnings Church in Albuquerque!

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Study Bible

The Way, the Truth, and the Life
5“Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6Jesus answered, “I am the way, thetruth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except throughMe. 7If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”…

Cross References
John 1:4
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:17
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 10:9
I am the gate. If anyone enters through Me, he will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture.

John 11:25
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

Acts 9:2
to ask for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way, he could bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

Romans 5:2
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in the hope of the glory of God.

Ephesians 2:18
For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Hebrews 9:8
By this arrangement the Holy Spirit was showing that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing.

Hebrews 10:20
by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body,

1 John 5:20
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true–in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Treasury of Scripture

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.

I am.

John 10:9
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Isaiah 35:8,9
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein

Matthew 11:27
All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

the truth.

John 1:14,17
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth…

John 8:32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 15:1
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

the life.

John 14:19
Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.

John 1:4
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 5:21,25-29
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will…

no.

John 10:7,9
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep…

Acts 4:12
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Romans 15:16
That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.

 

Lexicon

Jesus
Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous)
Noun – Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 2424: Of Hebrew origin; Jesus, the name of our Lord and two other Israelites.

answered,
Λέγει (Legei)
Verb – Present Indicative Active – 3rd Person Singular
Strong’s Greek 3004: (a) I say, speak; I mean, mention, tell, (b) I call, name, especially in the pass., (c) I tell, command. 

“I
Ἐγώ (Egō)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun – Nominative 1st Person Singular
Strong’s Greek 1473: I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

am
εἰμι (eimi)
Verb – Present Indicative Active – 1st Person Singular
Strong’s Greek 1510: I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

the
 (hē)
Article – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

way,
ὁδὸς (hodos)
Noun – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3598: A way, road, journey, path. Apparently a primary word; a road; by implication, a progress; figuratively, a mode or means.

the
 (hē)
Article – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

truth,
ἀλήθεια (alētheia)
Noun – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 225: From alethes; truth.

and
καὶ (kai)
Conjunction
Strong’s Greek 2532: And, even, also, namely. 

the
 (hē)
Article – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

life.
ζωή (zōē)
Noun – Nominative Feminine Singular
Strong’s Greek 2222: Life, both of physical (present) and of spiritual (particularly future) existence. From zao; life.

No one
οὐδεὶς (oudeis)
Adjective – Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3762: No one, none, nothing. 

comes
ἔρχεται (erchetai)
Verb – Present Indicative Middle or Passive – 3rd Person Singular
Strong’s Greek 2064: To come, go. 

to
πρὸς (pros)
Preposition
Strong’s Greek 4314: To, towards, with. A strengthened form of pro; a preposition of direction; forward to, i.e. Toward.

the
τὸν (ton)
Article – Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Father
Πατέρα (Patera)
Noun – Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 3962: Father, (Heavenly) Father, ancestor, elder, senior. Apparently a primary word; a ‘father’.

except
εἰ (ei)
Conjunction
Strong’s Greek 1487: If. A primary particle of conditionality; if, whether, that, etc.

through
δι’ (di’)
Preposition
Strong’s Greek 1223: A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through.

Me.
ἐμοῦ (emou)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun – Genitive 1st Person Singular
Strong’s Greek 1473: I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

(6) I am the way.–The pronoun is emphatic. “I, and none besides Me.” “The way” is again made prominent, reversing the order which Thomas had used. He and He only is the means through which men can approach to the Father. (Comp. Notes on John 1:18, and on 1Timothy 2:5.)The truth, and the life.–Better, and the Truth, and the Life. The thought of His being the Way through which men come to the Father is the reverse side of the thought, that in Him the Father is revealed to men, that He is Himself the Eternal Truth, that He is Himself the Source of eternal life. (Comp. John 1:14John 1:17John 6:50-51John 11:25-26.) Had they known what His earlier words meant, they would have had other than temporal and local thoughts of the Father’s house, and would have known Him to be the Way.

No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.–This was the answer to the doubt of Thomas. This was the true “whither” which they knew not. The thought of heaven is not of a place far above, or of a time far before, but of a state now and hereafter. To receive the Truth and the Life revealed in the presence of the Son is to come to the Father by the only Way. To be with the Father is home. (Comp. Notes on John 1:18John 3:13.)

Verses 6, 7. – Jesus saith to him, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had learned to know me, ye would haveknown (absolutely) my Father also: from henceforward ye know (by personal experience) him, and (or, perhaps, even) ye have seen him. The whole sentence must be taken together. The whither of Christ is obvious enough, and throws consequent illumination upon the way thither. “The Father’s house” is the whither no one cometh unto the Father (butexcept through me. Christ explicitly says 

(1) that the entire goal of this wondrous way of his is the Father himself. From the Father he came, to the Father he was moving, not for his own sake only, but also as King Messiah for all his subjects. He suggests 

(2) that mankind generally, as well as his disciples, are anxious to find their way to the Father’s house, to the Father’s heart, i.e. to resting and rejoicing in God, and satisfaction in their entire conception of him and relation to him. 

(3) He declares post-lively that this idea of God as Father, this approach to God for every man, is through him – through what he is and what he is doing and has so often described, for them. True, lie had said, in John 6:37, 44, that the Father gave to him and drew towards him those who came to him. A fatherly monition and inward working of grace opened men’s eyes in Christ to the mystery of true human son-ship of the eternal Father. The statement of this verse supplements the former utterance. They may best understand the way he is taking when they grasp the fact that he is going to the Father to prepare a place for them, and so he becomes “the Way, the Truth, the Life,” for all who are coming after him, “following him afterwards” to the Father. Grotius sums up this great saying by regarding Christ as “the Exemplum, Doctor, et Dater vitro eternae;” Luther speaks of it as referring to the pastpresent, and future; Calvin, as “the Principium, Medium, et Finis;” and Augustine “vera vitae Via;” but each term means more than this. The way of approach to God is constituted by his simply being the incarnate Logos, by his revealing the mind and nature of God, by his laying down his life for the sheep that he might take it again. In doing this he supplies the method-and motive of holy living. It is not easy to say why our Lord should have added “the Truth and the Life.” Maldonatus exclaimed, “Si Christus minus fuisset in respondendo liberalis, minus nobis in hujus loci interpretatione laborandum esset.” The two further terms used by himself are probably introduced to throw light upon the way to the Father. Thus there are numerous assurances that he is the Truth itself, that is, the adequate and sufficient expression of Divine thought. “All the promises of God are yea [i.e. are uttered] and Amen [i.e. confirmed] in him.” He is the absolute Truth 

(1) about God’s nature; 

(2) the perfect Exponent of God’s idea of humanity; 

(3) the Light of the world; 

(4) the Expression of the reality touching the relations between moral beings and God – all the relations, not only those of saints and holy angels, but those of rebels and sinners, whose destiny he has taken upon himself. He is the Way because he is the whole Truth about God and man and concerning the way to the Father. More than this, and because of this, he adds, “I am the Life” -“the life eternal,” the Possessor, Author, Captain, Giver, and Prince of life – the life in the heart of man that can never die; the occasion, germ, condition, and force of the new lath. It were impossible to imagine higher claim. But he leaves his hearers without any doubt as to his personal and conscious identification of himself with the Father. Hitherto he had not so clearly unveiled himself as in that which he has here said and is now doing. Hence his nearest and dearest only partially knew him. If they had seen all they might have seen, they would have seen the Father also. Then, as though he would close all aperture to doubt about the glory involved in his humiliation, and the way in which his human life had revealed the Father, he says ἀπάρτι – henceforward this must be a fact of your consciousness, that you do learn and come to know him by personal experience (γινώσκετε); and as a matter of fact ye have seen him(ἐωράκατε). Possibly in the ἀπάρτι, involving the notion of a period rather than a moment, the Lord was including the full revelation of the glory of self-sacrificial love given alike in his death and resurrection. And the important thought is suggested that neither the knowledge of God can ever be complete, nor the vision either. Is Thomas answered or no? He is silent, and perhaps is pondering the words, which will lead him, before long, notwithstanding his doubts, to make the grandest confession contained in the entire Gospel, the answer of convinced though once skeptical humanity to the question, “Whom say ye that I am?” The other apostles feel that Christ’s words have met the mystic vague fear of Thomas, and that “henceforward” they all belong with Christ to the Father’s house. They would go to the Father, and at the right time dwell in the place prepared for them; but how can they be said to know and have seen the Father already – to have passed into the light or received the beatific vision?

14:1-11 Here are three words, upon any of which stress may be laid. Upon the word troubled. Be not cast down and disquieted. The word heart. Let your heart be kept with full trust in God. The word your. However others are overwhelmed with the sorrows of this present time, be not you so. Christ’s disciples, more than others, should keep their minds quiet, when everything else is unquiet. Here is the remedy against this trouble of mind, Believe. By believing in Christ as the Mediator between God and man, we gain comfort. The happiness of heaven is spoken of as in a father’s house. There are many mansions, for there are many sons to be brought to glory. Mansions are lasting dwellings. Christ will be the Finisher of that of which he is the Author or Beginner; if he have prepared the place for us, he will prepare us for it. Christ is the sinner’s Way to the Father and to heaven, in his person as God manifest in the flesh, in his atoning sacrifice, and as our Advocate. He is the Truth, as fulfilling all the prophecies of a Saviour; believing which, sinners come by him the Way. He is the Life, by whose life-giving Spirit the dead in sin are quickened. Nor can any man draw nigh God as a Father, who is not quickened by Him as the Life, and taught by Him as the Truth, to come by Him as the Way. By Christ, as the Way, our prayers go to God, and his blessings come to us; this is the Way that leads to rest, the good old Way. He is the Resurrection and the Life. All that saw Christ by faith, saw the Father in Him. In the light of Christ’s doctrine, they saw God as the Father of lights; and in Christ’s miracles, they saw God as the God of power. The holiness of God shone in the spotless purity of Christ’s life. We are to believe the revelation of God to man in Christ; for the works of the Redeemer show forth his own glory, and God in him.

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