Jesus said unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life
Brief expositions
The way of a holy conversation; the truth of a heavenly doctrine; the life of a bliss everlasting (Leo)
.
The way to beginners, the truth to the progressing (chap. 8:32), the life to the perfect (Ferus)
. I am the Way, leading to the truth; I am the Truth, promising life; I am the Life, which I give (St. Augustine)
. I am the Way and the Life; the way on earth, the life in heaven: I am He, to whom you go; I am He, by whom you go (St. Augustine)
. The way, in which we walk by charity; the truth, to which we cling by faith; the life, to which we aspire by hope. The life in His example, the truth in His promise, the life in His reward (St. Bernard)
. Truth lies between way and life, as if the way to life were through truth (Leigh)
. The true way to eternal life (Dr. Whichcote)
. Without the Way there is no going; without the Truth there is no knowing; without the Life there is no living. I am the Way which thou oughtest to follow; the Truth which thou oughtest to trust; the Life which thou oughtest to hope for. I am the inviolable Way, the infallible Truth, the Godless Life. If thou remain in My way thou shalt know the truth, and the truth shall make thee free and thou shalt lay hold on eternal life. (Thomas a Kempis.)
The Way, the Truth, and the Life
Mistakes have been made the occasion of profoundest utterances. It was so here
I. “I AM THE WAY.” Man’s primal communion with God in Eden was broken by his fall. Henceforth humanity became as an islet in mid-ocean, without material for bridge or boat. And the Eternal Word became flesh in order that He himself might become the causeway which should reconnect the island man and the continent God. He not only shows the way, as our Teacher, He is the way itself, the true ladder connecting earth and heaven. He is alike the portal, the line of direction, the true Scala Santa, “The great world’s altar stairs that slope through darkness up to God.” His Via Dolorosa is our Via Gloriosa. His valley of Achor is our door of hope.
II. “I AM THE TRUTH.”
1. In distinction from what is symbolic. He is the fulfiller and realizer of all prophetic hints. Thus He is said to be the True Light, the True Bread, the True Tabernacle, etc.
2. In distinction from what is phenomenal. For truths are ever greater than facts. There is no necessary morality in mere facts as such, e.g., in the fact that every particle of matter attracts every other particle in the direct ratio of its mass, and in the inverse ratio of the square of its distance. Truth is moral, and can exist only in connection with person, i.e., a person who shall somehow stand as its end or representation. Such a person is Christ. He not only has truth, He is the Truth--Himself its eternal embodiment; its source, means, and end. He is the meaning of facts. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is creation’s definition or final cause.
III. “I AM THE LIFE.”
1. Of all animate existence; all things are also subsisting in Him.
2. Particularly is this true of man.
(1) Jesus Christ is the life of our bodily nature. Poor Marthas and Marys may weep by the tombs of dead brothers; but Jesus Christ shall say, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
(2) Of our spiritual nature, “God hath given unto us eternal life and this life, is in His Son.” Conclusion: Christ is the only way, “No man cometh,” etc. Other voices indeed proclaim the contrary; but they are the voices of false prophets. Liberalism says: “There are many ways to the Father; for instance, nature, aesthetics, charity,” etc. Materialism says: “It is through the uplifting of environment.” Ecclesiasticism says: “It is through the Church, the sacraments.” But all who undertake to climb over into the fold by any other way are thieves and robbers. (G. D. Boardman, D. D.)
The Way, the Truth, and the Life
Science tells us that there are three elements in light--the illuminating, the chemical, and the heat power. So in Him who is “the Light of the World” there is a threefold perfection.
I. THE TRUTHS SEPARATELY.
1. Christ the Way. One of the deepest feelings in man’s nature is that of a want of something which this world is found not to supply. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing, nor the ambition with success, nor the lust” with gratification. It arises from the terrible disruptions with the intervening chasms which sin has produced. Despite our downward tendencies, man is led by what he feels within, and sees around, to look up to a Divine Power. That Being we would fondly claim as a Father. But where is that Father? There is a way, but somehow we have lost it, and the difficulty is to find it. Conceive a planet wandering from its sphere. Now it is hindered by bodies attracting it or attracted by it, and forthwith it dashes through space, threatening to strike and break in fragments, or to kindle into a conflagration, all the other planets and suns it meets with. It is a picture of a wandering man loosened from the Central Power that stays him, and from the Central Light that should illuminate him. Neither wanderer will right itself till made to move in its old path. But how can we know the way? The flaming sword, turned every way to keep the sinner from the tree of life, has entered into him who is God’s fellow, and hath now power against us, and there is a way opened by which the sinner can come into the very presence of God. “I am the Way.”
2. Christ the Truth. By truth, in this passage, we are not to understand abstract or general doctrine. Systematized truth may serve most important purposes; but it is not to such that our Lord refers. Truth is defined by philosophers as the agreement of our ideas with things. If we know God as He really is, then have we truth in religion. But how can we know God as He really is? Do we not feel as if He were at an infinite distance, as if we could no more rise to Him with our spirits than our frail bodies could mount from earth to heaven? Who will give us wings that we may ascend to Him? Alas! the attraction of earth is too powerful to admit of our rising to Him. The approach must be on His part. Plato was obliged to say: “The Father of the world is hard to discover, and when discovered cannot be communicated.” But when we go on by Christ as the Way, He introduces us to the Father, and we have the truth. God is no longer at a distance; “Emmanuel, God with us.” Aristotle has said that the mind as it came from its Maker is organized for truth, as the eye is to perceive light and the ear to hear sounds. He who has found Christ knows that he has found the truth. With the truth there is assurance; the eye has found the light, the ear is listening to the sound. This, this is the reality of things.
3. Christ the Life. It is of vast moment that we know the way, all good that we reach the truth; but we must have more. The well-formed statue is an interesting object, but none of us would exchange our living condition for that of the chiselled marble. Along with the truth we must have life. There are few or no sinners so dead that they do not wish at times to have life. And yet when they would excite and stimulate it, they find that they have only the cold and the clamminess of death. Feeling never will be excited by a mere determination to raise it. There must be a something to call it forth. Nor will it be evoked by an abstract statement or general doctrine. It is called forth by a living person. Christ so lovely and so loving. Apprehended as the truth He becomes the life.
II. THE TRUTHS IN THEIR CONNECTION. The full truth is to be found in the union of these various truths. If we would have a true religion, and a proper theology founded upon it, we must give Christ the supreme place. Displace Christ the head from this His proper position and the whole form becomes disproportioned.
1. There are some who would have men first to find the way, and then in the way to find Christ. Who would have, e.g., inquirers first to find the true Church, and then through it to find Christ. But this is to reverse the Scriptural order.
2. Some would have us first seek the truth, and then seek Christ. Seekers of truth deserve all the honour that has been paid to them, but they will never find truth in religion till they find Christ. So Justin Martyr acknowledged, and Augustine, and Luther. Let us not go out with the tapers of earth to seek the sun. Any other light can at best be merely like the star to guide the wise men, serving a good end only so far as it guides us to where Christ as the truth is to be found.
3. Again, some would find life without Christ. Their appeal is to inward feelings, sentiments, and intuitions. But what, I ask, is to evoke such sentiments from our dead and sinful hearts? They tell us by such grand and generous ideas as the infinite and the eternal. But these ideas call forth love only when they are associated with a living being whose love is infinite and eternal. And such is Christ.
4. There are some who would seek for Christ under one of these aspects or in one of these characters, but who do not care for the others.
(1) Thus, there are some who are anxious to have Christ as the way, but who stop at the entrance, instead of going on in the path. They are most anxious to have Christ for salvation; but they do not go on to establish themselves in the truth.
(2) Some are contented with the truth without the life, with their orthodox creed, their reverence for the Bible, their attendance at religious meetings. Such a formal religion is offensive to man, even as it is displeasing to God.
(3) Another class seek the life without the truth, led into this by a reaction against a stiff formalism or a frigid orthodoxy, or by an unwillingness to submit to any restraints. Persons are calling for a life which is to be independent of all the old forms of orthodoxy and of the letter of the Word of God. Of this I am sure, that the life which is not supported by Scriptural truth will be of a very uncertain and wavering and transient character. (J. Mc Cosh, D. D.)
The Way, the Truth, and the Life
1. Christ is the Way, for He recovers man from his godless wandering. The metaphor views man in the light of his practical obliquities. He is estranged by wicked works from the filial fellowship in which the life of Jesus Christ was unchangeably centred. A way is that which connects the distant and inaccessible. Traversed as is our land in every possible direction by the highways of commerce and civilization, we perhaps scarcely feel the force of this figure. Poor Livingstone, who waded waist deep through pestilential marshes for weeks, to die at last in a miserable hut by the lake shore; the traveller, who has to cut his way for hundreds of miles through tangled forest and jungle at the rate of half a mile a day; the emigrant, who has to cross the trackless alkali plain, and who may perish midway; the military commander, who had to carry his forces over mountains, some sections of which are almost perpendicular,--know how a well engineered path is the first condition of successful movement. A way is that which makes movement in some specific direction possible. Movement towards God is impossible without the work of Jesus Christ the Mediator. Jesus Christ brings together in His own person the two most distant objects the whole circle of the universe can contain, God dwelling in unapproachable light, and man wallowing in guilt, worldliness, transgression. Christ subverts and destroys the work of sin in human nature, and makes progress towards God possible to us once more. In Him the alienated are brought back into relations of gentleness, endearment, and obedience.
2. Christ is the truth, for He recovers man from his godless error. The metaphor looks upon man from his intellectual side. Men are estranged from God in their thinkings, “alienated from the life of God by reason of the ignorance that is in them.” Christ answers our intellectual need. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Scientific truth puts us into intelligent relation with the world of established scientific fact. Historic truth puts us into intelligent relation with the facts that have determined the growth of particular types of government and civilization. Sociological truths puts us into intelligent relation with the facts that have moulded the social life of mankind. Jesus Christ puts us into intelligent relation with all the vital facts of God’s being and nature and government. He is the only possible word by which God can address Himself to a world of sinners. No intellectual activity, no induction of reason, no range of research can fill up this chasm in the mind of man. We can only know God as we give ourselves up to Jesus Christ, and suffer the energy of His spirit and presence to rule us. He is made unto us the wisdom by which we come to the saving knowledge of God. All knowledge that lies outside this sphere of contract with Christ is at the very best but adroit guess work.
3. Christ is the Life, inasmuch as He raises men from their godless insensibility and death. The ideas deepen as they succeed each other. Knowledge passes into life. “This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” He stands forth in the midst of the universe to counterwork the disintegration and decay that set in when the tie binding all life to its first Centre was ruptured by transgression. Union with Christ, our everlasting Life, will guard against the shock and sting and disability of death. The man who is sailing under trustworthy captainship, and in company with genial friends, cut of one zone into another, is scarcely conscious of the lines of demarcation over which the ship glides. So with the man who lives and dies in fellowship with Christ. Throughout the months of summer, darkness is unknown in the latitudes of the far north. The rising and the setting suns blend their light without the hairbreadth of a shadow between. Tourists are all eager to visit the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” It seems to me that for the man who is vitally united to Christ, the event of death is very much like that. He sails through the quiet, solemn seas of the midnight sun, and before the light of the earthly life has quite gone the light of a nobler sunrise has come to blend with it. In the solemn crisis of transition, for the man who has become one with Christ his Life no darkness deepens, and the shadow of the grave marks the dayspring.
4. Christ’s words present a corrective to all distracted faith. He asks from His followers concentrated thought and attachment and expectation. They had sought a way outside Christ, though a way through whose mazes He was to guide them; a truth outside Christ, though a truth the exposition of which was to come from His lips; a life outside Christ, though a life of which His immortal reign was to be the seal and the defence. The purport of these words is, that they must seek their all in Christ. They must let their eye rest upon His person as the one centre from which all saving power, all teaching light, all quickening inspiration must come. Mark how in these words the Master leads on His disciples to faith in a Saviour unseen. The love of the disciples had been very apt to glide into an idolatry of Christ’s human form. But all this is to be corrected by the fresh events that are at hand. The text suggests a warning against all low and dishonouring views of the Saviour’s work and person. (T. G. Selby.)
The Way, the Truth, and the Life
I. I AM THE WAY. To what? To our eternal destiny. There are ends closer at hand than this which man, if left to himself, seeks before all other things--pleasure, fortune, glory, science. That is what the heathens ardentlydemanded of their gods; but never by a single word did Jesus Christ offer to lavish them upon men.
1. I know that when we speak of the higher aim of life, worldlings shrug their shoulders and smile; and a certain school, now in high favour, gravely affirms that we can neither attain it nor even so much as understand it. But I needs must know whither I go, and if I deem foolish the man who would fling himself in a railway train or embark upon a vessel without asking where the steam power or the breath of the wind is taking him, by what appellation shall I characterize those who allow themselves to be borne away in the voyage of life without knowing whether their destination is death or life?
2. “But,” says the sceptic, “supposing a higher life is indeed reserved for man, how shall he know it? So many ways are open before us! How find out the right path?” Not much science is required to discover which is the path to be preferred, of pleasure or duty, iniquity or justice, selfishness or sacrifice, pride or devotion, purity or corruption. And heathens themselves have understood this well. But how much more simple, and solemn has the question become since Christ said, “I am the Way!” To know if He speaks true, I have only to consider whither He means to lead me. What then is the end which He sets before me? It is the one, holy, just and good Being reigning over all beings: it is harmony governing the world, man loving man. Well, if that is the end towards which Christ would lead me, what need have I to argue further? Were I the most ignorant of men, I would instinctively understand that I must indeed tend towards this aim. Were I the most learned, what could I add to this ideal?
II. I AM THE TRUTH.
1. That is what greatly astonishes many of those who hear Him. They are willing to accept Christ as the instructor of souls. But if Jesus Christ had been nothing more than this, we instinctively feel that, after having guided men to the true God, He should have retired in the background and re echoed the words of the Forerunner: “God must increase, and I must decrease.” Others, and among these many of the noblest benefactors of mankind, have been compelled to speak thus. Aristotle, Copernicus, Newton, Bacon, Descartes might be unknown to us without this fact depriving their works of aught of their value. And in the religious order, knew we nothing whatever of Moses, David, or St. Paul, we would none the less be in possession of the genesis of the world, of the most heart-thrilling hymns and of the grand doctrine of grace. These men were the witnesses of the truth. This Jesus Christ has also been; but more than all this, and that is why He utters these words, which in the lips of Moses, David, or St. Paul, had been blasphemy: “I am the Truth.”
2. What is truth? It is the exact relation between two things. Thus a word is true when it corresponds perfectly with the fact or the idea it expresses; and arithmetical calculation is true when it gives accurately the results of a relation between two different quantities. Every truth, therefore, supposes a relation. Well, truth in religion will be the harmonious, and perfect relation between man and God. Now Jesus Christ has not only taught us what this relation is, but that He has realized it in His person. You ask what is the true religion. We point to Jesus Christ and answer: “Behold it.”
III. I AM THE LIFE.
1. Life, which is the most habitual and common of phenomena, is the most unfathomable of mysteries. Materialism, which triumphs today in so many schools, is stopped by this problem as before a brazen door forever sealed. The Eternal God alone calls forth life; I know the terrible objection, if God alone is the Author of all life, wherefore evil? To this the gospel answers that the world is not in a state of order, that evil has, from the origin, been the consequence of the improper use of liberty. But have you observed how closely the notion of sin and that of death are bound up together; have you remarked that the sublime promise of life is essentially reserved for that alone which is in harmony with the will of God? Consequently, strong is our faith, we are able to say to all the powers of evil: “You shall not live forever.” The gospel is the doctrine of life; earth has been visited by the perfect Being, and according to His own words: “As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” Alone the Son of God hath life in Himself. Therefore can He say: “I am the Life.”
2. As Christ possesses life in Himself, He also brings life. Life alone can bring forth life. Christ came into a world which was literally dried up. What He did in Judea He has done in Rome, in the uncivilized world; what He did in olden time He is doing today; and whilst it remains a fatal law for these nations that civilization alone leads them to destruction, it also remains a certain and striking fact that civilization with Jesus Christ is able to transform and save them. But if Christ brings life to nations, it is by imparting it to souls individually. (E. Bersier.)
The movement of the ages
May it not be said that the movement of our age is towards life? I sometimes fancy that I can discern three epochs in the Reformed Churches corresponding in the main to those three mighty words, via, veritas, vita. The Reformers themselves no doubt laid the stress chiefly upon this first. It was on this Popery had gone most astray, obscuring the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The epoch following was essentially dogmatic when the doctors drew up systems of the truth. It was now indeed Christ as veritas! but the dogma taken alone led to coldness, dogmatism, sectarianism and formality. Happy will it be for the Church if, not forgetting the other two, she shall now be found moving on to the third development of Christ as the Life, which well regulate the two former aspects, while it consummates and informs them. The life must develop the individual, and on individuals the Church depends; for in God’s sight it is no abstraction. (J. Mackintosh.)
I am the Way
The Way
The most precious things lie in the smallest compass. Diamonds have much value in little space. Those Scriptural sayings which are fullest of meaning are many of them couched in the fewest words.
I. HOW JESUS CHRIST IS THE WAY AND HOW HE COMES TO BE SO. A way supposes two points--from which and to which.
1. Christ is the Way
(1) From the guilt of sin. The great difficulty was--How is sin to be put away? Some have hoped for pardon from future good conduct, but the payment of a future debt can by no means discharge a past debt. Some hope much from the mercy of God, but the law knows nothing of clearing the sinner of guilt by a sovereign act of mercy. Here is the way for the sinner to approach the Father. His sin is laid upon Christ, who became his substitute.
(2) The text is true concerning the wrath of God on account of sin. The way to escape from wrath is to escape from the sin which causes the wrath.
Now, when the sin of God’s people was moved from them to Christ, the wrath of God went where the sin went.
(3) There comes upon us, in consequence of sin, a deep and terrible depression of spirit. Christ is the way out of the sense of the wrath of God.
(4) But more, Christ is the way to escape from the power of sin. A man may break off some of his sins by his own unaided efforts. Still, sin dwells in fallen creatures. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? But there is power which can deliver from the power of sin and make holy; it is found in Christ Jesus. The saints in glory overcame through the blood of the Lamb, and there is no other way of overcoming. The precious blood of atonement wherever sprinkled kills sin.
2. Christ is the Way
(1) To the Father. We hear talk of getting to God the Father by nature, but it is a ladder too short to reach the Infinite. It is only by Christ that we realize the Fatherhood of God. We are God’s children when we are created anew in Christ Jesus.
(2) To conscious acceptance with the Father. “Made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
(3) To communion with the Father. You do talk with God when you draw near in Jesus Christ. “Truly, our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
(4) To resemble the Father. You imitate Christ, and so become like the Father.
II. WHAT SORT OF WAY IS CHRIST AND FOR WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE?
1. What sort of way. He is
(1) The King’s highway, the Divinely-appointed way from sin to the Father.
(2) An open way. If I am treading the king’s highway I cannot be a trespasser there.
(3) A perfect way. It would not be complete unless it came down where you are. Where are you? Defiled by evil living? There is a road from where you are right up to the immaculate perfection of the blessed at God’s right hand, and that road is Christ. You think you have some preparations to make, some feelings to pass through, something or other to perform; but all you can do to make yourself fit for Christ is to make yourself unfit; all your preparations are but foul lumber--put them all away. Thou must come as thou art.
(4) A free way. There is not a toll bar all along the road. Whosoever wills to have Christ may have Him for the taking. He that will pay for Christ cannot have Him at all. If faith be in one respect a condition, it is in another respect a gift of God, and though we are commanded to repent, yet Jesus is exalted on high to give repentance.
(5) A permanent way. Not a way for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, only, but for you; not for the apostles, and martyrs, and early saints, only, but for you. It is a way that never has been broken up, and never will be.
(6) A joyful way.
(7) The only way.
2. For what sort of people. For all sorts
(1) For wanderers.
(2) For backsliders.
(3) For captives.
(4) For the poorest of the poor.
III. HOW WE MAKE CHRIST OUR WAY.
1. How do we make Christ our way? As we make any other way our way: by getting into it.
2. In order to keep the way your own, all you do is to continue in it. “The just shall live by faith,” not by any other means. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Jesus the Way
This word “way” may mean either one of two things--the road along which you must go to reach a certain place; or the thing that must be done in order to secure any particular end. When we think of heaven, Jesus is the way in both these senses. He is the road along which we must walk. He has done all that is necessary, in order that we may get there. The way of salvation through Jesus is
I. A PLAIN WAY. A paved street or a turnpike road, is a plain way. But if we are travelling over a sandy desert, or through a rocky country where there is nothing to mark the path, then we are in a way that is not plain. It is hard to find the way, and at every step, we are liable to get off the right track. The way of salvation in Jesus is easy to find and easy to keep, if we only ask God to help us in finding and keeping it. (Isa_35:8; Hab_2:2). The father of a little girl was once in great trouble on account of his sins. He lay awake, after going to bed one night, in fear and dread. His little daughter was sleeping in her crib beside his bed. Presently she began to move about uneasily. “Papa, papa!” she called. “What is it, my darling?” he asked. “Oh, papa, it’s so dark! Take Nellie’s hand.” He reached out and took her tiny little hand, clasping it firmly in his own. A sigh of relief came from her little heart. At once she was quieted and comforted. That father felt that his little child had taught him a valuable lesson. “Oh, my Father, my Saviour,” he cried, “it is dark, very dark in my soul. Take my hand.” So he turned to Jesus and trusted in Him. A minister had a son in the army. Tidings came that his son had been wounded and was not expected to live. On arriving there, the doctor said, “He may die any moment.” With a sad heart, the father went in. “Oh, father,” said the wounded man, “the doctor says I must die, and I am not prepared for it. Tell me how I can be ready. Make it so plain that I can get hold of it.” “My son,” said the father, “do you remember one day, years ago, I had occasion to rebuke you for something you had done? You became very angry and abused me.” “Yes, father.” Do you remember, after your anger had passed off, how you came in and threw your arms round my neck and said: ‘My dear father, I am so sorry, won’t you forgive me?’” “Yes, I remember it very distinctly.” “Do you remember what I said? Oh, yes. You said: ‘I forgive you with all my heart,’ and you kissed me.” “Did you believe me?” “Certainly.” “And then did you feel happy again?” “Yes, perfectly happy, and since that time I have loved you better than ever before.” “Well, now, my son, this is the way to come to Jesus. Tell Him, ‘I am so sorry,’ just as you told me: and He will forgive you a thousand times quicker than I did.” “Father, is this the way. Why, I can get hold of this.” And he did get hold of it and was soon happy. After awhile, the doctor came in. He felt the pulse of the wounded man, and said with surprise: “Why, Colonel, you look better.” “I am better, doctor. I’m going to get well.” He got well; and he is living now, the joy and comfort of that father who made the way of salvation so plain that he could get hold of it.
II. A BROAD WAY (Mat_9:28; Rev_22:17). There was a poor sailor who had lived a very wicked life. Once, while far off at sea, it pleased God to awaken his conscience. Then he was in great distress. There was no one on board to tell him what to do. One night he lay in his berth, and in the dim light of the feeble lamp, he was reading the Bible. He came to Joh_3:16. He put his finger on the word “whosoever,”“Whosoever,” said he, “that means anybody; that means everybody! Why, that means me!” Then he turned in faith to Jesus, and He received him. He got into the broad way of salvation through this sweet word. One day a minister was visiting with a friend among some of the poorest of the population. He entered a wretched looking house. A rickety bedstead, a couple of broken chairs, the remains of a table, and a few pieces of earthenware on the shelf, made up all the furniture. In the middle of the room a miserable looking woman lay on the floor drunk. The minister said to his friend: “Let us pray for her.” They kneeled down and prayed that God would have mercy on this poor woman. She lay there still and stupid, and seemed to take no notice. They went away. Some months after the minister was going again through that part of the city. A well-dressed, respectable-looking woman came up and spoke to him. “Do you not remember some months since praying over a woman who lay drunk on the floor?” “I do.” “Well, sir, I am that woman. I was respectably brought up by Christian parents. I married; but after awhile my husband died, and left me with three children in utter poverty. I saw no way of support but by my own shame. Then I took to drinking to drown my sorrow. I was at the lowest point of sin and misery when you stopped and offered that prayer. It saved me. It made me think of my dear mother, now in heaven. And, by God’s help, I hope yet to loin her there.” Oh, it is a broad way of salvation that can take in such poor wretched creatures as this! A gentleman was sent for once to visit one of his class, a newsboy, named Billy, who was very ill. As he entered the room, Billy said: “Oh, captain, I’m mighty glad to see yer.” “What can I do for you, my dear fellow?” “I wanted to ax yer two questions. Did you tell us the other night as how Jesus Christ died for every feller?” “Yes, ‘Jesus Christ tasted death for every man.’” “Good!” said Billy: “I thought so. Now did you tell us as how Jesus Christ saves every feller that axes Him?” “Yes,” said his friend; “Everyone that asketh receiveth.” “Then I know,” said Billy, with a feeble but happy voice, “That He saves me because I axes Him.” The teacher paused to wipe away a tear from his eye. Then he stooped down to speak to the boy. But Billy’s head had dropped back on his pillow of rags, and his happy spirit had gone to Jesus.
III. A NARROW WAY. It is a broad way, because the greatest sinners may come into it, and any number. It is a narrow way, because when sinners come into it they must leave all their sins behind (Mat_7:13).
1. There is a vessel lying at anchor, It can make no progress while the anchor holds it. It may rise and fall, as the tide rises or falls; but it cannot move away. And just what the anchor does to the vessel, one sin, one wrong thought or feeling indulged or allowed, will do for the Soul. It will keep it from going on in the way of salvation.
2. A lady once was led to see that she was a sinner. The thought of her sins made her feel very unhappy. The difficulty was just here. She had been a very charitable woman, and wanted to trust in part to good works. One night, after weeping and praying in great distress, she went to bed. In her sleep she dreamed that she fell over a dreadful precipice. In falling, she caught hold of the branch of a tree. In her terror she cried out: “Oh, save me, save me!” She heard the voice of Jesus saying: “Let go that branch, and I will save you.” But she was unwilling to loose her hold. Again she cried: “Oh, save me!” The same voice said: “I cannot help you while you cling there.” At last she let go, expecting to be dashed to pieces. But, instead of this, she found herself caught in the strong arms of her Saviour. In the joy of feeling herself safe, she awoke. And so in her dream she had learned the lesson which she had failed to learn in her waking hours. She saw that the way of salvation was too narrow for her to carry any of her good works into it.
IV. THE ONLY WAY. Some people think that there are a great many ways to heaven, and that one of these is as good as any of the others. What does God say about it? (Isa_43:11; Act_4:12). No one can ever get to heaven who does not go there through Jesus Christ. Many will go to heaven without knowing how they get there. But they will find it was Jesus alone who brought them there. A little girl was very ill. She asked: “Papa, does the doctor think I shall die?” With a very sad heart, her father said: “My darling, the doctor is afraid you cannot live.” Then her pale face grew very sad. She thought about the dark graves, and her eyes filled with tears as she said: “Papa, the grave is very dark. Won’t you go down with me into it?” With a bursting heart, her father told her he could not go with her, till the Lord called him. “Papa, won’t you let mamma go with me?” It almost broke that father’s heart to tell her that, much as her mother loved her, she could not go with her either. The poor dear child turned her face to the wall and wept. But she had been taught about Jesus, as the Friend and Saviour of sinners. She poured out her little heart to Him with a child’s full faith, and found comfort in Him. Soon she turned again to her father, with her face all lighted up with joy, and said: “Papa, the grave is not dark now. Jesus will go with me.” But Jesus is the only one who can do this Psa_23:4). Some years ago there was a distinguished lawyer, who had an only daughter, the light and joy of her father’s life. The mother of this young girl was an earnest Christian woman. She had tried to teach her child that Jesus was the only way of salvation. But her husband was an infidel. He had told his daughter that we could get to heaven without the help of Jesus. This daughter loved and honoured both her parents; but as her father told her of one way and her mother of another way, she could not make up her mind which of these two ways was the right one. At the age of sixteen she was taken very ill. One day, she said to her father with great earnestness: “Father, I am going to die. What must I do to be saved? My mother has taught me that the only way of salvation is in Jesus Christ. You have taught me that we can be saved without Jesus. Shall I take my mother’s advice or yours?” The strong man was deeply moved. After a while, he came to the bedside of his daughter. He took her pale, thin hand in his, and said slowly but solemnly: “My darling daughter, take your mother’s way.” Here is a ship at sea. She has been overtaken by a dreadful storm. Her masts are broken, her sails are rent. She has sprung a leak, and now the pumps are choked, and can no longer be worked. The water is rising. It is very evident that she cannot be kept afloat much longer. There is only one way left to the poor sailors for saving their lives? What is that? It is to take to the lifeboat. And we, as sinners, are just in the position of such a storm-tossed wreck at sea. Jesus is the lifeboat. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Christ the Way
We could never rejoice in this His way, if He merely stood in the way as a sign post, or went before us as a Guide. God be praised, our Jesus is not only Counsellor, but mighty as well; and not mighty only, but Mighty God! (Isa_9:6). If He is as a sign post, He is one with living arms; for He receives us to Himself, from His Cross He draws us up to Himself, He lifts us upon His shoulders; in short, He is Himself the way, the new living way, which, like a full flowing river, bears along our little hark, and brings it to the ocean of a blissful eternity. Conrad Rieger sets before us Jesus as the way, thus: “Where is the man who will give himself to another to be his way? If the king could not cross over a dyke, and were to say to one of you, ‘Lay thyself in this dyke to make a bridge that I may cross over upon thee,’ where is the meanest subject in the land who would consent to do it? But what no man would like to do for another, that Jesus does for us all.” (R. Besser, D. D.)
Christ the way to God
I. IN WHAT RESPECTS IS CHRIST “THE WAY?”
1. As a Teacher. He came into a world that was filled with error and falsehood. Everywhere men were groping in the dark, following “blind leaders.” And the Saviour affirmed, “I am the Light of the World.” “I am the Truth.” All spiritual truth is associated with Christ, because it proceeds from Him and terminates in Him.
2. As a Mediator. Many can see that Christ is “the Way” as a Teacher, but not as a Mediator. But if Christ be a Teacher, and nothing more, then He rather shows “the Way,” than is “the Way.” Between man and God there stretches a wide gulf which sin has opened. Amidst the many expedients which man vainly devises, the Saviour interposes and becomes the “one Mediator between God and man.”
3. As such
(1) He intercedes with us, and beseeches us to be reconciled to God.
(2) He intercedes with God. For this the Saviour is fitted because of His atoning work. He entered into the holy place, “neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood.” “Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter,” etc.
(3) He receives and bestows upon us the Holy Spirit. If man is to come to God it must be as a “new creature” that he comes.
II. Some of THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS “WAY.”
1. Truth. Immediately our Lord adds, “I am the Truth.” From the Fall until now the human mind has been in matters of religion avaricious of error. Now, amidst the many ways which men have invented, Christ presents Himself as the true Way--the Way which God provides, and which Scripture reveals. What other way so commends itself to an enlightened reason as this.
2. Purity. False systems of religion must accommodate themselves to man’s frailties, and enable him to compound for his sins; it is only the gospel that presents a pure and perfect standard.
3. Happiness and security. Emphatically may it be said that it is a way of peace. But can you affirm this of those methods of salvation which man has invented? “Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven.” Safe as well as happy!--for as this is allying way, all who walk in it participate in that eternal life which it bestows (Isa_35:8-10). I think of every imagethat can suggest this security, but they all fail adequately to shadow it forth. I think of Noah sheltered in the ark; of Lot, plucked as a “brand from the burning;” of the criminal pursued by the officers of justice reaching the Temple; of the man slayer in the city of refuge. “There is no condemnation,” etc.
4. Simplicity. What can be plainer than this promise, “He that believeth, shall be saved;” or than this invitation, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour,” etc.; or than this assurance, “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out;” or than this command, “Look unto Me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved”?
5. Exclusiveness. “There is no other name,” etc. (H. J. Gamble.)
Make sure that you are in the right way
When I was at Fall River, I was obliged to rise at four o’clock in the morning to take the train. I took my carpet bag in my hand, and ran, but was in trouble lest I might be running directly from the cars, instead of towards them. There was not a person in sight; but I saw a light in one upper window. A watcher was there. I rang the bell, and asked information as to my way. It was given. I was about right--only needed a little help, and now, knowing that I was in the right way, I did run. A bird might have counted it doing well to keep up with me; for I expected every moment to hear the bell, and the rushing off of the train, and then I should be there, and my people without a sermon on Sunday. Only let me be sure that I was in the right way, and I was willing to run. So says the Christian, “Only let me be sure that I am on my way to heaven, and there is nothing that I am not willing to do or to bear.” Well, if you are so earnest, know that Christ is the Way; and if you are desirous to cast away all that shall hinder your race, I think that you need not doubt that you are already in it. (H. W. Beecher.)
Christ the only way
Mrs. Bennet, wife of John Bennet, minister of an Independent Church in Cheshire, the day before she died, raised herself into a very solemn attitude, and with most striking emphasis, delivered, in the following language her dying testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus: “I here declare it before you that I have looked on the right hand and on the left--I have cast my eyes before and behind--to see if there was any possible way of salvation but by the Son of God; and I am fully satisfied there is not. No! none on earth, nor all the angels in heaven, could have wrought out salvation for such a sinner. None but God Himself, taking our nature upon Him, and doing all that the holy law required, could have procured pardon for me, a sinner. He has wrought out salvation for me, and I know that I shall enjoy it forever.”
The way to our wishes
Thomas was the spokesman of the disciples for the moment. The Saviour speaks to them and to us as if we were anxious to get a glimpse of a particular person, and to go to a particular place. Are not these longings strong and deep in the heart of humanity? Is not science itself in search of the Father? Is it not trying by every means in its power to get up to the Great First Cause? And does not superstition unite its sighs with those of science? When it makes its idol and falls down before it, is it not trying to bring God within the bounds of visibility? And is not Pantheism in pursuit of the same object? God everything, and everything God. Deeper still is the desire in the heart of the Church. Now Christ says, “I am the Way.” Would it not be wonderful if it were otherwise, if there were no way? We see on all sides provision made for the wants of our nature, for the gratification of the wishes of our hearts. Are we to believe that the desires which we have for the highest and noblest and holiest of all things are to be made exceptions to the rule?
I. CHRIST IS THE WAY BY WHICH THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE, THE FATHER OF ALL, HAS BEEN BROUGHT WITHIN THE RANGE OF HUMAN VISION IN A REAL PERSONAL FORM. His attributes are evident from His works. Holy men of old were permitted to hear His voice sometimes, and to behold symbols of His presence. But the Lord Jesus made the eternal God visible to the eye of man in human form--“In Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And that was the only way in which He could be manifested personally to the eye of flesh. Mortal man could not go up to God where He is. The only alternative was, that God should come down in the fashion of a man. In no other nature could He convey a complete conception of His character to the mind.
II. CHRIST IS THE WAY BY WHICH MAN GETS UP TO GOD, AND DWELLS WITH HIM AT LAST IN HIS HOUSE. When we were bearing our own sins, we dreaded Him; when He is placed before us bearing our sins, we are attracted to Him, and take hold of Him with our whole heart, as His heart took hold of us when we were perishing. When we are drawn to Him we partake of His nature as really as He partook of ours. His Spirit flows into us, and all that is good is quickened and strengthened in us, so that an affinity is established between us and Him, just as an affinity had been previously established between Him and us. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me.” His people “seek the things which are above,” etc. “Our citizenship is in heaven.” When the souls of His people are loosed from their bodies at death they go up to Him. And the bodies of believers, as well as their spirits, will be drawn up to Him at last. “And so we shall be ever with the Lord.” (W. Simpson.)
The way to the Father
We hear much of the Fatherhood of God, and cannot hear too much if the doctrine be truly stated. It is not a new doctrine. The heathen knew something of it; it is in the Old Testament, while it is the very substance of the New. Only in the latter, what heathenism never knew, and what the Law and the Prophets only taught imperfectly, God is our Father in the Eternal Son. This distinctly Christian doctrine is declared in our text
I. POLEMICALLY. It protests against certain religious teachings which contravene it. Throughout His ministry Christ was in conflict with men who held a false doctrine of the Fatherhood of God.
1. There were those who represented God as though He looked on His human offspring with a complacency which winked at all moral distinctions. The Supreme Father looked upon all with equal indifference. In opposition to this Christ taught that man was estranged from God through sin. He had lost the knowledge of God and was spiritually dark; the favour of God and was guilty; the image of God and was corrupt; the life of God and was dead in trespasses and sins; and that men could only secure the prerogatives of sonship by intervention from without. There are those today who teach the old doctrines of a philosophical Sadduceeism. Christianity challenges them. Appealing to Christ’s credentials as a Teacher sent from God, it proclaims to the world that God hath given unto us eternal life, and that this life is by a Mediator whom He hath ordained. There is no absurdity in the doctrine. Who but God can determine how we may most fitly come to Him? And as the Mediatorship is actually constituted, what lessons touching Divine love and holiness, and human helplessness and dignity, does it not pour into our ears.
2. But Christ’s ministry did battle even more keenly with those who held that God was their Father through mediatorship. Angels, Abraham, Moses, saintly pedigree, holy observances, etc., were their mouthpieces with God, and stepping stones to immortality. Christ told them they carried a lie in their right hand; that there was but one Mediator--Himself. Alas! we have the doctrine of the Pharisees too. Men are heard proclaiming that the prayer of a disembodied saint, the magic of a Christian rite, etc., have the stupendous power to join heaven and earth together. The New Testament pronounces all this to be falsehood. Our alms, deeds, lastings, communions, baptisms, etc.
these bridge the gulf between us and God I
What does a man think of himself, what does he think of God, who takes up with such a hypothesis?
II. DOCTRINALLY. Taken with its context, the text is the summary and index of a most large and precious Scripture teaching. How do men come to the Father through Christ? Necessarily the Person, character, and history of the Mediator will have much to do with the nature and method of His mediation. Who the Mediator was let John tell us (chap. 1), and His character and history let him and his brethren tell. With these facts in view men have held that the value of Christ’s mediation consists in the energy of the truth He taught, and the force of His example. Others explain that by His perfect fulfilment of the will of God as our representative, He became so acceptable to God, that by reason of what He did God is now the loving Father of us all, and in Him all men are already virtually, and will be by and by actually justified and glorified. Now both these theories mistake the entire basis, method and scope of Christ’s Mediatorship, which is essentially an economy of holy law, in which God and man sustain not simply the relations of Father and Son, but those of moral Governor and rational and responsible creature. According to Scripture
1. Christ’s blood has made satisfaction in law to Divine justice for the sins of all mankind, by virtue of which sin is expiated, and all men through personal faith may find mercy and acceptance.
2. As the recompense of the Redeemer’s passion. God gives to the world by Christ’s hands His Holy Spirit, by whom assurance of pardon is given, and new birth to righteousness.
3. Under the reign of Christ believers are protected from the evil that is in the world; subjected to providential discipline, and furnished with strength to do the will of God and make their way to everlasting life.
III. EVANGELICALLY AND PROMISSORY. Men can only come to God by Christ; but by Him there is free access for every soul. To come to the Father is
1. To know God.
2. To be the object of the love of God.
3. To be with God forever.
Conclusion:
1. The words illuminate the widest possible area of religious truth. God is and always has been, whether as Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, the Father of men through a Mediator.
2. Within a narrower circle, Christ’s doctrine lays down broad lines of duty and privilege for the Church of God. Let no false charity presume to enlarge what God has straitened. It is at the Church’s peril that it dares to cripple man’s evangelical liberty.
3. The text speaks with a gracious but authoritative voice to every hearer of the gospel.
(1) Do not hope to find God without Christ.
(2) Do not treat Christ as though His Mediatorship was inadequate.
(3) Let no man despise or neglect the Mediator, “How shall we escape,” etc. (J. D. Geden, D. D.)
Christ the only way to the Father
Not long ago, two little children rambling from home over a wild and dangerous part of Dartmoor, lost their way. Utterly unable to find the right path, they sat down, and cried bitterly. “And what did you do next?” was the question put to them afterwards. “I said, ‘Our Father,’ answered the boy, “and sister said, ‘Gentle Jesus.’” Then they made another attempt, and discovered a moorland road which led them safely home. Surely the conduct of those little ones, lost on the moor, has a lesson for us. If any of us have wandered from the right way, and lost sight of our Father’s House, and fallen among the dangers of a sinful world, what can we do better than shed tears of sorrowful repentance; what can we do better than cry to Our Father and Gentle Jesus? (H. J. W. Buxton, M. A.)
Christ the only way of approach to the Father
I. To come UNTO THE FATHER MUST BE REGARDED AS THE CHIEF CONCERN OF MAN.
1. The nature of this coming to the Father. It is
(1) To obtain an accurate acquaintance of His character and His will. We are said to be distant from an object when we are ignorant of it. In the Sacred Writings, on the one hand, ignorance of God is mentioned as being a crime; and, on the other, to attain an accurate acquaintance with Jehovah is the highest human blessing. It is, therefore, desired for men that they may have the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God and His Son.
(2) The enjoyment of reconciliation with Him. Reconciliation was the grand theme which Christ preached, as well as the grand work which He came to accomplish.
2. The importance of thus coming to the Father. Adopting the most general assumption that God is the Governor, and that man is a subject, and that the sanction by which the government of God is vindicated, over the retribution of eternity, then it must follow that nothing can be of importance at all compared to the attainment of a state by which the infliction of the Divine anger may be avoided, and by which the enjoyment of the Divine favour may be secured.
II. THE WORK OF THE LORD JESUS AFFORDS A METHOD BY WHICH MEN MAY COME UNTO THE FATHER. In the whole of the series of verses, with which the text is connected, our Saviour speaks of Himself as being one who had been introduced for the purpose of accomplishing a work, through the agency of which man might be made possessor of all that is desirable in the state we have endeavoured to describe. Let us notice
1. The nature of the work which our Lord Jesus has accomplished.
(1) Christ is invested with the office of a teacher. One object of His incarnation was to remove those awful shades of ignorance which had overshadowed the nations of the earth; and to inculcate all those principles of spiritual truth which were necessary for man to know and believe.
(2) But we must contemplate the work of our Lord as that which also furnishes a positive atonement for sin.
2. The extent to which this work is intended to be applied. The merit of the work of the Saviour is intrinsically sufficient for the world. The means of access and acceptance with God, under the Levitical dispensation, were restricted to a small nation; but under that dispensation of grace and truth, which came by Jesus Christ, it announced that the party walls were to be broken down, and the distinction of Jew and Gentile known no more; and that whomsoever, of any age, nation, rank, or character, would come unto the Father through the work of the Son, should find in the work of the Son a ready plenitude of Almighty energy and grace. There is no limit to that promise--“He that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”
III. TO COME UNTO THE FATHER, EXCEPT THROUGH THE WORK OF JESUS, IS PERFECTLY AND ETERNALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
1. No other being possesses the characteristics which are possessed by our Lord Jesus, and which are necessary to constitute a sufficient mode of access to the Father. For, what is Christ? He is God, and He is Man. The way to God would be shut if it were not for the humanity of Christ; the way to God would be imperfect if it were not for the Divinity of Christ. Humanity is what gives to the work of the Saviour adaptation; Divinity is what gives to the work of Christ efficacy, plenitude, and power.
2. The Sacred Writings distinctly and solemnly declare that the work of Christ, as the Medium of access to the Father, stands exclusive and alone. “Neither is there salvation in any other,” etc. “Other foundation can no man lay,” etc. Conclusion:
1. Have you come to the Father?
2. Will you come unto the Father? (J. Parsons.)
Christ the only means of access to the Father
The passage implies
I. THAT IT IS A PRIMARY DUTY OF ALL INTELLIGENT BEINGS TO COME TO GOD. God is the Father of all spirits, of all beings, to whom He has given an intelligent nature, on whom He has conferred moral capacities. From that very circumstance it is their first and positive obligation, and will constitute their happiness to come to Him, i.e., to have constant intercourse with Him. There is something solemn and impressive about it. To come into contact with the eternal and infinite mind! We feel strongly when we have a prospect of coming into contact with some eminent person. But everything falls short of the idea of coming into the presence of God. And then to have a proper idea of our responsibility, and our being constantly under His eye--and yet it is our primary duty to delight in this, and to do it.
II. THAT THERE IS A VERY REMARKABLE SINGULARITY ABOUT THE WAY IN WHICH MAN IS TO COME TO GOD. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Anything like that was never uttered in heaven. It never was uttered, and never will be, in any world in which the beings continue to be just as they proceeded from the hands of God. They delight in constant intercourse with God. Why is this? Worlds that have never fallen are in a state of natural religion. With respect to us who have fallen, if we come to God we must come in a particular manner. And the singularity of this arises from our guilt. God is to be viewed by us not merely as God, but as a God whom we have offended. And, therefore, there is some process required to mark our circumstances, both upon God’s part and upon ours. And the peculiarity of the thing as revealed in Scripture is, that we are to come to God, through a Mediator, and to plead the work and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to ask the forgiveness of sin, in the consideration of that reason. Now all just wows of religion rest upon this foundation. The Deist rejects revelation and a mediator altogether, because he looks abroad on the face of the world, and he thinks that nothing more is necessary to come to God but some prayer and some expression of penitence. Then, again, some men reject the idea of the Divinity and sacrifice of Christ, and think it is enough to come to God, as professing to receive the truth of Christ. These views result from very inadequate impressions of the holiness and majesty of God and of the nature of sin, and of that kind of medium which is represented in the New Testament as the way into the presence of the holiest of all.
III. THAT IN COMING TO GOD IT BECOMES US TO HAVE RESPECT TO THE MEDIATOR, AND TO COME ON THE SPECIFIC BUSINESS FOR WHICH HE IS APPOINTED. Only imagine that one of your children, or several of them, had deeply and grievously offended you. Or imagine the case of a monarch, against whom a certain portion of his subjects had rebelled. Imagine, in either of these cases, that some kind and gracious and affectionate declaration of readiness to forgive on certain conditions and in a certain way. And just imagine that either the child, or the subject should dare to come into the presence of the parent or of the sovereign, unconcerned about the matter wherein they had offended. Imagine that your child, without adverting to the circumstances of his actual offence, and of your displeasure, and to the plan which you had designed by which reconciliation might be effected between you--that your child came and praised the properties of your character, and rejoiced in the genuine affections of your nature, and the principles of your behaviour, and praising your heart, or your hands, or your head. Or conceive of the subjects entering the presence chamber of their monarch, and that without adverting to the proclamation that had been made, they should come and unite together in some manifestation of their feelings with regard to his government and his reign, and the happiness of his subjects; never once referring to the business on which they were supposed to come. Would there not be something monstrous in all this? And do you not perceive that the child would increase his offence, and that the subjects would add something like ingratitude and contempt to their rebellion? There are many who just treat God in this way.
IV. THAT IN COMING IN THE WAY THAT HAS BEEN POINTED OUT WE HAVE EVERY ENCOURAGEMENT; AND WE SHALL FIND IT TO BE SUFFICIENT. We shall have a welcome, and shall surely receive whatever is requisite to ensure for us happiness and satisfaction. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” But “whoever cometh I will in no wise cast out.” And the reason why you do not enjoy all this is, because you will not.
V. THAT THOSE WHO COME TO GOD BY THE MEDIATOR, AND THEY ONLY, ARE PREPARED FOR DWELLING WITH GOD HEREAFTER. It is not enough to die, and be happy, as some people seem to imagine; you may die and be damned--the Bible says so.
VI. THAT THIS SUBJECT IS EXCEEDINGLY FORGOTTEN AND NEGLECTED BY MEN.
1. There are many men who never come to God at all. They never come in any way; they never think of it.
2. There are others who come to God, professedly, but in the wrong way. They do not come to the Father by the Son.
3. There are others who neglect the spirit of this declaration. They profess to come in the right way; but the particular exercises, and
