The Gospel of Jesus Christ offends many people because it excludes all others paths of salvation. Multiple ways to heaven don’t exist; only one does. No other name exists, other than Jesus of Nazareth, in whom we receive life and salvation. Jesus is the only sacrifice for sin, which saves into eternity.
Our culture loves a generic god. A preacher will offend few people by proclaiming such a “higher being,” for something so generic doesn’t challenge many cherished beliefs, ruffling few feathers. People approve of preaching civic virtues, even if ever-changing, meandering with the flow of our culture. You can proclaim what our culture considers as virtuous, and most will admire you and your culture-shaped religion.
Jesus jumps in and ruins such self-chosen ways. He claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The world may delight in many ways and many truths, but Jesus teaches of only one way—Himself. He is not a way, but THE Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the only Life to conquer death, bringing eternal life through His suffering, death, and resurrection.
Thomas scratched his head, perplexed. “Lord, we don’t know where you are going; how can we know the way?” In his way of thinking, Thomas first needed his destination; otherwise, how would he get there? We navigate the same way as Thomas. We need our arrival location before we can travel there. So, we’re stuck in the same predicament as Thomas. In eternal matters, thank the Lord we’re not in the driver’s seat—God is!
On our own, we’re headed straight into the ditch, spiraling deeper and deeper toward hell. We’re even born going the wrong way, bound for hell. No one comes into this world heaven bound; each of us arrives inclined away from our Father’s house. Thank God Jesus is the Way, steady in where He wants to take us!
Now, Jesus does show us the way to follow (John 3:15, 1 Peter 2:21), but He is much more. He also IS the Way, the highway to heaven. Whatever we do isn’t the way, no deed we could do or prayer we could pray would be good enough. Only Jesus’ prayers and saving work are good enough—the way of salvation for us.
Moses also shows us the way. The Law of Moses shows us how to live before God and our neighbor—but Moses is not the Way. Jesus is. Jesus is the bridge, spanning the abyss between death and life, the ladder connecting earth to heaven. He is the mediator between God and man, who joins God and man together in His body.
The Old-Covenant Temple pictures this for us. In the Temple, a thick curtain separated the people from God’s presence in the Holy of Holies. The curtain stood at the doorway between earth and heaven, the only way into God’s gracious presence.
To be in God’s presence, the high priest parted the curtain and went through it. When Jesus died, the Temple curtain tore in two, from top to bottom. The Temple is now obsolete, for it no longer is the bridge between earth and heaven.
Being both God and man, Jesus now joins heaven and earth together in His body. The new and living way to His Father is through the curtain of Christ’s flesh, now crucified and risen. Jesus becomes our access to God the Father. He is, indeed, the Way!
All other ways lead to hell, darkness, and damnation. Every other way to receive God’s favor will only fail you. Did you do enough, satisfy the Father, and make the cut? With Jesus, those anxieties fall away; for in Him, you are perfect because He is perfect. His righteousness covers you, and His cleansing blood forgives you.
In baptism, Jesus, the Way, sets us on the Way, where He joins us to Himself, to His death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). So, the life we now live, we live by faith in Him. This way, however, isn’t a detour around suffering, pain, and death. Jesus is the Way through this fallen creation, which we brought about by sin, to eternal life. Every other way in this world is false, which, in the end, leads to eternal death. Only Jesus promises and delivers life eternal.
Jesus is the Way and the Truth. The Truth of Jesus, the Truth, who is Jesus, is more than an abstract idea. He is real, flesh-and-bones real, as real as the infant in the virgin’s womb and the man killed on the cross.
Jesus is the Truth of who we are, choosing to die because of our sin. His death unmasks our sin, reflecting the truth of our rebellious ways back on us, revealing our self-centered hatred, anger, and greed.
The Law shows the brunt of sin in our lives. Now, the Law does tell us the truth, but only Jesus IS the Truth. He is the truth of who we are—of what God intended when He created us. So, when you look at Jesus, you find out what God wanted for us when He first formed us from the soil of the earth. Sin and death are unnatural. Sin is inhuman, anti-human, unhuman. Jesus is human, without sin.
Jesus is the Truth of God. He reveals the Father’s love to us and shows us a God, who is for us. How so? He speaks what the Father gives Him to speak and does what God gives Him to do. He reveals God’s heart of mercy and His longing to save us.
To see Jesus is to see the Father. To understand Jesus is to understand the Father. To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father. For no revelation of God, no vision, no dealing with God in His mercy and love comes to us apart from Jesus Christ.
Philip wanted to separate Christ and the Father, to understand the Father without looking to the Son. “Lord, show us the Father [not Yourself], and we will be content” (John 14:8). Philip became the unwitting proxy for every religion in the world, save one, which wants to deal with God apart from His Son, Jesus Christ.
Philip’s eyes sparkled when Jesus performed miracles; his ears took in Jesus’ words and teaching. But the corrupting, sinful nature is strong in us all. Tempted to bypass Jesus, Philip tries to go straight to Father. Philip reminds us of how ingrained in us this tendency of the old Adam is, to evade Christ and seek the hidden God.
We often want to experience God apart from Jesus and the way He chooses to come to us: In His Word, His Sacraments, and His Church. We imagine He walks with us and talks with us, apart from how He promises to come to us. The only sure way to experience God is to meet Him where He promises to be. Don’t go looking for Him somewhere else.
Jesus sets Philip straight, pointing Philip back to Himself, Jesus. We’re no different from Philip: We also need to be connected to Christ. For that to happen, we need to be where Jesus gives Himself to us, which is in Word and Sacrament. Don’t try to do an end run around like Philip: “Lord, show us the Father [not Yourself], and we will be content.”
Jesus is our Way. In His faithfulness, He joins us to His death and resurrection, which we receive by faith. Jesus turns us away from ourselves, bringing us to the Father. He is our Truth, guiding and upholding us on our way to eternal life.
The Truth of Jesus is the food by which He feeds us as we walk on the Way. Jesus’ words are truth—and when His words of forgiveness enter your ears, the saving truth about who you are in Him comes to you, once more. Even though you are sinful to the core, Jesus still makes you God’s child through faith in Him.
Jesus died for you, forgives you, cleanses you, and restores you with the Father. Faith causes you cling to that Truth, even when everything else in your lives testifies against Him. When you look at the mess in your life and the results of your sin, remember you have the Truth, Jesus, who conquers your sin with His blood.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He IS the Life. Eternal life is your destination when Jesus is your Way and Truth. He speaks the words of eternal life. This journey begins when you die in Holy Baptism. And yet you live in Christ, even when you are in the throes of death. “I no longer live,” writes the Apostle Paul, “but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
We want life—and much within this world promises such life: new drugs, a new diet, a new exercise plan. We chase after such hopes, but everything in this physical creation will fail you in the end, for it is fallen, a casualty of our fall into sin.
Not so with Jesus. He is both God and man, eternal and physical, yet unfallen and sinless. So, He can come to us in a life-bestowing way, the Life of who He is. He becomes human, with a physical body, with eternity wrapped within Him. That was His incarnation: God becoming man for our salvation. Jesus also does the same for us in His Supper, coming to us in what is physical, with eternity wrapped within it.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, for only He is both God and man. So, Jesus’ exclusive claim of salvation isn’t conceit, but reality. He is the only Way from death into life, from hell to heaven, from the devil to God.
Jesus is the only Life that IS eternal life. All roads, except One, lead to the same place: eternal destruction and death. The Way of Jesus, however, is different, leading to eternal life with God. He is your Way, your Truth, and your Life. Amen.
