The Living True Way
John 14:6
In John 14:6, Jesus Christ made a profound statement that asserts the exclusiveness of the Gospel. In three simple words (way, truth, and life), Jesus made it very clear that He, and He alone, is the answer to man’s greatest need.
I. The Life
A. Man was given life by God when God created man. – Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
B. However, man forfeited that life by disobedience to God’s command. – God told man in Genesis 2:17 “...of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
C. The very moment that Adam and Eve disobeyed they died. When they ate of the fruit they did not physically die that day. They did begin to die physically that day. But God said “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” How could that be?
D. When Adam disobeyed God, he died - spiritually.
E. Spiritual death is identified as separation from God. – Isaiah 59:2 (ESV) “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
F. Adam, in the day he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was separated from God. Though his body continued on for a total of 930 years, his spirit died that very day
G. Adam brought death to mankind. - Romans 5:12 (NKJV) “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
H. All men by nature are separated from God and are spiritually dead. – Ephesians 2:1 declares man to be “dead in trespasses and sins”.
I. But just as Adam brought death into the world Jesus Christ came to bridge that gap of separation between God and man and provide eternal life as the very source of life.
J. Jesus Christ said “I am the Life” (John 14:6)
K. John 5:24 (ESV) Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life”
L. Eternal (Aionios - perpetual) life is a relationship with God that is permanent, ceaseless, and continues without interruption.
M. Jesus is the source of life. There is no spiritual life outside of Jesus Christ.
N. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
II. The Truth
A. When Pilate asked Christ at His trial in John 18:38 “What is truth?”, little did he know that Truth incarnate was standing before Him.
B. Since the beginning of time Satan has been the father of deception and continues to do so today. Adam and Eve believed the lies of Satan in the Garden. And men today still believe his lies.
C. One of the biggest lies is that truth is relative, there are no absolutes, therefore it doesn’t matter what you believe.
D. In doing so man has in the words of Romans 1:25 “who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”
E. Jesus said “I am the Truth” (John 14:6)
F. The word 'truth' is used 22 times in the Gospel of John.
G. Truth is absolute. Truth is a representation of things as they are. As such, Jesus is not just some truth but the entire truth. Jesus Christ is the full revelation of God. He’s God’s definitive and perfect Word expressing who God is, what He’s like, who we are, and what we need to do to be saved Truth is reality.
H. Mohamed, Confucius, and Buddha all claimed to be no more than seekers of truth. Christ declared Himself as the Truth.
I. Because Jesus is truth we can have confidence that what He says is real and not the figment of man’s imagination.
J. That is why Peter could write in 2 Peter 1:16 “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
III. The Way
A. Jesus also said He was the way and that no one comes to God except through Him. (John 14:6)
B. Everyone wants to believe that there are many ways to God, but there are not. There is only one way and that is by way of the cross of Jesus Christ.
C. Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
D. The way to a restored relationship with God is only through the person of Jesus Christ.
E. 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.”
F. A man, accustomed to trusting in his own merit for salvation, dreamed one night that he was occupied with the task of constructing a ladder which was to reach from earth to heaven. Whenever the dreamer did a good deed the ladder went up higher, and occasionally when an extra good act was performed, the progress toward the skies was correspondingly accelerated. So in course of years the ladder passed out of sight of the earth, clear up into the clouds. But at last when the competent builder was about to step off the topmost round onto the floor of heaven, a voice cried, "He that climbeth up some other way is a thief and a robber!" Down came the ladder with a crash. The startled dreamer awoke. He had learned his lesson. He saw that he must get salvation from Jesus Christ, for his own self-righteousness inadequate to fulfill the whole law of God would never meet the demands of a Holy God. - copied
G. 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
H. Jesus Christ spans the infinite distance between God and the sinner. It is impossible for sinful man to manufacture a ladder to climb up to God through prayers, tears, penitence, resolutions, rededication, self-help, pop-psychology, and etc. - Wil Pounds, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life
I. There is a story about a ferryboat that capsized. A bank official emerged as one of the heroes of the ferry disaster when he stretched his 6'3'' frame into a human bridge and saved 20 people. A group of passengers sitting in the corner of the vessel were cut off from the safety of a small island of metal by a 6 ft. wide cascade of water that rushed in after the ferry turned over on its side. It was too big for people to jump across. The man told reporters, "I just made sort of a bridge with my body." His wife said, "I was the first one to climb across and I stepped on his back. . . I was petrified!" Another passenger said, "When you climbed on him you had to jump and the floor was slippery with water. All the people in our corner over there got over through his human bridge. Otherwise we couldn't have gotten over across that space." Once across the gap the 20 people reached the small island of safety to which the rescuers had thrown a rope. The man who used himself as the bridge said he stayed behind for about an hour and half helping people climb the rope to safety... That is what Christ did for you and me. He built the bridge with His body on the Cross. As the Son of God He could span the extremes of man's sinfulness and God's righteousness and offers to us the hope of forgiveness and eternal life. There is only one avenue to God. He alone can lead us to Himself. - Wil Pounds, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
