EPISODE 14 John Chapter 14 ”I Am The Way” for Share The Word

Hi, and welcome to Share the Word, the best way to learn your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. We know there are a lot of devotionals and encouraging thoughts for the day from the Bible available online, but our goal is a little more to honestly and systematically present the whole story of the New Testament. So let's listen in to today's lesson and go a little deeper. I Am the Way, John chapter 14. Thanks for coming along as Share the Word travels through the New Testament. Today we've reached John chapter 14.

As you probably have figured out if you've been listening for a while, we're taking a look at a new chapter of the New Testament each podcast. As you also may have figured out, because you're very perceptive, we're not trying to comment on every last thing in every given chapter. That's not possible in our time frame of 15 to 20 minutes, and we think that's a reasonable time frame for our audience so you can listen during lunch or over breakfast or some convenient time. So when our teachers approach most chapters, we're deciding what things we think are most essential to understand from that section, because our goal is to give our listeners and readers a good overview of the big ideas, the key concepts.

In the future, we may come back through the New Testament and focus down on finer points, but right now we're looking for things that must be understood in order to understand biblical theology, that is, the things related to God as the Bible explains Him. And if the Bible is what it claims, pretty much everything is in one way or another related to God. John chapter 14 is a good example of a chapter that has so many important ideas that I had to choose where to focus. The big ideas that show up here are worth three or four lessons easy. So why don't we slow down and do three or four, you might be thinking. Well, because again, our purpose is to overview the whole New Testament, and we think we can do that assignment justice in approximately two years of posting two new podcasts per week.

Plus, frankly, we're not aiming this at third-year seminary students. We're aiming this at regular people who want to give an honest listen into what the New Testament of the Bible has to say. So we had to set the parameters somewhere, and that's where we landed. I say this because I hope you're also reading or listening to the whole chapter each day, along with these commentaries. And when you do, you'll no doubt hear interesting or important ideas that we may not be able to address fully. A good study Bible, if you have access to one, will help fill in some of the areas we don't get to focus on this time through.

By study Bible, I mean a Bible that also includes explanatory notes by scholars. As far as our podcasts go, we'd rather focus on one or two big ideas and explain them well than superficially try to cover all the ideas in 15 or 20 minutes. I feel the need to clarify that in case you've been wondering. By the way, if there is something in a given chapter that you really feel the need to understand better that doesn't get commented on, it may get covered in a later lesson down the road as we move through the New Testament. And if you don't want to wait for that and don't have a study Bible that answers your question adequately, feel free to email us at info at sharetheword.org. Info at sharetheword.org.

Put question in your subject line and ask away. Somebody will pick that up, and we will do our best to answer you. Now, with that out of the way, let's think about John chapter 14. We're still in the upper room with Jesus and his closest disciples, and we're only hours before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. You may wonder about that term, upper room. This was apparently an upstairs apartment belonging to friends that Jesus was given access to when he was in the city of Jerusalem.

It served as a kind of a safe house, an undisclosed location, we might say, a place where he and his friends could be together, undisturbed while in the city. Jesus, this night, is fully aware of the lateness of the hour, aware of how little time he has left with these men he's been training. We have more of his teaching to them concentrated here in these chapters, John chapter 13 through 17, than anywhere else in the New Testament. It's often referred to as the upper room discourse. It reads to me like Jesus was trying to squeeze in as much information as possible before his crisis, the passion, before the dynamics changed in his relationship with these, his closest followers. While I'm thinking of it, here's an important side note.

Thoughtful people who are reading the New Testament or even listening in to these podcasts, when you come to a section like the upper room discourse, you may reasonably question, how in the world could the author remember and record all this detailed teaching from Jesus, especially when you've already told us that the fourth Gospel was probably written by John several decades after these events occurred? Was he there taking shorthand? Was he having some kind of photographic memory? I don't think so. But it's a great question. Fortunately, it's answered for us right here in this context.

In John chapter 14 at verse 26, John records Jesus making a promise to the disciples. He said, When the Father sends the Advocate as my representative, that is, the Holy Spirit, he will teach you and remind you of everything that I have told you. He will teach you everything and remind you what I have told you. That's a reference to the important doctrine usually referred to as the inspiration of Scripture. The claim of the Bible is explicitly that the Holy Spirit oversaw its production. The Holy Spirit aided and guided the human authors as they produced the collection of writings we call the Bible.

It's only because of that repeated claim and the evidence that it's true that believers can have confidence that John or the other Bible writers recalled and recorded things accurately. So in our example here, John's recollections of Jesus' upper room discourse are not just his pieced-together memories. As Jesus promised, when the time came and John decided to sit down and write out his gospel, the Holy Spirit accurately reminded him and supernaturally guided him as he wrote to ensure that the things he recalled were trustworthy. We'll discuss a lot more about biblical inspiration, I'm sure, when we get to other passages in the New Testament where it is even more explicitly claimed. It's one of the most important and foundational claims of biblical Christianity.

I mentioned in the introduction to the fourth gospel, which you can read in our website archive at www.sharetheword.org, and if you haven't read it and want to understand the background of John's gospel better, you should, I mentioned that there is one of the literary devices that the fourth gospel revolves around is Jesus' I am statements. John interestingly records Jesus using an I am formula followed by pretty astounding claims seven times scattered throughout his gospel. These statements are very clear windows into Jesus' awareness of himself and of his mission in coming into our world. So if you've been reading or listening to each chapter of John's Gospel to this point, you've already heard Jesus declare, for example, astounding things like, I have come down out of heaven, and I am the bread of life.

Or at the Jewish Feast of Lights, you heard Jesus say, I am the light of the world. Two such I am statements appeared in that section in John chapter 10 when Jesus made a long analogy about sheep and shepherds and robbers, when he said, I am the door to the sheepfold, and then again, I am the good shepherd who will lay down his life for his sheep. And who could possibly forget his powerful declaration in Bethany, just before calling his dead friend Lazarus from the tomb, I am the resurrection and the life. Now we come to a sixth such statement here in John chapter 14. Let me say this before I get into the I am statement here in the Upper Room discourse. You can't honestly hear these claims from Jesus I just recited, which John remembers and records, and come away thinking what many New Age false teachers will say about him today.

That is, that Jesus was one of several divinely enlightened teachers or masters, someone unusually tuned into a higher consciousness, similar to Buddha or Confucius or Krishna or someone else. Many who promote this view of Jesus are purposely not listening to what John is telling us, not listening to what Jesus actually claimed, but like all false teachers, reimagining him as someone that fits into their philosophy. That's intellectually dishonest. Those who listen carefully to the Jesus which John and the other New Testament authors record, and who honestly interpret the New Testament writings, must arrive at a trilemma, to use a man named John Duncan's term. Either, one, Jesus was a total fraud who was deliberately deceiving people, or two, he was himself one very deluded, self-deceived individual, or three, he was the divine and unique Son of God exactly as he claimed. Ponder that.

After listening to Jesus' claims, if we're honest, we must conclude either that Jesus was a very clever deceiver and fraud, or else a mentally sick, deluded individual, or in fact exactly who he claimed to be, the unique Son of God in our world on a saving mission. One of those three conclusions must be reached listening to the extraordinary claims Jesus made. As someone has more succinctly put it, he was either a liar, a lunatic, or in fact our Lord. There are no other options. He didn't leave any other options open to us. That couldn't be any clearer than when we come to the I am declaration that John records Jesus making during this discussion with his disciples in the upper room.

He had already told them that night that he was going to be betrayed, that he would be soon leaving them, and he could see the confusion in their eyes and feel the somber mood falling over the room as he revealed these things. And so he tells them at the outset of chapter 14, Don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms, and if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare this place for you, I will come back and take you with me, that you may also be where I am going. And you know the way to the place I'm going.

He was giving his troubled disciples much-needed words of encouragement here. Don't lose faith in God or in me, he was saying. I'm leaving to return to the Father, to prepare a place for you so that you can come and be with me. And I promise I will return. Of course, we realize in retrospect Jesus was talking about heaven. He was promising that one day he would return for believers.

But I'm pretty sure that night the disciples were not hearing him in those terms. Their minds were very taken up with the present darkening circumstances. When Jesus said, And you know the way to the place I am going, Thomas spoke up for the rest of them and said, No, Lord, actually we don't. We don't know where you're going, so how could we know the way? And then it comes. One of those powerful claims that struck John and the others in such a way they never forgot it.

Jesus' reply to Thomas was, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus declared to his close followers in that room, and to all of us too, because it's recorded in the Scripture for our benefit, If you know me, you know the way to the Father in heaven. You know the way to where I am going because I myself am the way. You know, to the ears of many today, I know that no one comes to the Father except through me part just sounds wrong, sounds extremely narrow-minded and intolerant. Pluralism is seen as the more sophisticated and loving approach to the differences in philosophies and religions.

By pluralism, I mean the idea that there are many equally valid ways to reach God. We all have our own way. We all have our own truths. This is certainly becoming conventional wisdom to most people in my society. I remember reading about a lecturer trying to explain pluralism to his students once. His word picture struck me, and I've never forgotten it.

It was a made-up story, but he felt it proved his point beyond a shadow of a doubt, the idea that there are many equally valid ways to reach God, and that we can each decide for ourselves what is spiritually true for us. His story went like this. Four blind men accidentally encounter an elephant. Since the men had never seen an elephant, they grope around trying to understand what they've come upon. One of them finds the tail, and it seems to him like a snake as it twists and turns in his hands. Another is feeling one of the elephant's thick, powerful legs, and it feels to him like a tree trunk.

A third grasps the elephant's trunk and believes he must have some kind of thick rope or vine in his hands. And the fourth blind man feels his way down the enormous side of the elephant and concludes they've only come up against a wall. Each of them, in their blindness, was describing the same thing, an elephant, yet each described only the part they discover. His students were supposed to think at that point, Ah, I see, as they understood his deep metaphysical insights. They were supposed to now concur that it's just like that with the many philosophies and religions in the world. Each is describing the same thing, but only partially because none is able to fully grasp the whole.

So we should similarly conclude, if we are wise, the suggestion is, that no one religion or philosophy has the final word on truth. All have a piece, and so all should be respected and considered equally valid. If there is such a thing as a God who will judge our lives at the end of the road, the question, this teacher suggested, will not be whether we believed and practiced the right and true faith, since there is no one completely right and true faith. The question will only be about our sincerity. In other words, it will not matter what you believed as long as you believed it sincerely and made a sincere effort to practice it. Well, that does sound like a fair and tolerant view, doesn't it?

In a world that views fairness and tolerance above pretty much everything, a truly enlightening story. After all, if God is infinite and we are finite, it's reasonable to believe that none of us can fully grasp Him. And I agree with that part. But does this analogy prove anything about the truth of religious pluralism? I don't think so. Let's briefly think it through and see if the analogy holds up.

First, there is something important we shouldn't lose sight of. What the blind men were attempting to describe and understand is, in fact, an elephant. It's not anything else. Similarly, whether God is real and whether Jesus Christ and what He accomplished is the only way to God, these are first and foremost factual questions. If God does exist and if Jesus Christ was His one and only Son who brought the definitive revelation of spiritual truth into our world, then these are facts, whether anyone believes them or not. And if they are facts, then to deny them is to be wrong.

It would be to argue with reality. It's vital that we understand that these are the very claims of the Bible, of Christianity. That is, that Jesus was the revelation of God sent into the world to tell us the truth, to make a way for us sinners back to our Father in Heaven, our Creator. So, not all opinions, whether of blind men regarding elephants or of philosophers and religious teachers regarding God and Jesus, can be equally true. You can believe something sincerely. And be sincerely wrong.

Second, in the story, the real truth is, all four of the blind men were wrong. What they were touching was actually an elephant, not a wall, not a rope, not a tree trunk, not a snake. Their opinions were not equally true, but actually, if anything, equally false. If this story worked as an analogy of anything, it would be that all religions are false, not that all religions are equally true. Third, and this is most important, the analogy does not take into account any kind of special revelation. What if a fifth man had arrived on that scene, someone who could see, and he were to describe what the blind men were experiencing was an elephant, then it would change the situation entirely, wouldn't it?

It would then be irrational for the blind men to ignore the information coming from the one who could see. Jesus Christ, according to John, according to all the New Testament writers, was unique among religious leaders or teachers throughout history. He unequivocally claimed to be the fifth man, come into our scene, someone who came into our world to explain the truth to us, to show us reality. He repeatedly claimed to bring with him a unique and definitive revelation from our Creator to us, the truth about what's wrong in our world, what's wrong inside of us, what God, out of great love, sent him to do about it. That's why he claimed, I am the way, the truth, and the life, the only one who can make a way for us back to the Father in heaven.

I've often asked those who I've discussed this point with, if there were many equally valid ways to be right with God, to be forgiven, to be sure of heaven, then why on earth would God the Son have felt it necessary to come out of heaven, to be despised and rejected by men, to be beaten, to be crucified? Why on earth would Jesus have subjected himself to that? He obviously believed it was necessary. He willingly laid down his life as a sacrificial atonement for our sin because he believed it was the only way to make a way back to the Heavenly Father for us. So once again, John brings us to a choice, doesn't he? We can follow our own instincts.

We can adopt the views of this religion or that philosophy. We can hope the flawed notion of pluralism is somehow true. Or we can listen to the claims of Jesus Christ and believe into him. We can accept that he alone is the source of reliable spiritual truth, that he alone is the way back to God, that he alone holds the keys to eternal life, just as he claimed. Once, when Jesus' opponents in his day were offended by such seemingly outlandish claims, they demanded of him a sign to prove himself. He said on that occasion, The only sign I will give you is the sign of Jonah, an Old Testament prophet who was, if you remember, three days in the belly of a large fish before emerging alive again, implying they were going to see something similarly miraculous happen with him.

You know, it was only a matter of a few days after this evening in the upper room when Jesus was comforting and encouraging his disciples that John and the others there witnessed that greatest of miraculous signs which proved to them Jesus was who he claimed. They witnessed a publicly executed man emerge from his tomb very much alive three days later. Seeing that on top of all the other things they had seen and heard, it's why our author and the other eyewitnesses ultimately came to believe in Jesus, came to believe that he was in fact the truth, that he was in fact the one who could bring us life. The one who made a way for us to the Heavenly Father. Has John convinced you yet to believe into Jesus? I hope he has.

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