Who is this Jesus? [Part 6]

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

We are still in the Upper Room with Jesus and his disciples. Jesus had told them that one of them would betray him and that he himself would be going away. This troubled them greatly. So, after Judas Iscariot left them to betray Christ, Jesus begins to speak comforting words of assurance to them. Though he was leaving them soon, he promises them a forever home in the God the Father’s household. They didn’t understand or perhaps could not bring themselves to accept what Jesus was saying. Thomas asks about where Jesus is going and the way to that place.

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

The way to the Father is through Jesus. This is what Jesus meant when he said that he was the Door of the Sheepfold. Why is there a need for Jesus to make himself the way to the Father? This is closely connected to the Tabernacle and Temple with their restricted access into the Holiest Place and to the closed access to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden that was lost after the fall (Genesis 3:24). God did not want mankind to eat of the Tree of Life and so live forever as lost sinners. God forbid anyone but the High Priest to enter the Holiest. The entire Old Testament shows us the broken relationship and loss of access to God. Then how was he going to make a way for humankind to return to him? How was he going to restore this lost relationship?

Many instances in the Old Testament teach us about this. Immediately after the fall God promised a coming Redeemer who was to be the Seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). He would crush Satan’s head. Abraham said that God would provide a Sacrificial Lamb (Genesis 22:8). This Lamb is one of the main themes of the Old Testament. The entire Mosaic Covenant centered on the Tabernacle and Temple. Here a holy God would meet with sinful humans. They could only approach him with the atoning blood of the sacrificial animal (Leviticus 17:11, Hebrews 9:22). The animal sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the perfect sacrifice that Christ would make. The entire Old Testament looked forward to the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). And as God’s True High Priest Jesus has opened the way for us into God’s presence through his own Atoning Blood. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf . . . he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Hebrews 9:24, 26

Not only is Jesus the way to the Father, Jesus is the truth about the Father. When Jesus speaks God speaks. When Jesus acts God acts. When you behold Jesus you see God the Father. Words, actions, and a person’s very appearance show us things about the person. Every word and action of Jesus shows us the Father. Philip questioned Jesus. He wanted to see the Father. Jesus replies to Philip with a mild rebuke because Jesus had been showing them the Father all along. John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

What does Jesus show us about the Father? He shows us in three-foot high, bold-print letters that God loves us and has come to bring us forgiveness through his Son. I remind you once again of the great and precious promise of God,

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

Additionally, Jesus is the life of the Father. What does this mean? God has the power of life and death. Nothing that lives could live apart from God’s sustaining power. Apart from God the universe would cease to exist. The Apostle Paul wrote of Jesus in Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote of Jesus that He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power, Hebrews 1:3.

Furthermore, eternal life is only possible if God gives it. All humans die, but then what? Remember that Jesus said earlier in John 5:21, 26 “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will . . . For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

Eternal life is Jesus’ gift to give. Do you believe this? Jesus is not making fanciful claims. He is not giving us false hope. He says that he speaks with God the Father’s authority. John 14:10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

Jesus gives us the promise of eternal life. The reality of the promise rests in what he did for us. The certainty of the promise is proved through an empty tomb. Paul says,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:4-9

Jesus is the True Vine.

The next three chapters occur on the way to Gethsemane. Jesus and the disciple rose to leave the Supper. On the way to the garden Jesus speaks concerning their relationship to him and to the Father.

John 15:1-5 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

The idea of a vine speaks of abundance and joy in this culture. A person in abundance sits under his vine and enjoys the fruit. The idea was spoken of in connection to the last days in Micah 4:1-5. The last days are the time of the Messiah including the His Advent and Second Coming. In Micah the idea bespeaks of peace, safety, and eternal joy.

Micah 4:1-5 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

In the Bible the Vine metaphor also speaks of God’s people who were expected to be his joy. God’s people were spoken of as God’s vine and God’s vineyard from which he expected fruitfulness. However, Israel failed to be the fruitful vine God expected.

Isaiah 5:4, 7 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? . . For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

In John’s Gospel Jesus says that He is the True Vine. What God expected of his people Israel has been fulfilled in Christ. An Old Testament scholar has said that Jesus is Israel reduced to One. That is, Jesus is the righteous servant who fulfilled all God’s requirements.

Acts 10:36-43 “As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Jesus fulfilled righteousness for us and so we have righteousness before God in Him. From Jesus flow all the blessings of God on those reckoned righteous through faith in Him. This life and these blessings—the fruit that the branches bear because they are in living connection to the Vine—flow to all those who trust in Jesus’ righteous life, his atoning death, and his resurrection from the dead. Or, as Jesus says in John, these blessing flow to those who abide in him. Abiding in him means to continue to trust in the gift that he gives—forgiveness, life, and salvation. He is the source of life. He is the source of fruitfulness. He is the source of joy. He is the vine from which all the branches draw their life.

[Part 7 will conclude this study.]