Jesus is the way, truth, and life. [Jn 14.6]

John 14.6 KJV

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

After his Last Supper, Jesus spoke with his students about leaving them to go prepare a place for them, so he could take ’em there and they could be with him. Jn 14.1-4 His student Thomas expressed concern that he and the others had no idea which way Jesus was going.

So in this verse, Jesus tells Thomas he’s the way. It’s not so much a path the students were on; it’s a person they follow. They follow Jesus. As did Christians throughout history; as do Christians today. He’s the way.

There’s a number of reasons this Jesus quote is such a useful memory verse to meditate upon. That’s one. We really oughta consider what it means that we follow Jesus—not a program, a system, an agenda, steps to enlightenment, ranks and classes and levels. Our religion isn’t practices and ritual. Our religion is Jesus. We follow him. He’s the way.

Think of our religion like a body—and Jesus like the spirit. A body without its spirit is dead. Well, Christianity without Jesus is dead: All we’d have left are the practices. And plenty of people are just fine with that!—the practices are familiar, comfortable, meaningful, and make ’em feel spiritual instead of actually being Spirit-led. But it’s like that old movie Weekend at Bernie’s, where they’re propping up a corpse and making it appear alive. Gruesome. But commonplace.

Not everybody recognizes this. Even longtime followers who think they get it—who are eager to tell everybody within earshot, “It’s a relationship, not a religion!”—don’t get it. ’Cause they’ve prioritized their religious activities over Jesus. Prioritized their favorite Jesus-experts and rituals. Experts and rituals are fine when they actually do further our relationship with Jesus, but when they’re just spinning our wheels, they’re just dead religion—sometimes even bad religion—and need to be ditched in favor of following Jesus.

“No man cometh to the Father.”

True, most of the time when people quote this verse, they’re zeroing in on the “No man cometh to the Father, but by me” part. Which is a valid part. Jesus is our only way to the Father. I’ve discussed that in multiple TXAB articles.

It’s impossible to do an end-run round Jesus, and get to the Father through good works or some other religion. We should bear that in mind. We’re exclusively saved by Jesus. Problem is, Christians regularly mix this up with Christianity, and say we can’t be saved unless we’re Christian. Then mix “Christian” up with experts and rituals, and say we can’t be saved unless we’re practicing the Christian religion. I could go on, and after a few more steps we’ll wind up mighty far away from Jesus—and what he said, and what he means. Of course what he said is he’s the way. Jesus, again, is our religion. He’s not the same thing as any Jesus-based religion. Stay focused on Jesus!

Other Christians are gonna zero in on “I am… the truth,” and remind us Jesus is truth; there’s no truth outside of him. A true Christian can’t say, “Okay, Jesus may say this, but I say otherwise, because in this other area of life, he doesn’t apply.” Nope; everything in heaven and earth falls under Jesus, Ep 1.10 and he’s Lord of all. Trying to find loopholes in Jesus’s teachings is not following him, and claiming we do even though we only do on Sunday mornings, is hypocrisy.

And “I am… the life.” A true Christian can’t say, “Yeah, Jesus says do this to have life, but I can do the opposite because I’m saved by grace.” It’s just more hypocrisy. We gotta be consistent followers—and either we’re following Jesus or not. If not, we can repent and come back to following him, but let’s not make the foolish mistake of assuming we can “follow him,” yet really go our own way and slap Christianese labels on every selfish thing we do.