The Way, The Truth, And The Life

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6)

Over the years I've seen and heard the above bible verse quoted many many many times. To my dissatisfaction however, I believe it has been countlessly misunderstood and misused. Therefore, the following paragraphs have been dedicated to the revealing of the truth of this verse.

First of all, it has been widely assumed that Jesus taught his disciples to be solely dependent on him for teaching, guidance, and ultimately salvation. Such a mentality has been used to interpret - as well as defend - scriptures such as John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life", and Romans 10:13: "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved", without giving thought to its consequences. From this perspective it certainly seems that all anyone will ever need is Jesus; he is the way, the truth, and the life, the answer to everything. Suffice to say, the entire Christian religion would seem to hinge on Jesus Christ dependency, and who among them could be any more the wiser, since their identity is hinged on the mores of a message that celebritizes Jesus Christ?

However, in this vein of Jesus dependency people soon loose sight of and neglect the virtues that even Jesus taught and exemplified, because the virtue that receives the majority of attention and admonition is 'depend on Jesus'. The importance of practical virtues such as sharing, courage, honesty, humility and perseverance are diminished under a shroud of simplistic 'magic bullet' dogma, and one of the most essential acquisitions available in life is pushed aside and treated like an old newspaper. This acquisition is wisdom, which demands every virtue to be embraced by its student. It is therefore little wonder that undiligent Christian folk would then dismiss the very notion of wisdom by quoting the apostle Paul: "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise" (1 Corinthians 1:27), misunderstanding wisdom to be a base element of sin or a principle of ungodliness. Such is the nature of wisdom and foolishness; the wisdom of the wise is but foolishness to a fool, and who can say what wisdom truly is?

Nevertheless wisdom rates pretty highly in my book - its up there with air - probably higher; for without it, people become gullible and turn to ways that lead to their own destruction. It has even been said by Solomon that "wisdom is the principal thing" (Proverbs 4:7), and Jesus said: "be ye therefore wise as serpents" (Matthew 10:16). In the book of Acts I read that the twelve apostles instructed the multitude of disciples to "look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom", who were then to be appointed over the business of serving the people, since widows were being neglected (Acts 6:3). Wisdom certainly is important, from practical service through to being a disciple of Jesus. Nowadays it seems that wisdom has become a neglected widow, and its deceased husband is salvation.

Real salvation, of course, is not dependency on Jesus, although some would say that Jesus is God, and that dependency on God is equivalent to salvation. However, to depend on God for food when you have a knife in one hand, a fork in the other, and a fully fledged meal sitting in front of you, is not going to save you from starvation. It would seem good and appropritate that a person should actively eat to prevent the disease of starvation. In the case that a person prays but neglects to eat, one would need to embrace some practical wisdom and be saved from his/her impractical dependency on God. Similarly, people - often unaware - fail to use their God-given nous when they embrace beliefs, and through their folly they starve themselves of salvation.

Now Jesus once said to his disciples "ye should do as I have done to you" (John 13:15). This was then echoed by saint Peter unto his audience, "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps (1 Peter 2:21), and also by saint Paul, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5). Neither of these exhortations encourage dependency on Jesus, but rather, they encourage an imitation of the life and values exemplified by Jesus, to live a life in the same vein of excellence. In this light it becomes apparent that when Jesus said: "I am the way" (John 14:6), he meant that his life exemplified the way his disciples should live, "the truth" was literally self-evident, because the "life" that he lived was salvation, which was a light to others for the perpetuation of the same. Just as through Jesus' example the twelve disciples would come to real salvation, others could also come through their example.

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34)