The Only Way to the Father

“And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:4-6).

Jesus Christ is the only way to God the Father, the only way to heaven, the only way to eternal life. It is utterly impossible to garner God’s favor by any effort of our own. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time (1 Timothy 2:5-6).

In our religiously pluralistic world there are many schemes whereby men and women have devised other means to attain life beyond this life. But God has provided only one means to eternal life, one means to heaven. If all of the other schemes of men could guarantee salvation from death and hell, why would God have sent Jesus Christ to die on a cross? Why would He have condemned and judged the people of the Old and New Testaments for their worship of idols, the pantheon of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans? 

Jesus is not only the only way to the Heavenly Father, He is the only way to know the Heavenly Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him (John 14:7). The reason the disciples found it difficult to understand the Lord’s words concerning the Heavenly Father was because they found it difficult to understand Jesus Himself! True knowledge of the Father cannot be obtained by any other means than through Jesus Christ, His Son. We may know about the Father through reading the Bible and listening to the witness of Christians, but we cannot know the Father apart from Jesus Christ. “The Father is known just so far as the Son is known; no farther” (Arthur Pink).

Jesus was more than a manifestation of God; He was God manifest in the flesh. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:8-9). It is indeed a difficult concept for us to grasp, as it was for Thomas and Philip, but that is the mystery of the Godhead, Three-in-One. “The work of One is the work of All, and the work of All is the work of Each” as my Old Testament professor, Dr. Cecil Hyatt said. We see the work of Christ in the Holy Spirit, and the work of the Father in Christ. Beyond that we cannot understand fully. Amen.

Pastor