From: The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus, by D. A. Carson

Status
Not open for further replies.

Ed Walsh

Puritan Board Senior
A small portion from chapter 2., An Introduction to Triumphant Faith,
From: D. A. Carson's, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus, an Exposition of John 14–17

John 14:5-6
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.

It is an amazing statement. “I am the way”—spoken by one whose way was the ignominious shame of a Roman cross, the death of despised and debased criminals. “I am the truth”—spoken by one about to be condemned by lying witnesses, one who was generally not believed by his own people, by his own family. “I am the life”—uttered by one whose battered corpse would shortly rest in a dark tomb, sealed up by the authorities.

There is glory in this paradox, and much room for adoring meditation. Because Jesus’ own way was the cross, he himself became the way for others. As the lamb of God, he took away the sin of the world (1:29); as the good shepherd, he laid down his life for the sheep (10:11). The lamb dies, the world lives. The shepherd dies, the sheep live. Jesus is the gate by which men enter and find life (10:9; cf. Hebrews 10:19f.); he is their way. The way of Jesus is the cross; the way of the disciples is Jesus. Small wonder that early Christians were called followers of the Way (Acts 9:2; 22:4; 24:14).

He who was betrayed by an apostle, disowned by another apostle, abandoned by all the apostles, condemned through lying witnesses, was the truth. We do not read simply that what he speaks is true, but that he himself is the truth. He is the truth incarnate, just as he is love incarnate and holiness incarnate; for he is the Word incarnate. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (1:17, 18). John is not telling us that Moses’ writings were not true, nor that they were something other than God’s Word. But however much the law was revealed by God, the law was not the unveiling of God himself, the revelation of grace and truth incarnate.

[I thought the following anecdote is really good]

At the Christmas break in 1963, I brought home to the Ottawa area a friend I had come to know and enjoy at the university I was attending. Mohammed Yousuf Guraya was a Pakistani, a devout Muslim, a gentle and sensitive friend. He was trying to win me to Islam; I was trying to win him to Christ. He had started to read the Gospel of John when I took him to visit the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. We enjoyed a guided tour of those majestic structures and learned something of their history and symbolism. Our group had reached the final foyer when the guide explained the significance of the stone figurines sculpted into the fluted arches. One he pointed to represented Moses, designed to proclaim that government turns on law.
“Where is Jesus Christ?” Guraya asked with his loud, pleasant voice, his white teeth flashing a brilliant smile behind his black beard.
“I don’t understand,” the guide stammered.
“Where is Jesus Christ?” Guraya pressed, a trifle more slowly, a little more loudly, enunciating each word for fear his accent had rendered his question incomprehensible.
The tourists in our group appeared to be embarrassed. I simultaneously chortled inwardly, wondering what was coming next, and wondered if I should intervene or keep my counsel.
“I don’t understand,” the guide repeated, somewhat baffled, somewhat sullen. “What do you mean? Why should Jesus be represented here?”
Guraya replied, somewhat astonished himself now: “I read in your Holy Book that the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Where is Jesus Christ?”
I think my friend Guraya had felt the impact of John’s Gospel more deeply than I had. It is in line with the framework of John’s prologue (1:1–18), where the eternal Word becomes the incarnate Word, that Jesus himself claims, “I am the truth.”

“I am the life.” Earlier, at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (11:25, 26). Of Jesus, John writes, “He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). He who died, condemned, enables others to live, forgiven.

I am the way to God: I did not come
To light a path, to blaze a trail, that you
May simply follow in my tracks, pursue
My shadow like a prize that’s cheaply won.
My life reveals the life of God, the sum
Of all he is and does. So how can you,
The sons of night, look on me and construe
My way as just the road for you to run?
My path takes in Gethsemane, the Cross,
And stark rejection draped in agony.
My way to God embraces utmost loss:
Your way to God is not my way, but me.
Each other path is dismal swamp, or fraud.
I stand alone: I am the way to God.

I am the truth of God: I do not claim
I merely speak the truth, as though I were
A prophet (but no more), a channel, stirred
By Spirit power, of purely human frame.
Nor do I say that when I take his Name
Upon my lips, my teaching cannot err
(Though that is true). A mere interpreter
I’m not, some prophet-voice of special fame.
In timeless reaches of eternity
The Triune God decided that the Word,
The self-expression of the Deity,
Would put on flesh and blood—and thus be heard.
The claim to speak the truth good men applaud.
I claim much more: I am the truth of God.

I am the resurrection life. It’s not
As though I merely bear life-giving drink,
A magic elixir which (men might think)
Is cheap because though lavish it’s not bought.
The price of life was fully paid: I fought
With death and black despair; for I’m the drink
Of life. The resurrection morn’s the link
Between my death and endless life long sought.
I am the firstborn from the dead; and by
My triumph, I deal death to lusts and hates.
My life I now extend to men, and ply
Them with the draught that ever satiates.
Religion’s page with empty boasts is rife:
But I’m the resurrection and the life.

Carson, D. A. (1988). The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus: An Exposition of John 14–17 (pp. 27–30). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top