The Way, the Truth and the Life - John 14:6

[HKHaugan]

The Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)

When Jesus spoke these words describing Himself, it was these three words that put us in an entirely different dimension, a spiritual dimension. Those three words have a deep and penetrating significance. They describe the personal and relational structure of all existence, namely the Lord God. He is a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We’ll get into that in a bit. For now, we want to look at the idea of ‘three.’ Three is a conclusive word. It sets a tone. That is, there is nothing beyond what it describes. Let’s look at it from an everyday experiential point of view.

In our language we have a threefold way of speaking. Our sentence structure is subject, verb and object. Its tenses are past, present and future. We are describing a situation, its explanation and its conclusion. We think, we ponder, we act. Life is about where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re headed. There is birth, life and death.

Three questions absorb our daily living: Who am I? Where am I going? How am I going to get there?

 Three structural facets rule how we undertake any project: reason for a structure, its management and its personnel.   For every grouping there is a chairman, the executive staff and the worker. Government, military, political, educational, economic and social institutions all have a triune structure. Take any committee, corporation and right down to the family; everything is organized on a threefold basis.

Our personal nature is threefold. We have a mind, a heart and a spirit. They make up what we call the image of God. That is us. The whole universe with its billions of light years and galaxies has a threefold substance. It was created, it functions, and it has a future. Regardless of what skeptics may think about it, there is a mind with a purpose behind it, it is being sustained and its destiny is in the hands of its Creator. It has a beginning, is operating and will have an end. Birth, life and death are built into its very material existence.

 We are called to make decisions that have a threefold basis: a demand for a plan, making the plan and carrying out the plan. That too is built into the fabric of our being. First, we are born into families that nurture us, prepare us, get us an education. Second, we step out, choose a profession. Third, we build a personal and relational life.

 We also have this threefold invisible nature in a physical body. But it is the invisible that dominates its function. Day by day we are confronted by a world that calls for us to make choices and decisions in this invisible structure. 100% of this process is invisible and drives what we do with our bodies, our physical presence in the world. This process makes three demands: recognition, realization and reaction, invisible realities. First, we recognize we must have a foundation for thinking. Second, we must realize the process demands a reaction. Third, our reaction is driven by the initiative we take because of our recognition, realization and their implications. Living is an internal invisible process.

 Everything said here so far is a visible description of an invisible process. The Bible is clear when it says, “So we fix our eyes no on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2Cor.4:18).”

 

There is one thing that must be accepted if we follow the natural structure into which we are born. Because it is invisible it is a spiritual reality, process and task. Spiritual reality calls for a total inner reorientation. How we spiritually conceive ourselves to be (identity), how we spiritually perceive and receive its reality (truth) and how we react (relationally) determines who, why and what we are in every next moment.

 What we believe with our mind gives us our identity. Who we trust gives our heart a model for our relationships.   How we react is what motivates our spirit to step out and live. Again, this is a spiritual process of thought and acceptance. It is an invisible process. Therefore, the question has to be asked, “Who are we willing to trust in this invisible dimension because that is what consumes 100% of our time in this world?”

 The Lord Jesus went to a lot of hardship, pain, aloneness and personal investment (His death), to bring us to Himself. Everything He did was spiritually motivated. Every word He spoke, every action He undertook, every physical movement He made, was spiritually motivated. It was His spiritual focus on His Father’s Will, Word and Wisdom that differentiated Him from all other human beings past, present and future. He revealed the exact nature of God. Up to the time of Jesus it was imperfect sinful mankind that defined the invisible forces surrounding them. It was Jesus who actually revealed Him by the way He believed, the truth He told and life He lived. By all that was said above, the process He undertook was to reveal and define what a real personal identity and relationship consisted of. He believed, trusted and had faith in His Father. It takes knowing what we believe, who we trust and how we react to live in the spiritual dimension.

Here’s the bottom line in all this: The ‘Three’ is the fountainhead of Creation, God Himself. He is One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each equal and balanced in the other and everything comes out of that structure. It is their perfect unity that makes them One. That is what He does when He come into our hearts. He is correcting what the devil’s sin has done to throw us out of balance by attacking our reasoning, our emotionality and our motivation where we are weakest. He tempts us at the vulnerable point of our insecurities. He subtly works on our spiritual ignorance, our inner fear for our identity and acceptance and our lonely pride in defending who and what we have made ourselves to be.

 What the Lord Jesus did was to come into a human body and show the perfect balance of the ‘Three’ in Him and call us to relate to Him personally as He takes the broken self-centered ‘three’ in us and restores it through His Holy Spirit. That’s what salvation really is, the spiritual process He lived moment by moment, given to us. The Cross summed up His life process and the Resurrection proved it. To take up our cross is to believe in Him, trust in Him and be faithful as He directs. It’s a lifetime spiritual recovery process. One that is not done alone but with His Holy Spirit moving in us and moving in other believers, who together, form a spiritual family of brothers and sisters, His Body, the Body of Christ. The process is completed when we cross the threshold into eternal His Kingdom. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.