Jesus Christ—the Way, the Truth, and the Life
Daniel Moss · · Scripture quotations: KJV
There is a reason the words “the Way” stay with me. They bring me back to Jesus Himself.
We can spend a great deal of time asking what Christians ought to build, what our community needs, and how we should care for people who suffer. Those questions matter. But before we ask what we should do, we need to be clear about the One we are asking people to follow.
Jesus is not a name we add to our plans to make them holy. He is the Lord before whom our plans must bow.
On the night before His crucifixion, He spoke to troubled disciples about going to the Father. Thomas did not understand the way. Jesus answered:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
—John 14:6, KJV, excerpt
That promise is personal and exclusive. Our access to the Father rests in Christ. It is an invitation to trust Him, and it leaves us no grounds for pretending we can bring ourselves to GOD by another road.
The One who came to us
John's Gospel begins before Bethlehem. The Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD. All things were made through Him. Then the Word became flesh (John 1:1–14).
The Savior truly entered our human life. He knew hunger, weariness, grief, and suffering. Yet He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). His humanity was real; His deity was not set aside as though He stopped being who He eternally is.
The Father sends the Son, the Son willingly comes, and the Holy Spirit gives life. Scripture teaches us to confess Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while worshiping the one GOD (Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; Acts 5:3–4). We must not flatten that truth into three gods or into one person merely changing names.
Some passages make us slow down. Jesus says the Father is greater than He is (John 14:28). We should hear those words alongside His willing humiliation, His glory with the Father before the world existed, and John's testimony that the Word was GOD (Philippians 2:5–11; John 17:5; John 1:1). His obedience does not give us permission to erase His deity.
We do not need to understand everything about GOD before coming to Christ. We do need to receive the Christ Scripture reveals.
The mercy guilty people need
Our deepest problem is not that we have failed to make enough of ourselves. We have sinned against GOD.
That includes sins people see and sins we know how to hide: pride, dishonesty, greed, lust, hatred, and the refusal to love. Another person's greater public disgrace does not make us innocent. Romans 3 leaves us without a righteousness of our own on which to base our acceptance.
Then it tells us about grace.
Jesus Christ died for our sins. First Peter 2:24 says He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He gave Himself willingly. The cross shows both the seriousness of our guilt and the greatness of GOD's love. Forgiveness does not mean GOD decided evil did not matter. Christ supplies what sinners cannot supply for themselves.
And He rose bodily from the dead. Paul insists that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is empty and we remain in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17). Our hope rests on a living Savior, who reigns and intercedes for those who come to GOD through Him (Hebrews 7:25).
We receive salvation by grace through faith. Kindness, religious knowledge, baptismal boasting, and years of church attendance cannot become wages that put GOD in our debt. Christ is our righteousness. We have Him to trust, not a record impressive enough to cancel our guilt.
Come to Him—and follow Him
Jesus calls us to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). Repentance means turning from sin toward GOD. Faith means trusting Christ. Neither is a demand to repair ourselves completely before approaching Him.
His promise in John 6:37 is that He will not cast out the one who comes to Him. The trembling sinner has somewhere to go.
But grace does not make disobedience harmless. Titus 2:11–14 describes grace teaching people to renounce ungodliness and live for GOD. Ephesians 2:8–10 excludes salvation earned by works and then describes the good works for which believers are created.
James presses the question harder: what good is a claim to faith that leaves a hungry person without help? He says a person is justified by works and not by faith only (James 2:24). We must let that challenge empty profession. Read alongside Romans 4, the point is not that our deeds purchase GOD's favor. Living faith acts. A claim to faith that refuses its fruit needs examination.
That examination belongs at home before we aim it at strangers. Are we honest when dishonesty would pay? Do we confess sin without hiding behind someone else's? Do we seek purity, forgive, keep promises, and care for people who cannot repay us?
We will still need forgiveness. First John warns against claiming to be without sin and points believers who sin to Jesus Christ, their Advocate (1 John 1:8–2:2). Growth brings us repeatedly to Him.
A people who need one another
Following Christ draws us into a shared life. In Acts 2, those who receive the word are baptized and continue in apostolic teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. They care about one another's needs.
An article can help us study, but it cannot carry all the responsibilities of a congregation. We need people who can pray with us, teach truthfully, notice when we disappear, bear burdens, and correct us with patience.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper belong to the life Christ gives His church. They should not disappear from our teaching because Christians disagree about details. Those disagreements deserve careful study under Scripture. Our shared starting point must include taking His commands seriously.
Leadership also carries obligations. Scripture gives qualifications for overseers and deacons and forbids shepherds to dominate the flock (1 Timothy 3; 1 Peter 5:1–4). Agreement with my preferences does not qualify someone to lead. Children need protection. Money requires honesty. Vulnerable people must not be asked to bear the cost of protecting someone's reputation.
If we speak of being His hands and feet, this is part of what we mean: dependent members of His body serving under His authority. We cannot take His place as Savior.
Hope with room for tears
Christ does not promise His people an easy road. Romans 8 describes creation groaning and believers waiting for the redemption of their bodies. Yet suffering will not have the final word.
Peter compares tested faith to gold refined by fire (1 Peter 1:6–7). That does not make cruelty good. It does not require a child to remain unsafe or an injured person to be silent. Christian hope gives us reason to protect, comfort, and remain present.
Poverty does not purchase heaven. Wealth does not prove GOD's approval. The last becoming first should humble our calculations of worth and entitlement, not become another way to earn salvation through hardship.
Christ will return. The dead will rise. There will be judgment. We must not speak so often about comfort that we hide His warnings, or so often about judgment that we hide His invitation. The future He promises His people includes life with GOD, with death and sorrow finally overcome (Revelation 21:1–8).
Until then, we have neighbors to love. We can feed someone, visit, listen, protect a child, support a burdened family, and speak truth about Jesus. We can seek the good of our community without promising that every act of obedience will produce the outcome we want.
We serve because we have received mercy. We speak because Christ is worthy to be known. We hope because He died and rose again.
He is the Way. Let us come to Him, and let His Word teach us how to walk.
Read the passages in context
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