Introduction: Gospel Formed Life

The Way, the Truth, the Life.

“We don’t know the way!?”

It might not carry that exact punctuation in scripture, but that is the feel of Thomas’ bold and brash statement to Jesus in John 14. His statement comes in response to a quick teaching from Jesus near the end of his time with the disciples. Jesus says he is going to a home where there are many rooms. He must go and prepare a place for them. Then he will come and get them to be with him.

Then, in a moment of confusion for the disciples, Jesus assuredly states, “You know the place to where I am going.” More literally, “Where I am going, you know the way.” It’s a clumsy statement in English, but in Greek, it is a literary device connecting his previous statements with the ones to come. His discussion will now focus on “the way.”

Thomas speaks with doubt, curiosity, and confusion as he does throughout the Gospel of John. He says, “We don’t know where you are going, so how could we know the way?”

As Jesus replies, you can imagine him intimately fixing his eyes on Thomas. His words are soft and firm, “I am the way.” His gaze moves to the rest of the disciples as he continues, “and the truth and the life.”

John has been pointing to what Thomas misses in his questioning since the opening chapter of the Gospel though it is often overlooked in our English translation. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his cousin, John the Baptist, affirms him as “the lamb of God.” Two of John’s disciples hear this statement and begin to follow Jesus instead of John. Jesus looks back at the two following him and asks, “What do you want?” Literally, “what do you seek?”

Their reply is what would be expected from any new follower, “where are you staying?” The key to the text that is often overlooked in our English translations is the word translated “staying.” This word in Greek is meno, which is the word for dwell or abide. John uses it nearly forty times in his Gospel, and almost all are theologically significant. Look at just these four passages where the word is used. I have italicized the word in each of the occurrences.

John 8:31-32: “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

John 12:25: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

John 14:10: “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”

John 15:7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

So the question these two new disciples ask is a theologically loaded double entendre. They ask, “where are you staying at?” Yet, Jesus hears, “where do you dwell? Where do you abide?”

He replies, “Come and see.”

This quick narrative forms the foundation for discipleship in the Gospel of John and is the background to Thomas’ question. The way to discover where Jesus abides is by following him. It’s by joining him along the way. Jesus uses the noun of meno, mone, in his earlier statement. “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (the Greek word mone; John 14:2). To be a disciple of Jesus is to dwell with him by following him. He invites us to come and see where he dwells.

So often, when we read Jesus' statement, “I am the way and the truth and the life,” we think of these three things as different silos of Jesus’ relationship with us. So, we teach them as separate but interrelated dimensions of our relationship with Jesus. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. Yet, what if we understood Jesus' statement in John 14:6 as the movement of a Gospel formed life? Rather than three separate silos, Jesus is giving one formative direction. We follow him as the way where he leads us into the truth that then guides us into the life.

This reading makes more sense in the broader concept of discipleship in John. Jesus invites his disciples to first “come and see” the way before they ever fully recognize the truth of Jesus.

I think we often think of Spiritual transformation and growth backward. We want to start with the truth and let that form the way. Yet, as so many psychologists and anthropologists continue to point out, our behavior often dictates our understanding of truth more than our understanding of truth dictates our behavior. Jesus starts first by changing our behavior, by changing our way. This change of practice leads us to a more profound, eternal truth that breaks through to eternal life.

The rest of this study will be built around this discipleship movement. As we explore the next seven aspects of the Gospel, we will start each week with a practice of the way. Then throughout the week, we will learn the truth taught through that practice. Of course, there is more to be learned than a week of practice can offer, but it is a start.

Two disciples began to follow Jesus in John 1. The first is quickly named Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. The other is never named. Some scholars think it is John himself. It’s possible. Yet, it also might be that John wants to keep the other disciple nameless on purpose so that we might find our own call to follow Jesus in the unnamed disciple. Jesus still calls each of us today, “Come and see.”