And ye know where I go, and ye know the way.
Jesus has just told His disciples that He is leaving to prepare a place for them in His Father's house. Now He tells them they already know both the destination and the road. That raises two questions: where was He going, and how could men who had never been there know the way?
(The writers below use an older translation: "Where I go you know, and the way you know.")
Where was He going? The answer is not a place on any map:
"Where I go you know," the Lord says, pointing it out even more definitely. He was not going into the universe, nor to any place that earth was part of. His hour had come to leave this world and go to the Father. But how did they know the place so well, and the way, despite Thomas? Because it was the Father's presence — a far more definite thing to me than the word "heaven." He was the way to the Father, just as the Father was revealed in Him. So they knew the Father's house.
How could they know a place they had never seen? Thomas said they could not:
Thomas contradicts this outright: "Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?" But Thomas was badly mistaken. They knew where He was going by knowing Himself. In Him they had learned everything that gave character to the place. If I wanted to know your house I might get to know it without knowing much about you, but in the things of God it is otherwise. We know divine things by knowing divine Persons. The way to get to know the place is to get to know the Person who is in the place.
So what makes that house worth going to?
I am going to the Father's house, and you shall be there too. And what makes the blessedness of the Father's house? The Father being there, and brothers and sisters there. We do not think about the place or the state in connection with the Father's house, though there are these as well. The great thing to our hearts is the Person there — the object in the house — the Father. No one can go to the Father "but by Me." If I know the Father, I know where I am going. It is He who makes it a home to me.
They had been with Jesus a long time, and Philip still wanted to know the Father:
Philip thought that if only he knew the Father, he could know the Father's house. Jesus says, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." Every trait of the blessedness of the Father's house shone out in the Person and ways of the Son here below. The heart that knows the Son knows the Father too, even the feeblest baby. It is no matter of attainment; the Lord Jesus would start us with it.
The Lord credits them with knowledge they had not yet felt:
God always treats us according to what He has really given us, treating us as though we had realised it all. So in John the Lord says, "And where I go you know, and the way you know." They did know HIM who was truly the way to the Father. Yet Thomas objected, "We do not know the way," because they had never realised it.
One writer names the cause: "Then, as always, overlooking His glorious Person is what left them bewildered." (William Kelly)
Thomas's mistake carries a lesson about how to handle words of Christ we cannot yet follow:
What Thomas should have done was not to sit in judgment on the words of his Master. He was only trading words with the Lord. Instead of saying what he did, he should have asked, "Well, Lord, and what next?" and so taken the place of a learner. It makes a wonderful difference which place we take. Are we receivers from Him, or judges of what He says?
- Person, not place. We know divine things by knowing divine Persons. Know the One who is there, and you know the place.
- Person as destination. He was going to the Father's presence, not to any place that earth is part of. The Father makes that house a home.
- Person seen already. Every trait of that house shone out in the ways of the Son in front of them. To know the Son was to know the Father.
- Person overlooked. They lost sight of who He was. They had the knowledge, but had never realised it.
- Person to be trusted. Thomas judged his Master's words instead of asking, "Well, Lord, and what next?" — the difference between a receiver and a critic.
Thomas says to him, Lord, we know not where thou goest, and how can we know the way?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Jesus says to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me.
Thomas had just admitted he did not know where his Master was going, so he could not know the road either. The answer he received was not a set of directions but a Person — and with it a claim that shuts out every other route to God.
Thomas assumed that knowing a destination meant knowing facts about it. One writer points out that he already had what he said he lacked, because he had the Lord Himself:
But Thomas was mistaken, for they knew where He was going by knowing Him. In Him they had learned everything that gave character to the place. If I wanted to know your house, I could get to know it without knowing much about you. But in the things of God it is different. We know divine things by knowing divine Persons. The way to become acquainted with the place is to become acquainted with the Person who is in the place.
A road only matters where people are lost. One commentator traces the need back to the moment sin entered. Sin turned the world into ground with no path:
A way is a great gift, especially through a wilderness which by its nature has no way. Eden, or unfallen creation, had no way either; but then it needed none... But sin came in, and death with it, the forerunner of judgment. Everything was changed into a wilderness. Men wandered in every direction, all of them away from God and hopelessly wrong. It became a wilderness-world, an empty place with no road... Now there is a road, for Christ is the Way. He is the only sure Way for the worst of straying sinners. He is the open way for the lost, whom He came to seek and to save.
To be the truth is to be more than a truthful teacher. The same writer explains that Christ shows two things at once: God's own nature, and the true pattern of man:
Further, He is the Truth, the full expression of everyone and of everything as they are. He tells us in His own Person what God is; He shows us the Father, being Himself the Son. But He, not Adam, shows us man. Adam, no doubt, shows us falling or fallen man; Christ alone is man according to God... Moreover, as He shows us holiness and righteousness, so also He brings out sin in its true colours.
The three titles are not a list of equals thrown together. One commentator shows how each title answers a new problem. The last one gives man the power to receive the first two:
The Lord shows Thomas his mistake. He assures him that He Himself was the Way, and that only through Him could anyone come to God. And not only that; He was also the Truth — the revelation of God. But man was dead and could not receive the truth. So He was the Life as well, the life men needed in order to receive it. Everything man needed was found in Him.
The verse names a destination, and it is a Person, not simply heaven. This connects the answer back to the Father's house spoken of a few verses earlier:
We will notice first the beginning of it all, the way to the Father... No way but through Him — through His blood — the new and living way now opened for us into the holiest of all, the very presence of God. This links back to verses 1 to 3. Those who have access to the Father through Him also have entrance to the Father's house.
The little word "the" carries the weight of the whole verse. One writer presses each title in turn to show what the wording rules out:
"No one comes to the Father except through Me," said the Son of God. "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." This shuts out every effort of man apart from the Son. It shuts out man even at his very best. The Son is the Way, not simply a way! The Son is the Truth, not simply a portion of it! The Son is the Life, not simply a partial display of it.
That claim has always drawn fire. Another writer warns against softening it to escape the shame:
The Christian faith, and the gospel that proclaims it, still make this exclusive claim today. You can see it in scriptures such as John 6:68; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Galatians 1:8-9. Some men today go to the Buddhist or the follower of Confucius and admit that their religions are ways to God. They claim only that "Christianity" offers a better way. In doing so they bring themselves close to the curse the apostle pronounces in Galatians 1:8, and perhaps under it. At the same time they escape the shame that the gospel brings. It is this exclusive claim, built into the gospel, which provokes the opposition.
- Way. Sin turned the world into a wilderness with no road; Christ is the road back, and the only sure one for the most straying of sinners.
- Truth. He shows everything as it truly is — what God is, what man was meant to be, and what sin is.
- Life. Man was dead and could not receive the truth, so Christ gives the Life that makes receiving possible.
- Father. The destination is a Person, not a place. Those who reach the Father through His blood also enter the Father's house.
- Only. He is not a way, a portion of truth, or a partial life — and that exclusive claim is exactly what the world resists.
If ye had known me, ye would have known also my Father, and henceforth ye know him and have seen him.
Jesus has been telling His disciples the way to the Father. Now He goes further: to know the Son is to know the Father, and from this moment the disciples do know Him.
The Son is not a first step towards the Father. He is where the Father is seen.
Next the Saviour lets them know that the knowledge of the Father is inseparable from that of the Son. He is the image of the invisible God. In the Son the Father is known, and this the disciples are now given to learn.
God had never made Himself known like this before. People knew His acts, but not Himself.
Before the death of Christ, God was not so revealed. Until Jesus the Son of God came, God stayed hidden behind a veil. People knew little of Him except by His acts. Then Christ revealed the Father, and made Himself known as the Son. On leaving, He promised to send the Holy Spirit to stay with us for ever. "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known." The Son, the radiance of His glory, has fully shown God in flesh.
Kelly names the God who now comes into view:
It is no longer a question of the Jehovah God of Israel, nor even of the Almighty, the name by which He made Himself known to the patriarchs. There is a richer display of God, and far more intimate. It was God as the Son knew Him, and was making Him known in the fulness of love and fellowship. This God would bring His own who were in the world into the conscious relationship of children, born of Him.
Darby dates the change. Judas has gone out, the cross is in view, and the Lord speaks of it as already done.
From verse 31 of chapter 13 this character of Jesus opens out. From that act He was as good as dead, and He was stating the result: "From now on you do know Him and have seen Him." He speaks as one who knows Him, and this fulness was now revealed in Him. He had been revealed in a certain sense before, as He was to Peter in Matthew 16. Yet He stayed hidden while He lived and was not yet glorified. Then the veil was torn, and the glory seen there was the glory seen in Him.
The verse gives more than access to God. What the disciples receive is the Father Himself.
We next learn the blessed truth, that by coming through Jesus we not only come to the Father, but we get the Father... The poor weak heart does not know its full blessedness in Jesus. It would pour itself into those words: "Show me the Father, and it is enough for me." Only let me know that the Father too is mine, and it is enough — it is all. And that satisfaction is close at hand: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." We cannot separate the two. We cannot get Jesus without getting the Father, because the Father was — and is — in Jesus.
"If you had known me" implies they had not. They had heard Him and watched Him, and still missed who stood in front of them.
The disciples, like Israel, had heard and witnessed His marvellous words and works, but never really grasped what they heard and saw.
The knowledge He asks for is not new information. It grows from time spent with Him.
"You who have followed Me, who know what kind of Person I am, who have seen My ways, who have heard My voice, who have watched My character — now everything I want to teach you about the Father is set before you in Me." It is like a child learning what its father is like in the small things of home and school.
- Missed — The disciples had heard His words and seen His works, and still had not known Him, though the Father's whole character stood before them in the Person they followed.
- Known — The Father is known nowhere but in the Son. In Him the invisible God becomes visible.
- New — Until the Son came, God stayed hidden behind a veil, and people knew Him mainly by His acts. Now Christ makes Him known as the Son knows Him.
- Given — Christ is not only the way to the Father. Through Him we receive the Father Himself, for the Father was and is in Jesus.
- Dated — "From now on" marks a real turning point. Judas has gone out, the cross is in view, and the glory hidden through His life now stands out.
Philip says to him, Lord, shew us the Father and it suffices us.
Philip's words come near the end of a long evening of teaching, after Jesus has spoken of His Father's house. It sounds like the highest thing anyone could ask for. Yet the Lord's answer carries real pain.
Philip has caught something true: that a place is only as good as the Person who fills it. One writer links his words to the Father's house the Lord had just spoken of.
Philip wanted to know more about the place. He seemed to grasp that the Person makes the place — that the Father is all the joy and blessedness of the Father's house. So he prays, "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us." What a blessing it is, by grace, to know that we need nothing else to fill and satisfy the whole being.
The problem lay in what kind of showing Philip had in mind. He wanted something his eyes could take in. The Lord was speaking about a different kind of seeing. One writer sets him beside Thomas, another disciple who also could not see past physical things.
Philip, like Thomas, cannot rise above physical things. Thomas thought of a physical place. Philip thinks of physical sight, and so says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." The Lord's reply shows that He is speaking of the seeing that belongs to faith.
Read on its own, the request sounds admirable — and this from a man who had once brought others to Jesus. But it was not a step forward.
Philip says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." To many readers this might seem an excellent wish. It comes from a man who had seen Jesus himself and had helped others who wanted to see Him. But it was sad unbelief. The Lord had just spoken patient, gracious words to lead them on.
But Philip did not doubt everything. It is worth naming what he did not believe.
The Lord's rebuke of Philip was aimed less at his unbelief about the Person of the Son, and more at his unbelief about the revelation of the Father which the Son had made. The first is bound up in the second.
Philip was asking for a separate display of the Father. He wanted Him to appear in some form other than the Son. One writer answers by pointing to the ordinary substance of Christ's life — what He said and what He did.
The Lord patiently explains to Philip that He Himself, as a Man here, gave a full and blessed display of everything the Father is. His words were the Father's words; His works were the Father's works... When they looked at Jesus the Son as Man here, they were looking at what the Father is. There is no difference between the Father and the Son.
That also settles where anyone should look who shares Philip's longing today.
It is pointless, then, to look anywhere else, or to look for something beyond what He has already made known. The Son alone gives us the knowledge of the Father, and He reveals the Father fully.
Philip spoke as though he still had ground to cover. In fact, whoever comes to Christ has already arrived — and Philip was right that the Father would be enough.
His very presence here was to declare the Father. That His own disciples still did not know the Father, after all this, wounds Him in the deepest way... If we have truly come to Christ, we have no further journey to make to reach the Father. We already have the very depth of the Father's heart laid open. And oh, what a wonderful joy it is to take this in by simple faith! Philip was at least right in saying, "It is enough for us"; and nothing less than this can satisfy us.
- Right longing. Philip was right that the Father would be enough. Nothing less than knowing the Father can satisfy anyone.
- Wrong request. He asked for physical sight, while the Lord was speaking of the seeing that belongs to faith.
- Real grief. His words were unbelief. He had missed the Father whom the Son had already revealed.
- One place to look. The Son's words and works show the Father. There is no other display of Him, and nothing beyond Him to find.
- Already enough. Whoever has come to Christ has no further journey to make. In Him the Father's heart lies open — and that is enough.
Jesus says to him, Am I so long a time with you, and thou hast not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how sayest thou, Shew us the Father?
Philip has just asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, saying that would be enough for them. The Lord's answer points them nowhere new. It points them back to Himself, and to the years they had already spent watching Him.
Philip's question was not idle. He had grasped what makes the Father's house worth going to.
Philip wanted to know more about the place. He seemed to grasp that the Person makes the place. The Father is all the joy and blessedness of the Father's house. So he prayed, "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us." How wonderful, by grace, to have the sense that nothing else is needed to fill and satisfy the whole being.
The Lord's reply carries pain. Philip had lived beside the One sent to reveal the Father, and still asked to see Him.
The Lord's reply to Philip is an expression of pain at his lack of understanding… His very presence here was to declare the Father. That His disciples should still not know the Father, after all this, wounds Him in the deepest way… It is a tender but sad rebuke. Had Philip really not known that He was on the Father's mission? that He was Himself the love-gift of God? But we are even less excusable if we do not know it now… If we have truly come to Christ, we do not have a further journey to make to reach the Father. We have had the very depth of the Father's heart told out to us.
Philip wanted something his eyes could take in. But crowds had watched Jesus for years and saw only a workman.
The unbelieving world did not see the Son; all they saw was the supposed son of Joseph — the carpenter. Only faith could see, in that lowly Man, the only begotten Son who came to declare the Father… Abraham could tell us that God is Almighty. Moses could tell us that God is the I AM, eternal and unchanging. But neither Abraham nor Moses was great enough to declare the heart of the Father to us. None but a divine Person is great enough to reveal a divine Person.
The Lord's question — how long He had been with them — is itself the evidence.
Philip says to Him, "Show us the Father," and the Lord answers, in effect: Whom have you been looking at all the time I have been with you? Whose words have you been listening to? Whose works have you seen? Whose moral nature has been displayed before your eyes? "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."
That revelation happened on earth, in a life we can still watch.
The nature, character and disposition of God came to light in the Son of God in this world, and not after He ascended back to where He was before. "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father" was what came out down here, and we do need to contemplate Jesus as He walked if we want to see this in all its fullness.
This is not only a claim about the Father. It is a claim about who Jesus Himself is.
Here the Lord expressly teaches His essential Godhead as one with the Father. No doubt distinct as to personality, as He elsewhere shows, when He says, "the Father is greater than I." But the point insisted on is that He is one in essence…
If that is so, the search for God has an end.
If we want to know God the Father, where are we to learn Him? "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." Have our hearts ever looked at Christ as an object and said, while looking, "I have nothing more to seek"? Just think what it is to look at the Lord in the power of the Spirit of God. In that poor despised Man you see One who was God walking on the earth. So when someone sat down beside Him and told Him his sin, he was telling it to God!
- Request — Philip asked for the Father because he sensed that the Person, not the place, is the joy of that home. His instinct was right. He was already looking at the answer.
- Rebuke — The reply is grief, not anger. To live beside the Son and still ask for the Father wounds Him. We have even less excuse.
- Revelation — His words, His works, His whole moral nature showed the Father on earth. That is why we still watch how He walked.
- Recognition — The world saw only a carpenter. Faith sees the Son who came to make the Father known. Only a divine Person can reveal a divine Person.
- Rest — Coming to Christ is not a stage on the way to the Father; there is no further journey and nothing more to seek.
Believest thou not that I [am] in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words which I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does the works.
Philip had just asked the Lord to show him the Father. This verse is the answer: Jesus points to Himself — to His own words and His own works. Two questions sit at the centre. What does it mean that He is in the Father and the Father in Him? And why does He say the words He speaks are not His own?
The words "show us the Father" assume that something more is still to come. The answer closes that door.
Jesus replied, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." So it is useless to look anywhere else, or to hope for some advance on what has been made known in Him. We are limited to the Son for the knowledge of the Father, and in Him the Father is fully revealed.
Everything here turns on who Jesus is. Human reasoning stumbles over such a claim, and the works He did stood behind it.
Everything turned on the glory of His Person. The oneness of the Godhead was the central truth Israel had to testify to, and it was a difficulty for the reasoning mind of man, which cannot rise above its own experience. The law and the prophets had prepared the way, and so had John the Baptist's witness. But more than that, the words Jesus said were not like the words of any other man. They were no mere human things, nor independent of His Father. He had been made flesh, but never ceased to be the Word, the Son; and the works He did bore the unmistakable imprint of the same gracious One — the Father. It was He that did the works. So the disciples were called to believe that He was in the Father, and the Father in Him. Only the Divine nature can be like that. The works themselves bore witness to it, and left unbelievers without excuse.
Notice the odd shape of the sentence. He says the words are not from Himself — yet He does not go on to say that the Father speaks them instead.
I take the words that follow to be connected with these: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." "I do not speak on my own authority." And, "the Father who dwells in me," and so on. He could not say instead, "But the Father speaks"; for the Son was the word of the Father. He did not speak of Himself, yet He could not distinguish the Persons here. He spoke the word of God; being in the Father, He spoke as the Word of God. This showed His unity with the Father — that He did not speak from Himself.
He lived here in dependence on His Father. His works were real proof of who He was, yet He traced them to the Father and not to Himself.
Religious men who were not born again said the Lord Jesus was "making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18), and they therefore sought to kill Him. He was here doing His Father's will, depending on Him, and He explained that He did nothing on His own. He did work that proved who He was: "For the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about Me," He said. But again, "the Father who dwells in Me does His works." He did His works for the Father's honour and in His Name.
The verse begins with words and ends with works. He puts the two on the same level, and that says something about Him we could never say about ourselves.
Being what He was, His words were as perfect as His works... Our words often say either less or more than the truth. We are often humbled to find that we have failed to say even what we wanted to say. Sometimes our imperfect words have left a wrong, even untrue, impression behind. With Him, on the other hand, every word was perfect, and so a ray of His own glory as well as a display of the Father. We find in John 14 that He identifies His words with His works... The words were as perfect as the works, and both alike the revelation of the Father.
The next verse offers a fallback: if not the Person, then at least the works. Commentators read this as a deliberate step down to meet weak faith.
"Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works' sake." Now, the latter surely proved that the Father was in Him... The "believe me" depended on His Person, and brought them into communion, in reliance on His word, with the Father. If they could not see that He was in the Father, and so know the value of His word as speaking the words of God, being so one with the Father, let them take the evidence of His truth from the works He did.
- Look here. Do not look past Christ for the Father. The Son is where the Father is fully revealed.
- Hear Him. His words did not come from Himself. Yet He does not name the Father as the speaker instead, because the Son is the Word of the Father.
- Watch Him. He did His Father's will in dependence on Him. He did nothing on His own, and all of it was for the Father's honour.
- Weigh both. Words and works stand together, each as perfect as the other, and both alike a revelation of the Father.
- Believe Him. The disciples were called to believe a union only the Divine nature makes possible, and the works themselves gave a witness that left unbelief without excuse.