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.