WHAT DID JESUS MEAN? (2)
'I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.' John 14:6
Jesus Christ was not an ordinary insignificant preacher we might find on any street corner: not even just a 'good' teacher. He was God's Son, God's final and complete revelation of Himself: God's ultimate self-disclosure to the world. Jesus Christ's message was God's concluding statement to a lost world of people.
This lost world of people does not know how to live to please God. And most do not even want to do that. We are a self-indulgent, self-centred race who are only interested in what pleases us and our narrow view of what life really is. No one knows anymore what 'truth' is, or believes that there is such a thing as absolute truth.
But Jesus Christ was sent by God to tell us the secret of real life and truth. Real life is only lived when it is in conscious connection with God Himself. Real truth is only found on the lips of Jesus Christ and in the writings of those who knew Him and talked with Him. Only by listening to Him and them can we discover the way to truth and life.
But there is a very special way in which Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life.
We are all guilty before God for the way we have lived. He demands righteous living: absolute obedience to His declared law, exemplified in the Ten Commandments. Jesus declared the most important of them were to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind' and 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' (Jesus in Matthew 22:37,38) None of us has come remotely near to doing this. This is sin. So we are subject to God's condemnation. But Jesus Christ died on the Cross in our place to take the punishment for our sin so that by putting our trust in Him may be forgiven. No other preacher or teacher or prophet has ever done this for us. So no-one can be forgiven and come to God the Father, except through Jesus and what He did on the Cross.