Jesus · c. AD 30
Chapter 53
The Way, the Truth and the Life
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
For parents
Jesus warns his disciples that the world will hate them as it hated him, that they will be put out of the synagogues, and that whoever kills them will think he is doing God a service (John 15:18–16:4). It is told plainly, with nothing added.
had taken the piece of bread and gone straight out. It was night. had told the rest of his that he would be with them a little while longer, and that they would look for him, but where he was going, they couldn’t come. When asked where he was going, Jesus told him he couldn’t follow now, but would follow afterward. Peter said he would lay down his life for him, and Jesus answered that before the rooster crowed, Peter would deny him three times.
“Don’t let your heart be troubled,” Jesus said. “Believe in God. Believe in me too. In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that way, where I am, you may be there too. You know where I am going, and you know the way.”
said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father too. From now on, you know him, and you have seen him.”
said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
“Have I been with you such a long time, Philip, and you don’t know me?” Jesus said. “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. So why do you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? When I speak to you, I don’t speak on my own. It is the Father living in me who does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. If not, believe me because of the works themselves.
“I tell you for certain, if someone believes in me, he will do the works that I do too. He will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father. Whatever you ask for in my name, I will do it, so the Father may be glorified in the Son. And if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
“If you love me, keep my commandments. I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another , so that he may be with you forever. The Counselor is the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive, because it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you.
“I won’t leave you orphans. I will come to you. Only a little while longer, and the world will see me no more. But you will see me. Because I live, you will live as well. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Anyone who has my commandments and keeps them is someone who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
Then Judas, not Judas Iscariot, said to him, “Lord, why is it that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?”
Jesus answered him, “If someone loves me, he will obey my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Anyone who doesn’t love me doesn’t obey my words. And the word you are hearing isn’t mine. It is the word of the Father who sent me.
“I have told you these things while I am still living with you. But the Counselor, the , whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I told you.
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. The way the world gives is not the way I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, and don’t let it be fearful.
“You heard how I told you, ‘I am going away, and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would have been glad that I said, ‘I am going to my Father,’ because the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.
“I won’t be speaking much more with you, because the prince of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But I am doing just what the Father commanded me, so the world may know that I love the Father. Get up, let’s go from here.”
Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, so that it will bear more fruit. You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
“Remain in me, and I in you. A branch can’t bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, and neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
“If anyone doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch and dries up. Branches like that are gathered and thrown into the fire, and they burn. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you can ask for whatever you like, and it will be done for you.
“My Father is glorified when you bear much fruit, and so you will be my disciples. The Father has loved me, and I have loved you in the same way. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have said this so that my joy may remain in you, and your joy may be full.
“This is my commandment: that you love one another, just as I have loved you. No love is greater than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.
“I don’t call you servants anymore, since a servant doesn’t know what his master does. But I have called you friends, because everything I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
“You didn’t choose me; I chose you. And I appointed you so that you would go and bear fruit that will remain, and so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I command you these things so that you may love one another.
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But you are not of the world, because I chose you out of the world. So the world hates you.
“Remember the word I said to you: ‘A servant isn’t greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, then they will persecute you as well. If they obeyed my word, then they will also obey yours. But they will do all these things to you because of my name, since they don’t know the one who sent me.
“If I hadn’t come and spoken to them, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. Now, though, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father too. If I hadn’t done works among them that no one else did, they wouldn’t be guilty of sin. Now, though, they have seen, and they have also hated both me and my Father. But this has happened so that the word written in their law would come true: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
“I will send the Counselor to you from the Father. He is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. When he has come, he will testify about me. You will testify too, because you have been with me from the beginning.
“I have said these things to you so that you won’t stumble. They will put you out of the . Yes, the time is coming when whoever kills you will think he’s doing God a service. They will do these things because they have not known the Father, and have not known me.
“But I have told you these things so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you about them. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.
“But now I am going to the one who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth: it is better for you if I go away. If I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
“When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment. About sin, because they don’t believe in me. About righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me anymore. About judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. He won’t speak on his own. Whatever he hears, he will speak. He will tell you about things that are coming.
“He will glorify me, since he will take from what is mine and tell it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. That’s why I said he takes what is mine and will tell it to you.
“A little while, and you won’t see me. Again a little while, and you will see me.”
Some of his disciples asked one another, “What does he mean when he tells us, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I go to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what he is saying.”
Jesus could tell that they wanted to ask him, and he said to them, “Are you asking each other about what I said: ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?
“I tell you for certain, you will weep and grieve, but the world will rejoice. You will be full of sorrow, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman giving birth has sorrow, because her time has come. But when the child has been born, she doesn’t remember the pain anymore, because of her joy that a human being is born into the world. So now you have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
“In that day you won’t ask me any questions. I tell you for certain, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.
“I have told you these things in figures of speech. But the time is coming when I won’t speak to you in figures of speech anymore, but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name. And I don’t say to you that I will pray to the Father for you. The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”
His disciples said to him, “Look, now you are speaking plainly, and using no figures of speech. Now we know that you know all things, and you don’t need anyone to question you. Because of this, we believe that you came from God.”
Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now? Look, the time is coming, yes, it has already come, when you will be scattered, each of you to his own place, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
After Jesus had said these things, he looked up to heaven. “Father,” he said, “the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that your Son may also glorify you.
“Just as you gave him authority over all people, he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him. This is eternal life: that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus .
“I glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me beside you, with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.
“I revealed your name to the people you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word. Now they have come to know that all the things you have given me are from you, for the words you gave me I have given to them. They received them, and knew for sure that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.
“I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
“I am not in the world anymore, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.
“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. I have kept those you have given me. None of them is lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture would come true. But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves.
“I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I don’t pray that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
“ them in your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world. For their sake I sanctify myself, so that they too may be sanctified in truth.
“I don’t pray for these alone, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, so the world may believe that you sent me.
“The glory which you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one, so the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me.
“Father, I desire that those you have given me also be with me where I am, so they may see my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.
“Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you, and these knew that you sent me. I made known to them your name, and will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”