John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me. We hear much of the Fatherhood of God, and cannot hear too much if the doctrine be truly stated. It is not a new doctrine. The heathen knew something of it; it is in the Old Testament, while it is the very substance of the New. Only in the latter, what heathenism never knew, and what the Law and the Prophets only taught imperfectly, God is our Father in the Eternal Son. This distinctly Christian doctrine is declared in our text — I. POLEMICALLY. It protests against certain religious teachings which contravene it. Throughout His ministry Christ was in conflict with men who held a false doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. 1. There were those who represented God as though He looked on His human offspring with a complacency which winked at all moral distinctions. The Supreme Father looked upon all with equal indifference. In opposition to this Christ taught that man was estranged from God through sin. He had lost the knowledge of God and was spiritually dark; the favour of God and was guilty; the image of God and was corrupt; the life of God and was dead in trespasses and sins; and that men could only secure the prerogatives of sonship by intervention from without. There are those today who teach the old doctrines of a philosophical Sadduceeism. Christianity challenges them. Appealing to Christ's credentials as a Teacher sent from God, it proclaims to the world that God hath given unto us eternal life, and that this life is by a Mediator whom He hath ordained. There is no absurdity in the doctrine. Who but God can determine how we may most fitly come to Him? And as the Mediatorship is actually constituted, what lessons touching Divine love and holiness, and human helplessness and dignity, does it not pour into our ears. 2. But Christ's ministry did battle even more keenly with those who held that God was their Father through mediatorship. Angels, Abraham, Moses, saintly pedigree, holy observances, etc., were their mouthpieces with God, and stepping stones to immortality. Christ told them they carried a lie in their right hand; that there was but one Mediator — Himself. Alas! we have the doctrine of the Pharisees too. Men are heard proclaiming that the prayer of a disembodied saint, the magic of a Christian rite, etc., have the stupendous power to join heaven and earth together. The New Testament pronounces all this to be falsehood. Our alms, deeds, lastings, communions, baptisms, etc. — these bridge the gulf between us and God I What does a man think of himself, what does he think of God, who takes up with such a hypothesis? II. DOCTRINALLY. Taken with its context, the text is the summary and index of a most large and precious Scripture teaching. How do men come to the Father through Christ? Necessarily the Person, character, and history of the Mediator will have much to do with the nature and method of His mediation. Who the Mediator was let John tell us (chap. John 1), and His character and history let him and his brethren tell. With these facts in view men have held that the value of Christ's mediation consists in the energy of the truth He taught, and the force of His example. Others explain that by His perfect fulfilment of the will of God as our representative, He became so acceptable to God, that by reason of what He did God is now the loving Father of us all, and in Him all men are already virtually, and will be by and by actually justified and glorified. Now both these theories mistake the entire basis, method and scope of Christ's Mediatorship, which is essentially an economy of holy law, in which God and man sustain not simply the relations of Father and Son, but those of moral Governor and rational and responsible creature. According to Scripture — 1. Christ's blood has made satisfaction in law to Divine justice for the sins of all mankind, by virtue of which sin is expiated, and all men through personal faith may find mercy and acceptance. 2. As the recompense of the Redeemer's passion. God gives to the world by Christ's hands His Holy Spirit, by whom assurance of pardon is given, and new birth to righteousness. 3. Under the reign of Christ believers are protected from the evil that is in the world; subjected to providential discipline, and furnished with strength to do the will of God and make their way to everlasting life. III. EVANGELICALLY AND PROMISSORY. Men can only come to God by Christ; but by Him there is free access for every soul. To come to the Father is — 1. To know God. 2. To be the object of the love of God. 3. To be with God forever.Conclusion: 1. The words illuminate the widest possible area of religious truth. God is and always has been, whether as Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, the Father of men through a Mediator. 2. Within a narrower circle, Christ's doctrine lays down broad lines of duty and privilege for the Church of God. Let no false charity presume to enlarge what God has straitened. It is at the Church's peril that it dares to cripple man's evangelical liberty. 3. The text speaks with a gracious but authoritative voice to every hearer of the gospel. (1) Do not hope to find God without Christ. (2) Do not treat Christ as though His Mediatorship was inadequate. (3) Let no man despise or neglect the Mediator, "How shall we escape," etc. (J. D. Geden, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. |
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