John 14
At the heart of our reading this morning from John chapter 14 lies the well-known claim of Jesus, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." And gathered around that claim are some further affirmations about the one that Jesus calls 'Father' and another whom he calls an Advocate, the Holy Spirit.
These three, of course, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, constitute together the triune God, the one God whom Christians worship and who calls us to live in communion with Him. Now that's a pretty difficult notion. There are three persons here and yet one God. According to some, it's not only difficult; Jehovah's witnesses will tell you that the doctrine of the Trinity is heretical, and Muslim's will tell you that it is polytheism.
Lots of Christians too have difficulty with this notion of the Trinity. Some may go along with it, but they have a hard job making sense of this strange concept of three persons and one God. Others just think that the idea of the Trinity is a complex philosophical notion that the theologians have dreamed up and that it doesn't have much to do with the life and teaching of Jesus.
So I want to talk with you today about the Trinity. John 14 is a good point of reference for our discussion because what is laid out here in John 14 is an account of the three persons and of how, together, they constitute the one God whom we worship.
Let's begin with that claim of Jesus. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." We'll take each part in turn. "I am the Way", first of all. What does it mean, this claim? What does it mean for Jesus to say, I am the way? The way to what?
The way to the Father.
The way of salvation.
In one sense this claim of Jesus is an echo of the Exodus in the Old Testament, when God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt. Now again, Jesus is the way through which we are led out of bondage and into freedom.
We may recall also the prayer of Psalm 86:11, Teach me your way O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Here the prayer of the Psalmist is answered. The way of the Lord is disclosed in Jesus, and we may walk in the Lord's way by walking in the footsteps of Christ.
Note that Jesus says, No one comes to the Father except through me. Not only is Jesus the way; he is the only way. Whatever one might want to say about people of other faiths - good, sincere and devout people - whatever confidence we may have that they too are embraced by the love of God, whatever trust we may have that they too will one day see the glory of God, John 14 makes clear that it is in and through Jesus that the love of God reaches down to the world and opens up the way to his own heart. We can put the matter very simply: Jesus is the Saviour of the world.
What about the second claim: "I am the truth." What are we to make of this?
It is helpful to be aware of the wider cultural context into which the Gospel of John is addressed, and of how this claim of Jesus would impact upon John's first audience. John's audience was probably made up of Gentiles who were shaped by Greek culture and Greek philosophy. Their idea of the truth was that the truth was wholly rational; it was something that could be accessed by the mind, through philosophy. The truth was an ethereal concept accessible only by rising above all the messiness and unreliability of fleshly historical life, and disciplining one's mind to contemplate the eternal logic and rationality of the heavens.
But Jesus says, "I am the truth." Standing there in his working class clothes, his dusty feet, and on his way to be crucified. "I am the truth", Jesus says, and just by doing so he puts a bomb under the supposition that the truth was the preserve of philosophers, an elitist affair, not available to humble folk who should be content instead to know their place and go about their working class business. "I am the truth", Jesus says.
In him, and not through the weighty tomes of the philosophers, we are to learn how things really are with the world. In this carpenter from Nazareth we are confronted with the truth about the universe, the truth about history, the truth about our own lives, about each one of us. In Jesus, God makes known the breadth and depth and height of his purpose for the world, not to those immersed in human wisdom, but to those prepared to keep company with Christ.
Jesus is the truth in that he reveals what the final purpose of God really is. He is the truth in that he reveals what true human life really consists in. He is the truth in that he reveals the Father, and makes known to us the loving heart of God.
It is important to recognise that 'life' in the bible doesn't just mean mundane life, the matter-of-fact reality of our walking around in the world, breathing, eating, sleeping and playing golf. 'Life' in biblical terms means something much more than mere existence. It means life in its fullness, life as it was purposed to be by God, life in communion with him. So when Jesus says, I am the life, what he is saying is that fullness of life, abundant life, life as it was meant to be is present in and with him. You've heard people say, 'She was the life of the party'. Well Jesus might be that, but, more importantly, he is the life of the world, the one in and through whom the world can have life in all its fullness.
"I am the way, the truth and the life", Jesus says. These are enormous claims. What they mean, in essence, is that all that God is in himself, and all that God wills for us, is present in Jesus, the way, the truth and the life.
That is why Jesus goes on to say, "If you know me, you will know the Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him" (vs.7). Then in verse 9: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." And verse 10: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me."
The disciples have a hard time understanding all this. Phillip says to Jesus, 'Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied." And Jesus replies, 'Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?' Don't you understand yet? Don't you see who it is that is standing before you; do you not understand who has been walking the road with you, eating and talking with you, these last three years? 'Believe me, Philip, that I am in the Father and he in me.'
Jesus knows the difficulty of coming to terms with the fact that God himself has appeared in the lowly form of a carpenter from Nazareth. He knows how difficult it is to believe that in one who stoops to wash his disciples feet, the eternal God is present in our midst. He knows that's hard to grasp, and it's going to get harder yet. In the chapter just gone, Chapter 13, Jesus has told the disciples that he will lay down his life for them. We have to do with a God here whose lowliness and love does not stop short even of crucifixion and death.
We are light years away now from the Greek conception of truth, all pure and pristine and rational. The one who is Truth goes before us to Calvary, to Golgotha, to the place they call the skull. And there he suffers and dies and utters his prayer that those who crucify him will be forgiven for they know not what they do.
Jesus knows that it is not easy to believe that this is the way of God. We generally prefer our God to be all-powerful and invulnerable. We want God to be strong where we are weak, we want him to reach down his mighty hand and pluck us from danger whenever the going gets tough. It's not easy to see that God goes his way in Jesus and meets our need through the suffering of the cross.
God comes as a servant among us. God stoops low to wash our feet. God takes the lash, and the mocking, and finally gives his life for those whom he loves. It's not easy to see that it is God who goes his way like this and who takes upon himself the consequences of human sin.
And yet that is the Church's confession. I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Apostles Creed begins, and in his Son Jesus Christ who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried...
How is it possible to believe a thing like this? It is not by human wisdom or philosophy. This truth is well beyond the reach of human ingenuity. The truth comes rather to those who keep company with Jesus, who keep the commandments of Christ, so we are told in vs.15 and again in vs 21 of the chapter we have read today. And to those ones the Father will send another advocate, a comforter, one who will teach everything that Jesus has declared.
The church makes its confession of faith, not through human wisdom and great intellectual power. It makes its confession of faith because God sends an advocate, his Spirit, who guides us into the truth, and opens our eyes to the reality that we fail to see for ourselves. What reality? The reality of Christ, who is the Way and the Truth and the Life.
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments", Jesus says at verse 15. "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever." And then again at verse 26: "The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.... Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid..."
Just as in Jesus God himself is present in our midst, so too the work of the Spirit is nothing other than the gentle prompting of God, a prompting that gathers us into communion with God and opens our eyes to see.
And so we return to the matter with which I began, the doctrine of the Triune God. Though really of course, this is what we have been speaking of all along. What John 14 helps to show us, I think, is that the doctrine of the Trinity is not some abstract philosophical speculation about God, but an attempt to follow the logic of the gospel story, the story told in the New Testament about the God who encounters us in Jesus, enables us to see and gathers us into reconciled relation with himself.
That story has its roots of course in the Old Testament and that's important. Greek ways of thinking about the world are ill-prepared for the news of the gospel. That's why Paul spoke of the Gospel as foolishness to the Greeks. But in the Old Testament the God of Jesus was already known albeit without the fleshy particularity of the carpenter from Nazareth.
In the Old Testament however, we hear the story of the people of Israel, a people who believe that God draws near to them, calls them and guides them, delivers them from bondage, speaks through the prophets and leads them to a promised land. It's a tumultuous history. The people of God encounter hardship and deprivation, defeat at the hands of their enemies , exile in Babylon and then the joyous return to Jerusalem. The story weaves its way through Israel's hope and through its despair, through its faithfulness and through its failure, but through it all, because of and in spite of Israel God is present, upholding Israel through his Word and sustaining them with his Spirit.
There are at least two offences to the Greek mind in the telling of Israel's story. The Greek philosophers, let me remind you considered that the truth was a lofty matter accessible only to the developed rational intellect. They thought of God in much the same way, and took offense at the notion that God should compromise his purity and perfection by delving into the messy landscape of human history. So the Greek mind scoffed at Israel's story and at the claim that God had chosen this non-descript and uncultured lot from Palestine to be his chosen people. The second offense to the Greek mind is the conviction that God is made known to us through history, or that he dwells with his people and concerns himself with their daily lives.
It is thus within the Hebrew tradition of thought and not within the tradition of Greek philosophy that it is conceivable to speak of God's being present with us in person. The Trinitarian understanding of God is based on the conviction that God is known in person, that God participates in history and communicates with his people. Through his Spirit and his Word God makes himself known and draws people into relationship with himself. So although the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament do not themselves have any such thing as a doctrine of the Trinity, it is the Hebrew experience of God that lies in the background of the Christian confession that the eternal Word of God has become flesh, and has dwelt among us full of grace and truth.
Moving on to the New Testament then, and to the story told there of the God who has come among us in human flesh; there is no surprise to the Hebrew mind that God should send a Saviour to deliver his people from bondage, but those Jews who were drawn to Jesus as the Messiah and who became his disciples, felt compelled to go beyond the expectation that God would appoint someone to act on his behalf. They confessed instead that God himself had come among them in Jesus. If this were true, then it was a fact that demanded a revolution in the understanding of God.
When the New Testament speaks of God and when Jesus himself spoke of 'his father' there is no question that the one referred to is the same one who is understood to have brought the world into being and who has acted throughout the history of Israel. By and large the insights of Hebrew theology are retained; God exists in covenant relationship with his people; he is loving and forgiving toward them; he speaks through the prophets, and guides through history; he judges and he has mercy and he promises the fulfilment of his purposes in the kingdom of God. What is new in the New Testament is that all these things are qualified and brought to a particular focus and fulfilment in Jesus Christ in such a way as to elicit from those who were his disciples the confession that in encountering Jesus they were entering into communion with the Holy God himself. This Jesus who had come among them spoke and acted with the authority of God himself, and claimed for himself prerogatives that were thought to have belonged to God alone.
As we have seen in John 14, however, Jesus spoke to and of his 'father' and promised to send the Spirit, each of whom were distinct from Jesus himself and yet were apparently intimately related to him. 'The Father and I are one', Jesus says, and 'whoever has seen me has seen the Father'. Then further on, 'I will send you from the Father - the Spirit of truth that issues from the Father - he will bear witness to me.' (Jn. 15:26).
A new theology is emerging, a theology that regards the Word and Spirit referred to in the Old Testament not merely as energies emanating from God, but rather as distinct persons somehow coming forth from the Father and yet also retaining their intimate relationship with him. So it was that the first Christians felt compelled to confess of Jesus and also of the Spirit that in their dealings with them, they were being encountered by the eternal God himself.
But there was a problem. If these three are God. how is monotheism to be retained? How is it possible to confess that the Father is divine and Jesus is divine and the Spirit is divine, and yet believe that there is only one God?
First of all, the New Testament implies that the three persons who act in concert are also to be known in their relationship to one another. They are distinct persons but in no way independent of one another. Thus, as we have seen, Jesus says, 'the Father and I are one' and 'whoever knows me, knows the father also.'
And of the Spirit or Advocate, Jesus says, 'I will send the Spirit who will bear witness to me.' What is apparent here is an intimate union between Father, Son and Spirit. They are not isolated individuals doing their own thing, but they belong together and their actions constitute together the one action of God. While we may speak, therefore, of a differentiation between Father, Son and Spirit, we are obliged also to speak of a fundamental unity between the three persons.
There is unity in diversity here, a unity that is something much more profound than the reaching of a common mind or an agreement between persons. The unity between Father, Son and Spirit, seems to reside at the level of their very being. That is the impression given by the New Testament and by the passages we have read in John's gospel today.
And though at one level it seems to defy logic, especially the rational logic of the Greeks, at another level it seems right to say that in the person of Jesus and through the Holy Spirit we are encountered by the Holy God, himself, not a remote isolated deity, but a loving compassionate God who draws near to us through his Word and Spirit and gathers us into the loving communion of his own being.
One of the early theologians of the church had a particular way of speaking about this. St Irenaeus said that the Son and Spirit are like the two hands of God reaching out to draw us into his embrace.
That fundamentally is the gospel. God draws near. He comes into our very midst to search us out, to seek for us in our daily lives, in our lostness and in our waywardness. God draws near. He will not leave us without his Word. He will not leave us without an Advocate. While we were yet sinners, rather, God stoops low to wash our feet, to die for us, to return us home to the Father's house.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not an abstract philosophical speculation. It is rather an attempt to follow the logic of the gospel story and to confess - humbly, because all our words are inadequate - to confess humbly that in Jesus and the Spirit we are encountered by the eternal God himself.