Whither I go ye know
The interpellation of Thomas
Observe
I. THAT A MAN MAY, IN SPIRITUAL THINGS, KNOW MORE THAN HE IS CONSCIOUS OF KNOWING. “Ye know,” “We know not.” It may be said that our Lord is only attributing a certain knowledge with a view to stirring up His disciples to think so that they may come to know distinctly, just as we say to a child, “You know if you would only think.” But here the fact stands that Thomas did not know, and yet Christ said he did. So a man may know, and yet not know that he knows. What was it that the apostles actually knew? They knew Christ--very imperfectly, but they did know Him. Thomas’s “Lord,” the same word that He used subsequently, in an association that leaves no room to doubt its signification, shows us this. Now Christ was the Way; and therefore in knowing Christ, he knew the Way, although he did not know Him as the Way. And more than this. Thomas and the rest were practically walking in the right way in believing in Christ. But not understanding that Christ was the Way, they did not understand that they were in the right way. Whence it follows that a man may be actually in the right way before he is quite conscious of it. This must be so; for being conscious of a thing means coming to a distinct consciousness of it as an existing fact. Then it must exist as a fact prior to consciousness. The time that may elapse between a man being in a certain condition and becoming conscious of it may vary according to circumstances.
II. THAT TO KNOW CHRIST IS TO BE IN THE RIGHT WAY. “I am the Way.” Christ had just told them of the Father’s house, and they were naturally anxious to know the way. But notice how He modifies the aspect of future blessedness. He now speaks of the Father Himself. For it is the Father’s presence that makes home--not a house built by the Father, however much the Father’s love may have been lavished on it for His children’s sake. To this Father Christ is the Way, and how His subsequent conversation shows. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 10:19-20). There is no direct access for man to God. Christ is the way to God, and the way to God is the way to Heaven. And he who knows Christ, however imperfectly, is in the right way.
III. THOSE WHO REALLY KNOW CHRIST AS THE WAY WILL SOON LEARN THAT HE IS MUCH MORE TO THAN THE WAY ONLY. Christ adds the ample appendix, “and the Truth and the Life.” These three lead on, the one to the other. Religion begins in practical conformity to a Divine “way,” and so comes down to the level of the simplest and the feeblest. But when a man has walked some time in the Divine way, he begins to desire a fuller understanding of the reasons of the way. Then Christ comes as the Truth, disclosing the grounds on which religious duty rests, satisfying thus the speculative, as He formerly did the practical, faculty. Finally Christ reveals Himself as the Life. Then it is seen that religion is more than practice and knowledge, it is the communication of vital powers, of the powers of the life of God, of power to become the child of God; and that this new vitality in turn prompts to pious practice, and capacitates for spiritual perception. (W. Roberts.)
Christ’s farewell
It serves
I. TO EXERCISE FAITH IN CHRIST.
1. In His omniscience. For He knows
(1) Whither He goes (John 14:5).
(2) When He goes (John 14:5).
(3) For what purpose (John 14:7-15): to send the Comforter, etc.
2. In His truthfulness (John 14:7). For
(1) Jesus went to His Father.
(2) He sent the Comforter.
(3) The Comforter has fulfilled His mission.
II. FOR CONSOLATION WHEN WE FEEL THE PANG OF SEPARATION. For
1. Christ is omniscient. He alone knows
(1) Whither we go.
(2) When we are to go.
(3) Why we go.
2. Christ is truthful. Therefore we are certain that we go
(1) To the Father.
(2) At the hour appointed by Him.
(3) Because it is expedient and necessary for our own faith in
God’s omnipotent love and our sense of dependence on Him.
(Pastor Fricke.)
The way, unknown and yet well known
When you say to a man, “You know the way,” you mean “Come.” And in these words there lie a veiled invitation, and the assurance that they, though separated, might still find the road to the Father’s house, and so be with Him still. Observe
I. THE DISCIPLES’ UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE.
1. Christ says: “Ye know the way and the goal.” Thomas ventures flatly to contradict Him. Was Jesus right? or Thomas? or both? The fact is, they had heard plenty in the past as to where Christ was going. It had made some kind of lodgement in their heads, and, in that sense, they did know. It is this unused and unconscious knowledge of theirs to which Christ appeals.
2. The dialogue is an instance of what is true about us all, that we have in our possession truths given to us by Jesus Christ, the whole sweep and bearing of which we do not dream of yet. Time and circumstances and some sore agony of spirit are needed in order to make us realize the riches that we possess; and the practice of far more patient, honest, profound meditation is needed, in order that we may understand the things that are given to us of God. The life belts lie unnoticed on the cabin shelf as long as the weather keeps fine, but when the ship strikes people take to them.
3. All our knowledge is ignorance. And ignorance that confesses itself to Him is in the way of becoming knowledge. And we are meant to carry all our inadequate and superficial realizations of His truths into His presence, that, from Him, we may gain deeper knowledge, and a more joyous certitude in His inexhaustible truths.
II. OUR LORD’S GREAT SELF-REVELATION WHICH MEETS THIS UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE. Of these three great words, the Way, the Truth, the Life, we are to regard the second and the third as explanatory of the first.
1. Note, then, as belonging to all three of these clauses that remarkable “I am.” We show the Way, Christ is it. We speak truth, Christ is it. Parents impart life, which they have received, Christ is life. He separates Himself from all men by that representation which He made when Calvary was within arm’s length. What did He think about Himself, and what should we think of Him?
2. And note that He here sets forth His unique relation to the truth as being one ground on which He is the Way to God.
(1) He is the Truth in reference to the Divine nature. It is not only His speech that teaches us, but Himself that shows us God. There is all the difference between talking about God and showing Him. Men reveal God by their words; Christ reveals Him by Himself and the facts of His life.
2. He is the Truth, inasmuch as, in His life, men find the foundation truths of a moral and spiritual sort. “Whatsoever things are true,” etc., He is these.
3. He is the Way because He is the Life. Dead men cannot walk a road. It is no use making a path if it starts from a cemetery. And Christ taught that men apart from Him are dead, and that the only life that they can have by which they can be knit to God is the Divine life which was in Himself. He is the Life--and, paradox of mystery and yet fact which is the very heart and centre of His gospel, His only way of giving His life to us is by giving up His physical life for us.
4. And what about people that never heard of Him. Ah! Christ has other ways of working than through His historical manifestation, He is “that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” But for us to whom this Book has come, the law of my text rigidly applies. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” It is either--take Christ for the Way, or wander in the wilderness and forget your Father; take Christ for the Truth, or be given over to the insufficiencies of mere natural, political, and intellectual truths, and the shows and illusions of time and sense; take Christ for your life, or remain in your deadness separate from God.
III. THE DISCIPLES’ IGNORANCE AND THE NEW VISION WHICH DISPELS IT. “If ye had known Me ye should have known My Father also,” etc. Our Lord accepts for the moment Thomas’ standpoint. He supplements His former allegation of their knowledge with the admission of the ignorance which went with it as its shadow, and tells them that they did not know what they thought they knew so well, after so many years of companionship--even Himself. The proof that they did not is that they did not know the Father as revealed in Him, nor Him as revealing the Father. If they missed that, they missed everything.
1. The lesson for us is that the true test of the completeness and worth of our knowledge of Christ lies in its being knowledge of God the Father, brought near to us by Him. This saying puts a finger on the radical deficiency of all merely humanitarian views of Christ’s person. If you know anything about Jesus Christ rightly, this is what you know about Him, that in Him you see God. The knowledge of Christ which stops with the martyr, and the teacher and the brother, is knowledge so partial that even He cannot venture to call it other than ignorance.
2. And then our Lord passes on to another thought, the new vision which at the moment being granted to this unconscious ignorance that was passing into conscious knowledge. “From henceforth ye know Him and have seen Him.” We must give that “from henceforth,” a somewhat literal interpretation, and apply it to the whole series of utterances and deeds of which the words of our text are but a portion. It is the dying Christ that reveals the living God. Conclusion: So He is your way to God. See that you seek the Father by Him alone. He is your truth; enrich yourselves by all the communicated treasures that you have already received in Him. He is your Life; cleave to Him, that the quick spirit that was in Him may pass into you and make you victors over all deaths, temporal and eternal. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Knowledge unconsciously possessed
A man may have grace and yet not know it; yea, he may think He hath it not, as we seek for the keys that are in our pocket: or think that we have lost a jewel that we have locked up in a chest; yea, as the butcher looketh for the candle that sticketh in his hat. (J. Tramp.)