Eve of the Fifth Sunday of Easter (April 27, 2002)
Canon Richard T. Nolan
"No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14: 6b)
What do biblical scholars1 tell you and me about John’s Gospel and in particular the entire verse spoken during the Last Supper “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”? We learn from their research that this Gospel was composed by an uncertain author possibly named John plus several editors who wrote particularly for members of what we now call the ancient Johannine community; this flock was not made up of first hand witnesses to Jesus’ ministry. We also learn from the experts that this gospel’s writers were particularly concerned with the centrality of Jesus in God’s purposes, that followers of Christ were urged to maintain their faith during troubled times, and further that they should withdraw from the unfriendly synagogue to join distinctive Christian communities. The Gospel according to John was most likely composed in stages and successive editions as the controversies developed. It was written around the year 100 – which was about 70 years after the Resurrection, possibly in the large Mediterranean city Ephesus visited earlier by Paul.
Unfortunately, for centuries the second part of this verse “No one comes to the Father except through me” has been misused. It is a malicious distortion to use these words as a weapon against other religions. John is concerned neither with the beliefs or fate of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity. Instead, this entire verse is part of the joyful declaration of the Johannine community which was convinced of the truth it received through Christ. Biblical scholars are in agreement that Jesus was NOT saying that those who, for whatever reasons, do not accept Him as God’s Christ are destined to eternal punishment. This punitive dimension is neither stated nor implied here, though words taken out of context have been used for generations by religious folks thriving on fear tactics.
I have heard that another minister refers to this verse as an advertisement for Christianity. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” is like an ad for first century Christianity, an ad that proclaims Jesus the Christ as the embodiment of truth about God as well as the way of life intended by God for all humanity. It was originally a message related to John’s minority community and its regional conflict with Judaism, the people’s previous religious home. In the Judaism of Jesus’ day the law was the way to God, and obedience to the law and its multitude of regulations was the key to righteous living. Jesus’ words were designed to challenge the law and transfigure it to the Way he lived, the Way he was and is No one comes to the caring Creator of the Universe by following endless rules and regulations, but instead by Christ’s Way.
His Way is characterized by a community bound together in vibrant, mutual love as well as its dynamic, loving faithfulness to the biblical God. However, his Way also entails a share of persecution, rejection, and suffering as people try to live such a life. Nonetheless, it was believed that God’s Spirit would give the flock guidance and strength to persevere. The ad is trying to convey enthusiastically that the life and ministry of Jesus, and in that sense Jesus himself, has made possible a new experience of God as “Abba,” Father. While not intending to degrade other religions, Christians have been convinced perennially that in no one else - past or present - is this Word of God made more explicit.
Today you and I can apply these words of Jesus to all circumstances and ideologies that fall short as gods, ways of life, and claims of truth. Imagine the consequences if all elements of daily life pointed to Jesus Christ as the Exemplar, the bearer of God’s purposes and intentions for all humanity! Think about all local churches quoting enthusiastically this ancient advertisement “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There could be no greater outreach or service to the secular community! Picture churches which would accept their share of persecution, rejection, and suffering when they point to the gap between divine and secular purposes in the social order! Envision denominations concerned more with their spiritual maturity than statistical growth! Envisage communities of faith which would take this proclamation so seriously that they too would become an announcement that conveys with neither caution nor apology: “This is who we are. We are a people who believe in God as revealed in Christ and who struggle to live always and everywhere - through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen.
(1)1For example, see the section on John in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. IX, 1995).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFLECTIONS from THE NEW INTERPRETER’S BIBLE
Rudolf Schnackenburg has rightly identified John 14:6-7 as "the high point of Johannine theology."484(1) These verses announce in clear language the theological conviction that drives the Fourth Evangelist's work, "No one comes to the Father except through me." These words express the Fourth Evangelist's unshakable belief that the coming of Jesus, the Word made flesh, decisively altered the relationship between God and humanity. These words affirm that Jesus is the tangible presence of God in the world and that God the Father can be known only through that incarnate presence. Humanity's encounter with Jesus the Son makes possible a new experience of God as the Father.
Yet the very clarity and decisiveness of the Fourth Evangelist's conviction here have turned these words into a weapon with which to bludgeon one's opponents into theological submission. These words are used as a litmus test for Christian faith in myriad conversations and debates within the contemporary church. They are taken by some as the rallying cry of Christian triumphalism, proof positive that Christians have the corner on God and that people of any and all other faiths are condemned. They are seen by others as embarrassingly exclusionary and narrow-minded, and they are pointed to as evidence of the problems inherent in asserting Christian faith claims in a pluralistic world.
How is the contemporary Christian to interpret this central claim of the Fourth Gospel? It is of the utmost importance that before the interpreter decides to accept or reject the Fourth Gospel's affirmation, embrace or distance oneself from its theological view, the Fourth Evangelist be allowed to have his say. That is, it is incumbent upon the contemporary interpreter to engage in an act of theological imagination when interpreting this passage, to try to envision the theological claim the Fourth Evangelist might have been making in his context instead of assessing these words as if they were spoken directly to the contemporary context.
Jesus' claim that "no one comes to the Father except through me" is the joyous affirmation of a religious community that does, indeed, believe that God is available to them decisively in the incarnation. This claim has been announced from the opening lines of the Gospel, "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (1:18). In many ways, John 14:6 is both truism and tautology, because, following John 1:18, it is indeed only through the incarnation that the identity of God as Father is revealed. John 14:6 is not a general metaphysical statement about "God"; Jesus does not say "No one comes to God except through me," but "No one comes to the Father except through me," and the specificity of that theological nomenclature needs to be taken seriously. John 14:6 is the very concrete and specific affirmation of a faith community about the God who is known to them because of the incarnation. As noted in the Reflections on the Prologue, the incarnation changes everything for the Fourth Evangelist, because through it humanity's relationship to God and God's relationship to humanity are decisively altered. The incarnation has redefined God for the Fourth Evangelist and those for whom he writes, because it brings the tangible presence of God's love to the world. "God" is not a generic deity here; God is the One whom the disciples come to recognize in the life and death of Jesus. When Jesus says "no one," he means "none of you."485(3) In John 14:6, then, Jesus defines God for his disciples; the Fourth Evangelist defines God for the members of his faith community.
It is important to try to hear this joyous, world-changing theological affirmation in the first-century context of the Fourth Gospel. This is not, as is the case in the twentieth century, the sweeping claim of a major world religion, but it is the conviction of a religious minority in the ancient Mediterranean world.486(4) It is the conviction of a religious group who had discovered that its understanding of the truth of God carries with it a great price (see Reflections on John 8:31-59). This conviction has led them into conflict with the Judaism that previously had been their sole religious home, and so they have had to carve out a new religious home for themselves, a home grounded in the incarnation. It is possible to hear an element of defiance in the proclamation of 14:1-11, a determination to hold to this experience and knowledge of God against all opposition and all pressure to believe otherwise. in the unambiguous words of John 14:6-7, the Fourth Gospel declares where it stands in the first-century intra-Jewish debate about the character of God and the identity of God's people.
What is often labeled in 14:1-11 as excessively exclusionary would be described more accurately as particularisrn. That is, the claims made in John 14:6 express the particularities of the Fourth Evangelist's knowledge and experience of God, and membership in the faith community for which he writes and which he envisions does indeed hinge on this claim. This claim has distanced them from their prior religious home, and thus it will shape their new one (cf. 14:2-4). The particularism of John 14:6-7 does de facto establish boundaries; it says. "This is who we are. We are the people who believe in the God who has been revealed to us decisively in Jesus Christ." To be included in the circle of Jesus' "own," one must recognize Jesus for who he is, which means recognizing the revelation of God in him.
The claim of John 14:6-7 becomes problematic when it is used to speak to questions that were never in the Fourth Gospel's purview. To use these verses in a battle over the relative merits of the world's religions is to distort their theological heart. It is a dangerous and destructive anachronism to cite John 14:6-7 as the final arbiter in discussions of the relative merits of different religions' experiences and understanding of God. The Fourth Gospel is not concerned with the fate, for example, of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity as they are configured in the modern world. These verses are the confessional celebration of a particular faith community, convinced of the truth and life it has received in the incarnation. The Fourth Evangelist's primary concern was the clarification and celebration of what it means to believe in Jesus (cf. 14:1, 10-11), The theological vision articulated here expresses the distinctiveness of Christian identity, and it is as people shaped by this distinctiveness that Christians can take their place in conversations about world religion. Indeed, the Prologue's claims about the Logos (1:1-3) provide an opening for conversations about how one encounters the divine.
When one brackets out the questions that contemporary Christians falsely import into these verses, there is nothing outrageous or offensive about the claims made here. Rather, at the heart of Christianity is this affirmation of the decisive revelation of God in the incarnation. John 14:6 can thus be read as the core claim of Christian identity; what distinguishes Christians from peoples of other faiths is the conviction given expression in John 14:6. It is, indeed, through Jesus that Christians have access to their God.