John 14:4 - Meaning and Application

Christ had already set heaven before them as the goal. Now he shows himself as the way to it, and tells them that they knew more than they realized, both about the goal they were aiming for and the path they were to walk. “You know” means two things here. First, they may know, because this is not one of God’s hidden secrets, but one of the truths he has made known. They did not need to go up to heaven or down into the deep, because “the word is near you” (Romans 10:6-8). It was within their reach.

Second, they did know. They knew the home, and they knew the way, even if they had not thought of it that clearly. Christ had already taught them enough that they should have remembered it. Jesus is ready to make the best of his people’s knowledge, even when it is weak and incomplete. He sees the good in them better than they see it in themselves, and he is sure they have faith, love, and understanding that they do not fully notice or trust.

Christ’s words led two of his disciples to speak up, and he answers both. Thomas asked about the way (John 14:5), and he did so without trying to soften the fact that he was questioning his Master. He said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” He felt they could not guess it or figure it out on their own, and that they were still lost. Christ’s claim that they knew stirred up their sense of ignorance and made them ask for more light.

Thomas here showed more humility than Peter, who had thought he could follow Christ immediately. Peter was more eager to know where Christ was going. Thomas, though he admitted he did not know that, seems more eager to know the way. His confession of ignorance was good, because good people are willing to admit what they do not know. But the cause of his ignorance was blameworthy. They did not know where Christ was going because they were still dreaming of an earthly kingdom, with outward power and glory, despite all the times he had said otherwise.

Because of that, when Christ spoke of leaving and their following him, they imagined he was going to some notable city, like Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, or some Gentile city, much like David going to Hebron to be made king and restore the kingdom to Israel. Since they pictured some future worldly rise, they could not tell where that place lay, east, west, north, or south. So they said they did not know the way. We still often think we are more confused about the future of the church than we need to be, because we expect worldly success, while the promise points to spiritual growth. If Thomas had understood that Christ was going to the unseen world, the world of spirits, where spiritual things are what matter, he would not have said, “Lord, we do not know the way.”

Christ answers Thomas fully in John 14:6-7. Thomas had asked both where Jesus was going and what the way was. Christ answers both questions and shows that they would not have needed an answer if they had understood things rightly. They knew him, and he was the way. They knew the Father, and he was the goal. So when Christ said, “You know where I am going and you know the way,” he was really saying, “Believe in God as your goal, and in me as the way” (John 14:1), and that is enough.

Christ speaks here of himself as the way. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He says great things about himself here, and they show the nature of his mediation, his work of bringing God and sinners together. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

First, Christ is the way, the highway spoken of in Isaiah 35:8. He was his own way, because by his own blood he entered the holy place (Hebrews 9:12). He is also our way, because we enter through him. By his teaching and his example he shows us our duty. By his merit and his intercession, his pleading for us, he wins our happiness. In that sense, he is the way. In him, God and man meet and are brought together. We could not reach the tree of life by the way of innocence, but Christ is another way to it. Through Christ, a living connection is kept up between heaven and earth. God’s angels ascend and descend, our prayers go up to God, and his blessings come down to us through him. This is the way that leads to rest, the good old way. The disciples were following him, and Christ tells them they were on the road. As long as they kept following him, they would not be lost.

Second, he is the truth. He is the truth as opposed to figure and shadow. Christ is the reality behind all the Old Testament types, which are called copies of the true things (Hebrews 9:24). He is the true manna (John 6:32), the true tabernacle (Hebrews 8:2). He is also the truth as opposed to falsehood and error. The doctrine of Christ is true doctrine. If we want truth, we need learn nothing beyond the truth as it is in Jesus. He is also true as opposed to deception. He is faithful to all who trust in him, as true as truth itself (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Third, he is the life. We are alive to God only in and through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). Christ formed in us is to our souls what our souls are to our bodies. Christ is the resurrection and the life. Taken together, these names mean that he is the beginning, the middle, and the end. We must start in him, go on in him, and finish in him. As the truth, he guides our way. As the life, he is the end of it. He is the true and living way (Hebrews 10:20), because there is truth and life in the way as well as at the end. He is the true way to life, the only true way. Other ways may seem right, but they end in death.

This also shows the necessity of his mediation. No one comes to the Father except through him. Fallen people must come to God as a Judge, but they cannot come to him as a Father except through Christ as mediator, the one who stands between. We cannot do the duty of coming to God in repentance and worship without the Spirit and grace of Christ. We also cannot receive the blessing of coming to God as our Father without Christ’s merit and righteousness. He is the high priest of our confession and our advocate, our defender before God.

Christ then speaks of his Father as the end in John 14:7. “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” This gives a quiet rebuke to their dullness and carelessness, because they had not made themselves as familiar with Jesus Christ as they should have been, even though they had lived with him and followed him closely. “If you had known me” means they knew him, but not as well as they might and ought to have known him.

They knew Christ to be the Messiah, but they did not go on to know God in him. Christ had said to the Jews, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (John 8:19), and here he says the same to his disciples. It is hard to say which is more surprising, the willful blindness of those who hate the light, or the gaps and mistakes of those who belong to the light and have had such chances to learn. If they had understood Christ rightly, they would have known that his kingdom is spiritual, not of this world. They would have known that he came down from heaven and must return to heaven, and then they would have known his Father also, and where he meant to go when he said, “I go to the Father,” to a glory in the next world, not in this. If we understood Christianity better, we would understand natural religion better too.

There is also a kind and hopeful hint here that Christ was satisfied with their sincerity, even though their understanding was weak. He was saying, in effect, “From this hint I am giving you, which will help explain all I have taught you so far, let me tell you that you do know him and have seen him, because you know me and have seen me.” In the face of Christ we see the glory of God, just as we see a father in a son who looks like him. Christ tells his disciples they were not as ignorant as they seemed. They were still like little children, yet they had known the Father (1 John 2:13). Many of Christ’s disciples have more knowledge and grace than they realize, and Christ notices and is pleased with the good in them that they themselves do not see. Those who know God do not always realize at once that they know him (1 John 2:3).

Philip then asked about the Father, and Christ answered him (John 14:8-11). Philip was not as quick to speak as some of the others, but he had a strong desire for more light. He cried out, “Show us the Father.” He had been listening to what Christ said to Thomas, and he fastened on the last words, “You have seen him.” Philip was saying, “No, that is what we want, that is what we ask for: Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” This shows a real desire to know God as Father. Philip asks, “Show us the Father,” meaning, “Let us know him in that relation to us.” He asks this not for himself only, but for the other disciples too. He adds, “It will be enough for us.” He speaks for himself, and he also pledges the others. “Give us one sight of the Father, and that is enough.” As Jansenius notes, though Philip may not have meant it, the Holy Spirit used his words to teach that a soul’s satisfaction and happiness lie in seeing and enjoying God (Psalm 16:11; Psalm 17:15). The mind rests in knowing God, and it rises to its highest aim there. In knowing God as Father, the soul is satisfied. A sight of the Father is a kind of heaven on earth, filling us with joy beyond words.

But Philip’s words also show that he was not content with the kind of revelation of the Father Christ had already given them. He was, in effect, setting the terms for Christ and asking for something more, something visible and outward, like the glory shown to Moses (Exodus 33:22) and to the elders of Israel (Exodus 24:9-11). He seems to mean, “Let us see the Father with our eyes, as we see you, and then we will be satisfied. We will ask you nothing more, not even where you are going.” That reveals not only weak faith, but also ignorance of the gospel way of showing the Father, which is spiritual, not physical. Philip thought such a sight would be enough, yet those who saw God in that way were not satisfied and soon fell into corruption and made a carved image. Christ’s own appointed ways give better support to our faith than our own inventions ever could.

Christ’s answer points Philip back to what had already been shown to him (John 14:9-11). He gently rebukes Philip’s blindness and lack of attention: “Have I been with you so long, more than three years in close fellowship, and still you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you then say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Christ reproves him for two things. First, Philip had not made full use of his closeness to Christ to gain a clear and settled knowledge of him. Philip had confessed early on that Jesus was the Messiah (John 1:45), yet even now he did not know the Father in him. Many people have good knowledge of Scripture and divine things, but they still fall short of what should be expected, because they do not put their ideas together and press on to maturity. Many know Christ, but they do not know what they might know of him, or see what they should see in him. What made Philip’s dullness worse was how long he had had the chance to learn. The longer we enjoy the means of knowledge and grace, the more blameworthy we are if we remain weak in both. Christ expects our growth to match, in some measure, our time with him. We should not always stay like babies. We can ask ourselves, “Have I been hearing sermons for so long, studying Scripture so long, learning in Christ’s school so long, and still remain so weak in the knowledge of Christ and so inexperienced in the word of righteousness?” Second, Christ rebukes him for the way he prayed, “Show us the Father.” This shows how weak Christ’s disciples often are, since they do not always know what to pray for as they should (Romans 8:26), and often ask wrongly (James 4:3), asking for what is not promised, or for what has already been given in the sense of the promise, as in this case.

Christ then teaches Philip a clear truth that both honors Christ and leads us to know God in him. It also confirms what Christ had said earlier, “You know the Father, and have seen him” (John 14:7), and answers Philip’s request, “Show us the Father.” Christ says, in effect, the matter is simple: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” All who saw Christ in the flesh could have seen the Father in him, if Satan had not blinded their minds and kept them from seeing Christ as the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4). All who see Christ by faith do see the Father in him, even if they do not realize it at once. In Christ’s teaching, they see God as the Father of lights. In his miracles, they see God as the God of power, the finger of God. God’s holiness shines in the pure life of Christ, and his grace shines in every gracious work Christ did.

He points Thomas to what he already had good reason to believe (John 14:10-11): “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. If you do not yet believe this, take my word for it and believe it now.” Here is what we are meant to believe: that the Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son. That is the same truth Jesus had already stated, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). He speaks of the Father and himself as two persons, yet also as so united that no two ever were, or ever can be, so closely one.

To know Christ as God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, and of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, is to know the Father. In seeing Christ in this way, we see the Father. In Christ, we see more of God’s glory than Moses saw at Mount Horeb.

There are two strong reasons to believe this. First, we should believe it for his word’s sake. “The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own” (John 7:16). What seemed to them like the words of an ordinary man, speaking his own thoughts as he pleased, was really God’s wisdom speaking, and God’s will being carried out. He did not speak from himself alone, but expressed the mind of God according to the eternal plan.

Second, we should believe it for his works’ sake. “The Father who dwells in me does the works,” and so we should believe him because of them. The Father is said to dwell in him, by the close and inseparable union of the divine and human nature. God never had such a temple on earth as the body of the Lord Jesus (John 2:21). This was the true dwelling place of God’s presence, of which the tabernacle was only a picture. The whole fullness of God lived in him bodily (Colossians 2:9).

The Father dwells in Christ in such a way that, if you seek the Father, you find him in Christ, just as you find a person where that person lives. “Seek the Lord” by seeking him in Christ, and he will be found there, because there he dwells. Christ did many powerful words and merciful works, and the Father worked through him. The whole work of redemption was God’s own work.

We are bound to believe this for the sake of the works themselves. Just as we believe in God’s existence and power because of creation, which shows his glory, so we should believe God’s revelation to humanity in Jesus Christ because of the Redeemer’s mighty works. These works display him, and God in him (Matthew 14:2). Christ’s miracles prove his divine mission, not only to convince unbelievers, but also to strengthen the faith of his own disciples (John 2:11; John 5:36; John 10:37).