Jesus is the way to the Father.

“…And you know the way to where I’m going.”

“We don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We’ve no idea where you’re going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus told him, “I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you’d really known me, you’d know who my Father is. Now you do know him, and have seen him.”

—John 14.4-7 KWL

Lots of people like to pull Jesus’s statement, “I’m the way, the truth, and the life,” out of context—sometimes along with “No one can come to the Father except through me”—and preach about how Christianity is the only way to be saved: Nobody can come to God unless they come through Jesus. Ergo any other religion, because it doesn’t have Jesus in it, will only doom people to hell. We need to direct them to the one true faith—ours—because only Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

So what’s factually wrong with this interpretation? Nothing. Nobody can come to God unless they come through Jesus. Sorry to sound so exclusive, but I can’t help it; it’s what Jesus said. Now, while this interpretation tends to focus on the negative (“without Jesus, you’re damned”) I tend to focus on the positive (“with Jesus, you’re saved”) and how anyone who makes an honest effort to obey God is unwittingly following Jesus. Since God wants everyone to be saved, (2Pe 3.9) I think he offers far more salvation than we would permit.

But even though this “without Jesus, you’re damned” interpretation isn’t factually wrong, a lot of the time it’s based on some underlying attitudes that are totally wrong—and even contrary to this entire statement of Jesus.

Christians teach that we’re saved by God’s grace. Not our own actions. We don’t achieve salvation; we get it free from God. Of course, that’s what we say, but what we teach immediately afterward undermines everything. We teach that yes, you’re saved by grace, but you gotta behave yourself. Or yes, you’re saved by grace, but you gotta have correct theology. If you don’t behave, or if you embrace heresy, you might not actually be saved. Some Christians even teach you’ll become un-saved. Grace is powerful, but apparently not that powerful. Somehow it gets negated when we lack right works or right thoughts.

That is not grace. Grace doesn’t require that. We do. Grace forgives that.

Look at Jesus again. He’d just explained he was off to prepare a place for his followers in his Father’s home, and then he was coming back; (Jn 14.2-3) early Sunday, actually. As for how to get to the Father’s home, he told them they knew it already, and here Thomas says that no, they did not know it already. Thomas assumed, like everyone naturally does, that they hadn’t achieved the way to the Father’s house yet. They hadn’t done any valiant deeds fighting alongside the Messiah yet (i.e. right works), nor had Jesus given them the secret roadmap (i.e. right thoughts). He knew he hadn’t earned it, so he thought he didn’t have it.

So Jesus corrected him. “I’m the way.” (Jn 14.6) The way to the Father is not through right works or right thoughts; it is Jesus. God graciously gave us Jesus. We have Jesus; we have a relationship with him; we know him, so we know the way to the Father.

Jesus also says he’s the truth. We do not have to achieve right thoughts in order to be saved. Once we have Jesus, we have the truth. We will always have flaws in our beliefs because we are self-centered and wrong-focused and prideful and sinful. But when we have Jesus, we have a corrective to every single wrong thought: We are wrong. Jesus is right. When we trust him to do all the correcting, we don’t have to worry about our accidental wrongness plunging us into hell. We can, thanks to Jesus, be right—not in order to achieve salvation, but as one of the after-effects of salvation. Rightness is fruit, not plant food.

And Jesus also says he’s the life. Whoever has Jesus has life, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t. (1Jn 5.12) Our eternal life is entirely based on that relationship with Jesus.

Jesus continues, “If you’d really known me, you’d know who my Father is.” (Jn 14.7) We can, as some do, pessimistically interpret that statement to mean, “If you’d really known me… but it would seem you really don’t, so I guess you aren’t saved.” Of course, that’s projecting our own bad attitudes on Jesus. That’s presuming that if we don’t understand him, we don’t really know him; that to know him means to automatically understand everything he says, and be right about every interpretation we have. Again, that’s assuming we’re saved through correct beliefs and right thoughts. Not God’s grace. But Jesus follows it up with “Since you do know me”—because, wrong thoughts or not, they really did know him—“from now on, you do know him and have seen him!” (Jn 14.7) Jesus requires us to know him, but whether or not we get him doesn’t interfere with our salvation either. All of us are still learning. None of us can say that we comprehensively know Jesus. Knowledge will come in its time. If you lack it, ask for it. But you aren’t saved by it, so don’t stress out over your lack of it. You know Jesus. That’s enough.

But the biggest part of grace is that if we get to know Jesus, we get to know God. Which Jesus explains in greater detail in the next passage.