Biblical creed can yield satisfactory
evidence that a specified Church is the true Church. True Christians are
those who love one another across denominational differences, and
exhibit the spirit of Him who gave Himself to death upon the cross that
His murderers might live."

IX.

_THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE._

"Thomas saith unto Him, Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; how
know we the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, and the Truth,
and the Life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me. If ye had
known Me, ye would have known My Father also: from henceforth ye
know Him, and have seen Him."--JOHN xiv. 5-7.

It surprises us to find that words which have become familiar and most
intelligible to us should have been to the Apostles obscure and
puzzling. Apparently they were not yet persuaded that their Master was
shortly to die; and, accordingly, when He spoke of going to His Father's
house, it did not occur to them that He meant passing into the spiritual
world. His assuring words, "Where I am, there ye shall be also,"
therefore fell short. And when He sees their bewilderment written on
their faces, He tentatively, half interrogatively, adds, "And whither I
go ye know, and the way ye know."[15] Unless they knew where He was
going, there was less consolation even in the promise that He would come
for them after He had gone and prepared a place for them. And when He
thus challenges them candidly to say whether they understood where He
was going, and where He would one day take them also, Thomas, always the
mouthpiece for the despondency of the Twelve, at once replies, "Lord, we
know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the way?"

This interruption by Thomas gives occasion to the great declaration, "I
am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father,
but by Me." It is, then, to the Father that Christ is the Way. And He is
the Way by being the Truth and the Life. We must first, then, consider
in what sense He is the Truth and the Life.

I. I am the Truth. Were these words merely equivalent to "I speak the
truth," it would be much to know this of One who tells us things of so
measureless a consequence to ourselves. The faith of the disciples was
being strained by what He had just been saying to them. Here was a man
in most respects like themselves: a man who got hungry and sleepy, a man
who was to be arrested and executed by the rulers, assuring th