The Gospel's Scandalous Claim - Introduction

Headlines sell newspapers. They attract readers to blogs and websites. They draw your attention to adverts. They are used constantly. We face a never ending stream every day. Sometimes looking at news sites and apps and watching the news on TV can feel like you are in a room full of toddlers, all screaming for your attention. Life can be so noisy. We also know that those who make the most noise often completely lack substance. News headlines can often be misleading. Advertisers can make false claims without the evidence to back them up, or have so many exceptions and so much small print that it's obvious they aren't the truth. The modern term for this is 'clickbait'. And it's everywhere. In these frightening days, we often find that what passes for truth is actually a carefully engineered lie, simply a means to distract or divert us from something else. Our news makers treat us like we are small animals, easily distracted from the truth by reflections of sunlight or a new toy. It's sad to say that sometimes they are quite right. Long before the latest pandemic, or any other modern day disaster, a scandalous claim was made. When it was first made, it would have stunned many thousands of people and could potentially have led to the persecution, ostracisation and perhaps even death of those who repeated it. In fact, nothing has changed. If you repeat this claim nowadays, even in more 'civilised', 'respectable', 'developed' nations, you are likely at least to be called a bigot, a sectarian, a '-phobe' of some variety. It's not impossible that you could experience some level of bullying or persecution and, in some countries, you may be denied vital aid, prosecuted or even killed. Yet this claim lies at the very heart of the Christian message. What is it? I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.14.6.NIVUK Those of you who come from a nice Christian family in a nice Christian church in a nice, picket-fenced town might be shocked at how anyone could make such a big deal of this. We must have read these words hundreds of times. We've heard sermons on them. Read books on them. Sung songs about them. They are famous and well-known. How could they be such a big deal? And yet they are. They are massive. And for many, many thousands of believers in hostile countries, belief in these words will cost them everything. So these are words we must fully understand. Before go any further, we need to ask ourselves a big question: Did Jesus actually say them? After all, the famous phrase "We are not amused" is associated with Queen Victoria, yet there are no records of her even having said it at all. These words from the Bible that are so offensive for those who do not believe are associated with a historical figure who is legendary for being nice, gentle and peace-loving. How could He say something like this? The first thing we need to know is who it is that witnessed Jesus saying this. It was John, the writer of this Gospel. He had first hand experience of Jesus (1 John 1:1-3). He was part of Jesus' inner circle (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51). He was on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter and James (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28). He was even seated close to Jesus during the meal (John 13:23). He was close enough to Jesus to ensure that He did not mishear Him. His Gospel is believed to have been written at the absolute latest by AD 70, no more than 30 years after Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead. There were sufficient people around who had either been in that room to contradict John if he had misheard or misquoted Jesus. He also had nothing at all to gain and everything to lose by sharing this statement. He was around at a time when the dominant cultures were either Greek or Roman. Both of these cultures are polytheistic - they had many gods. So claiming that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life would put him directly at odds with the prevailing cultures. As we know, even from the Bible itself, some of the sects around at the time were quite fanatical. Hence this claim would put him, and anyone else who believed it, directly in harm's way. Add to this the tendency in the Roman empire around then to worship Caesar as a god and you have a pretty toxic environment for people believing in Jesus in this way. Throw into the mix a Jewish culture which would be violently (literally) intolerant of any claim like this and we have a context in which the sharing of a statement like this was highly risky. Our last piece of evidence is that this statement is not an outlier. Jesus being the only way to God and Heaven is actually a core teaching of both Jesus and the Early Church (Matthew 7:13-14; Acts 4:12; Galatians 1:9). Thus any modern church has to make the same claim if it wants to be both Biblical and Christian. Many want to recast both Christ and Christianity as a tolerant religion. And it is, but only to a point. At its heart is this claim about Christ that the evidence strongly suggests He made Himself. We can't evade it. We can't explain it away. We can't minimalise it. And neither can there be any misunderstandings with the Greek used here. What linguists call 'the definite article' is used three times in the original Greek: He said He is THE way, THE truth, THE life, to the exclusion of all others. So before we go on to meditate on which of these phrases actually mean, we need to understand that Jesus made this claim. He Himself said it. And meant it. Whether that fits with our preconceptions or not.