To know Jesus is to know God

John 14:5-7

 5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

Thomas, practical as always, “We do not know where you are going, and since we do not have the destination to which you are headed, how can we possibly know the way?”

The destination is simple – it is to be with God the Father. That Thomas has not figured the destination to which Jesus is headed may indicate that he was not really paying attention to what has been going on so far in the upper room. Jesus says that he (Jesus) is the way to God the Father, in fact, Jesus says that if a person knows Jesus then they know God the Father. And then he takes that one step further at the end of vs. 7 – that to know Jesus is to have seen God the Father. To Jewish ears to see God the Father was unimaginable. Moses had only been allowed to see God’s back, to see God face-to-face nothing prepared them for that idea. But that is exactly what Jesus is claiming, to see Jesus is to see God, to be with Jesus is to be with God.

That Jesus and God the Father are one is a theme that appears again and again in the upper room discourse. It is impossible to separate the two, to speak of Jesus is to speak of God, and to speak of God is only possible because of what we know from Jesus. The only way human beings are able to say anything about God is because it has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ. To know Jesus is to know God. 

PRAYER:

We rejoice, God of grace, that you have revealed yourself to us through your Son, Jesus Christ. In him we see you, in him we discover who you are and your purposes in the world. Thank you for sending Jesus to yourself to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.