Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
What is the best way to understand
John 14:6 and why?
Good question Adrian, if you don't mind me returning to the OP just to offer my own reflections (I am aware that the discussion has gone on for many pages and developed greatly since).
As with any exegetical matter, we need to parse the language of the text (Koine Greek in this case), contextualize the verse with reference to the totality of scripture (not in isolation), parallels in contemporaneous literature and consider how the words were interpreted by the earliest exegetes, by whom I mean the Apostolic and Church Fathers who were closer in time than us to the original text.
In the Christian New Testamental texts, Jesus is the incarnation of the 'Wisdom/Word' of God, pre-existing with the Father before the creation of the World and is described in the same terms as God (as "
the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (
Hebrews 1:3)).
The word used in
John 14:6 is
hodos - which means "
way, path".
When Jesus in the above chapter of John (chapter 14) refers to himself as being the 'path' to "
My father’s house" where there are "
many rooms prepared", scholars such as Adele Reinhartz have written of this: "
There may be an allusion here to the Jewish “Hekhalot” (“palaces”) tradition, involving stories in which a seer visits the heavenly realm and explores its different rooms (based on the chariot vision in Ezek 1, and in such works as 1 En. 17, 18)."
So Jesus appears to have been invoking for himself a mediatorial function.
Earlier in
John 10:7, Jesus figuratively refers to himself as the "gate for the sheep", the sheep are his disciples to whom he tends as master and Lord - so all he is intimating here is that he is the 'pathway' for his disciples to ascend to the
merkabah (divine throne). The particular verse doesn't exclude that other entities - angels or exalted humans - might also be so (albeit in a lesser way) for other people.
Before that again, near the very beginning of the gospel, Jesus had employed different imagery comparing himself to a
ladder for the disciples:
"
Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (
John 1:50-51).
In her commentary upon this verse, Jewish scholar Adele Reinhartz notes: "
Angels … ascending and descending, an allusion to Jacob’s dream (Gen 28.12), implying that Jesus is the ladder connecting heaven and earth."
Jesus isn't here describing a ladder with 'one rung' - rather he is describing himself
as the ladder, which has many rungs (i.e. other angelic beings 'ascending and descending' acting as his intermediaries).
So, the sense we get from a bare reading of the text of the Gospel of John, is that it espouses a theology in which there is one 'ladder' between heaven and earth, Jesus the Son of God, who functions as the 'gate' and 'pathway' for his disciples to attain to the
merkabah (presence of God) incarnate in his person (the Divine Logos from the prologue who is in the bosom of the Father from eternity as his agent of creation). Yet this one mediator does not exclude the existence of
many intermediaries, such as the angels ascending and descending upon Jesus "
the way, the truth and the life".
The Johannine prologue affirms that “
the Word [pre-incarnate Jesus] is the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world” (
John 1:9). This doctrine was named by the later Church Fathers, the
semina Verbi (seeds of the Word).
St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Archbishop of Constantinople and an important early church father, addressed this doctrine in his
Homily 8 on the Gospel of John, in the context of an exegetical commentary on
John 1:9:
CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 8 on the Gospel of John (Chrysostom)
"
How then does He light every man? He lights all as far as in Him lies [...] For the grace is shed forth upon all, turning itself back neither from Jew, nor Greek, nor Barbarian, nor Scythian, nor free, nor bond, nor male, nor female, nor old, nor young, but admitting all alike, and inviting with an equal regard."
It is echoed in the parable of the sower in
Matthew 13: 3−9, where the divinely scattered seeds of divine truth are dispensed indiscriminately, to all and sundry, according to the patristic interpretation - not just the preserve of Christians, even though we have (in our understanding) the fullness of truth of the Divine Word.
St. Paul likewise informs us of pagans being able to access the 'natural law' of God inhering in every conscience and thus attaining salvation in Christ:
"Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law, since they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (
Romans 2:14).
In his encyclical Letter, Redemptoris missio (1990), Pope St. John Paul II, insisting on the dialogue between Christian faith and non Christian religions, states that that: “
through dialogue, the Church seeks to uncover the seeds of the Word (semina verbi), a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men; these are found in individuals and in their religious traditions of mankind.”
Semina verbi is a very ancient expression, coined by the church father St. Justin Martyr circa 150 A.D., which resurfaced in the documents of the Second Vatican Council to designate whatever is “
true and holy" and divinely inspired in other religions.
It is sometimes said that at Vatican II, the Catholic Church 'entered' the modern pluralist world and embraced interfaith dialogue unfailingly for the first time. What is often forgetten is that conciliar theology was defined by two governing principles the number one being: (1) ressourcement ("
return to the sources"), namely return to the patristic texts of the Church Fathers where we find the following:
"We have been taught that Christ is the First-born of God, and…that he is the logos of whom every race of men and women were partakers. And they who lived with the logos are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and people like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Asarias, and Misael, and Elias."
(
St. Justin Martyr 1997, First Apology, l.46)
"For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word...
And those of the Stoic school — since, so far as their moral teaching went, they were admirable, as were also the poets in some particulars, on account of the seed of reason [the Logos] implanted in every race of men — were, we know, hated and put to death — Heraclitus for instance, and, among those of our own time, Musonius and others..."
(
St. Justin Martyr 1997, Second Apology, l.10)
Again Justin says, “
For he [the Logos] exhibits among every race of men the things that are righteous at all times and in all places ... it was well said by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that all righteousness and piety are fulfilled in two commandments.”
Other early Christian Fathers who embraced the existence of goodness and elements of divinely inspired truth in other religions include St. Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215), Origen (c.184–c.253), St. Basil the Great (329–379), St. Gregory Nazianzus (329–390) and St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430).
This is the theological basis underlying
Nostra Aetate (1965), the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, adopted the vision and terminology of these early Church Fathers, and thus spoke - like they did millennia ago - of the presence in these religious traditions "
of a ray of that Truth which enlightens all":
Nostra aetate (vatican.va)
DECLARATION ON
THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS
NOSTRA AETATE
PROCLAIMED BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON OCTOBER 28, 1965
Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language.
Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek freedom from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetical practices or profound meditation or a flight to God with love and trust.
Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites.
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.
The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.
