no THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE
Studies in Indian lAfe and Sentiment, in the great loyalty felt by millions of natives towards Queen Victoria, of whom most of them knew nothing more than the name. But she was a Person, and embodied the idea of the British Kaj in a way that appealed strongly to them. They recognized gratefully her sympathy shown in comparatively trivial acts, such as her learning Hindustani in order the better to understand her Indian subjects.^
2. Christ supplies man's need of a leader. He is a person. His teaching is unique, because of the personal authority which He claims for Himself. Other teachers have been content to obliterate themselves that they may magnify the truths they come to teach, but Jesus speaks of Himself. He tells us who He is and why He is come. He puts Himself before His teaching. He did not only preach the gospel ; He was the gospel. In this thing Jesus sets His religion over against all other religions. Buddhism, as has often been pointed out, is the religion of a method ; Mohammedanism is the religion of a book ; Christianity is the religion of a person. It is Jesus. Whosoever enters it, enters Him ; whosoever would learn its lessons, learns Him ; whosoever would feed upon its nourishment, eats His body and drinks His blood. " I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
^ Plato is not Platonism ; Platonism might have been taught though its author had never lived. Mohammed is not Islam ; the Koran itself would warn us against any such confusion between the teacher of its doctrine and the substance of the doctrine itself. But Christ Himself is Christianity ; His teaching is inextricably bound up with His Person; and it is not merely because He taught what He did, but because He is what He is, that through Him we can come to the Father.*
3. Christ would not be so great a person if He were not more than man. It is by reason of His Divinity that He is Perfect Man. By Him things were said which were never before and never have been since ascribed to any other being on earth — things which it is impossible to reconcile with any theory short of His perfect humanity and essential Deity. No wonder those who heard Him were astonished at His teaching, struck by the authority with which He spoke. None among their prophets, not even the greatest, Moses or Elijah or the Baptist, had ever
* C. Field, The Charm of India, ix. * Canon Liddou.
ST. JOHN XIV. 6 III
dared to say, " I am," as Jesus so often did. " I am the light of the world " ; "I am the bread of life " ; "I am the good shepherd " ; " I am the door " of the fold ; " I am the resurrection and the life " ; " I am the true vine." What did He mean as He spoke thus ? There is only one explanation. It certainly was not in a spirit of self-assertion, for He was "meek and lowly in heart." He, in coming to earth, " made himself of no reputation " ; He came not to be a master but to be a servant. Why was it, then ? It was because He was a Divine as well as a human Teacher.
^ In very truth the claims of Christ are more eloquent of what He is than any assertions that can be made about Him. Wonderful to tell, it is His very greatness that is our security. If He were less than He is, we might be afraid of Him.
But greatness which is infinite makes room
For all things in its lap to lie : We should be crushed by a magnificence
Short of infinity ! ^
4. Every word in the text is emphatic and remarkable. It is not, " I teach the way ; I declare what is true ; I reveal or announce the life to come." Not that ; but " I am the way, and the truth, and the life. I am all this, in a sense quite distinct from My prophetic teaching. I, personally, am the way to God. I am Myself embodied truth. I have in Myself the source and springs of immortal life." That by "the way" He means "the way to God " is clear from the relation of the last clause of the verse to the first. "I am the way; — no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Jesus does not simply assert, then, that He reveals and opens this way to the eye of the reason by an authoritative message; that He sets it forth in His discourses; that, by word and speech, in sermon and parable, He makes known to man in what way he may approach God, have com- munion with Him, enjoy His favour and friendship, and be ultimately admitted to His presence and glory in the upper world. It is not that, or that only, that He does. All this He may do, but there is something else and something more. He does not merely teach the way, He is the way. He not only says what is true, He Himself is the truth. He does not merely