At the risk of repeating myself—having reflected on this verse in a recent piece, Where Love Refuses the Line—I want to return to one of the most often quoted, and most frequently misunderstood, sentences in the New Testament.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
Again and again, these words are drawn into service as a line of exclusion—used to divide, to define who is “in” and who is “out,” to reinforce the idea that access to God is limited to those who hold the correct beliefs about Jesus. Each time I encounter that use of the verse, I find myself wanting to protest: “this is not what Jesus was doing at all.”
A Question in the Dark
We need to begin where the words themselves begin.
These are not words spoken from a pulpit, or delivered as a doctrinal statement. They are spoken in the quiet, intimate setting of the Last Supper, in response to a question from a troubled disciple.
Thomas asks, quite simply:
“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
It is a question born of confusion, loss, and fear. Jesus has just told them he is leaving. The future is uncertain. The ground beneath them is shifting.
And Jesus responds—not with a lecture, but with a reassurance: “I am the way…”
This is not a boundary being drawn.
It is a relationship being affirmed.
Within hours, those words begin to take on flesh.
The way he speaks of is not an abstract path, but one he himself will walk: the way of anguished prayer in Gethsemane; the way of standing before false accusation without a trace of defensiveness, without a word of self-justification; the way of suffering borne without hatred or retaliation; the way of the cross itself.
And through it all, something is revealed.
A love that does not turn back.
A truth that is not compromised.
A life that cannot be extinguished.
“Father, forgive them…” he says—refusing the logic of violence even as it is done to him.
This is the way he invites them—and us—to follow: the way of love—costly, faithful, and utterly without retaliation.
And perhaps, like them, we too are still learning what he meant.
Not a Boundary, but a Revelation
Over time, however, these words have been lifted out of that setting and gradually turned into something quite different.
Instead of being heard as a response to a disciple asking how to follow, these words have been read as a universal claim about who is permitted access to God. The emphasis has shifted from following a way to defining the terms of admission to a group.
And in that shift, something essential has been lost.
Because when Jesus says, “I am the way,” he is not pointing to an institution. He is not establishing a membership category. He is describing something lived, something embodied—a way of being in the world that reflects the heart of God.
The earliest Christians understood this. Before they were called “Christians,” they were known simply as followers of “the Way.”
Not a system.
Not a set of propositions.
But a way of life.
Truth as Reality, Not Proposition
The same is true of the word “truth.”
In our modern usage, truth often means correct information—something to be believed, defended, or argued. But the sense in which Jesus speaks of truth is deeper than that.
Truth is not merely something we hold. It is something we inhabit.
When Jesus says, “I am the truth,” he is not claiming to possess the right answers in a debate. He is revealing what is real—what is most deeply true about God, and about the nature of life itself.
In him, God is not distant, not violent, not exclusive. In him, we see a God who forgives, who restores, who gives himself in love—and who invites us, intentionally and personally, into that same relationship.
That invitation is not restricted or withdrawn. It stands—quietly, persistently—for all who are willing to respond. As Jesus himself says elsewhere, “no one comes unless they are drawn by the Father.”(John 6:44) This is truth as revelation, not as information.
Life in Its Fullness
And then, he speaks of “the life.”
The life Jesus speaks of is not mere existence. It is not simply biological survival, or the continuation of consciousness beyond death. It is something richer, deeper, more alive.
It is the life that flows when love is no longer resisted.
The life that begins to emerge when fear loosens its grip.
The life that is found in relationship—with God, with others, with the world itself.
This is the life Jesus embodies. And the life he invites us into.
“Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
It is an invitation, not a demand—not a reward for getting things right, but a welcome extended to those who are weary, burdened, and ready to receive.
What Does “Through Me” Mean?
But what, then, are we to make of the final phrase?
“No one comes to the Father except through me.”
This is where so much misunderstanding has taken root. Part of that misunderstanding, perhaps, lies in the way we instinctively imagine God. Rather than one who is drawing us in, patiently and persistently, we have often imagined God as one who stands apart—setting conditions, watching for what separates rather than what might restore. Yet the God we meet in Jesus does not stand apart, but lives among us.
If we “hear” these words as requiring correct belief about Jesus, then they become a gate—guarded, narrow, and all too easily used to exclude.
But if we begin to see “through me” as meaning through the reality I embody and reveal—the life, the truth, the way I am showing you—then holding the right opinion about me, or belonging to the right religious group, is no longer what finally matters.
Because the way of Jesus is this:
Through the way of self-giving love.
Through the truth of what God is really like.
Through the life that flows from that encounter.
Then the statement is not exclusionary at all. It is simply naming the nature of the journey.
We do not come to the Father through violence, or control, or certainty.
We come through love.
Through truth.
Through life.
And perhaps here we glimpse something of the deeper problem. Like Peter, we are often setting our minds not on divine things but on human things (Matthew 16:23)—inclined to see the world in terms of clear divisions, of who is in and who is out.
But the God revealed in Jesus does not begin with exclusion. His movement is always towards—towards restoration, towards relationship, towards life. The Kingdom he announces is not a closed circle to be defended, but an open reality into which we are continually being invited.
This does not mean that Jesus’ words are always easy, or that they never confront us. At times, he speaks in ways that sound stark, even unsettling—calling for a reordering of our deepest loyalties, or using language that jars against our expectations. But these sayings, too, must be read in the light of the life he lived: a life marked not by violence or exclusion, but by self-giving love, integrity, and the refusal to turn others into enemies.
And these are not abstract qualities. They are what we see, again and again, in Jesus.
A Necessary Clarification
It is important to say this carefully.
Many sincere Christians—including myself, at times—have understood these words to mean that God stands above history, directing outcomes and responding to our prayers by intervening decisively in the world.
That instinct is not born of bad faith. It arises from a genuine desire to trust God, to believe that good will prevail, that justice will be done.
But that same image of God can also be taken up in a very different spirit—invoked to justify power, to sanctify particular agendas, or to align divine purpose with our own national or political ambition.
And here we need to be clear:
The God revealed in Jesus—whose life consistently resists violence and exclusion—refuses to be enlisted in such ways.
He does not coerce.
He does not dominate.
He does not secure his purposes through force.
He works in human hearts.
In relationships.
In quiet, faithful acts of love.
Not Less Demanding, but More
It is easier, in some ways, to believe the right things than to live the way of love.
It is easier to draw lines than to cross them.
Easier to defend truth than to embody it.
Easier to speak of life than to receive it.
And perhaps part of the difficulty lies in how deeply we have been shaped by the patterns of our world. We are so accustomed to systems of access—clicking a box to accept the terms and conditions before being allowed in—that it is almost second nature to imagine the Kingdom of God working in the same way.
Agree to the right statements.
Accept the required conditions.
And then, perhaps, you are admitted.
But Jesus does not invite us into a system of belief alone. He invites us into a way of being—a way that reflects the heart of the Father he reveals. And that is both simpler—and far more demanding—than we might wish.
Where Love Refuses the Line
And so we come full circle.
The line that has so often been drawn in the name of this verse—the line between those who are in and those who are out—begins to dissolve when we return to the context in which the words were spoken, and to the life in which they are embodied.
Because if Jesus is the way, then the way is one of love that reaches outward, not inward.
If Jesus is the truth, then the truth is one that exposes illusion, not one that protects it.
If Jesus is the life, then that life is given freely, not guarded jealously.
And if no one comes to the Father except through him, then we must understand “him” not as a boundary to defend, but as a reality to enter.
An Invitation
Perhaps the question is not: “Who is allowed in?” but: “Are we willing to walk the way he shows us?”
To live truthfully.
To love generously.
To become, in our own small and faltering ways, people through whom that same life begins to take shape.
This is not easy at all. For many of us, it has meant facing difficulty, loss, and challenge in ways we would never have chosen. And yet, over time, it becomes clear that this way is also the way of life in its deepest sense—the way in which joy takes root, often quietly, often unexpectedly.
Speaking personally, after more than half a century of following Christ, I would not have chosen a different path. Not because it has been straightforward or free of struggle, but because it has led, again and again, into a deeper experience of love, truth and life.
And that, perhaps, is why it cannot be reduced to a method, or a strategy, or a set of conditions to be met. It is not something we sign up to by agreeing to the right terms. It is a way to be walked, a life to be lived, a relationship to be entered—a life to be shared.
Which means it cannot be held as a possession, or used to draw lines that keep others out.
Because in the end, the words of Jesus are not a barrier, but an invitation—extended to the weary, the searching, the uncertain, and the open-hearted.
And like all invitations, they must be received—not by argument alone, but by the way we choose to live.
Jeremy Marks, 18th April 2026