Daily Dose of Hope

November 3, 2025

Scripture - John 14:1-14

Prayer: Almighty Father, Thank you for a new day and thank you that your mercies are new every single morning. How grateful we are that we can start afresh and anew each day. Forgive us for the many times we fell short, for when we weren't loving, for when we were easily angered, for when our patience wore thin. Today, help us represent you well. In all things, may we be reminded who and whose we are. We are yours. In Your Name, Amen.

This is the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope daily Bible reading plan. We are currently doing a deep dive into the Gospels and Acts. Today, we begin John 14.

This is a phenomenal passage. I know I say that a lot but it truly is. It's a text we often hear read at funerals because it provides a tremendous amount of comfort that God has truly prepared a place for us in heaven.

In this text, there is a great interaction between Jesus and Thomas. The disciples are experiencing a lot of anxiety. Jesus has just told them he's going away but he is trying to reassure them. Jesus is like, I'm on my way to get your room ready. I'll be coming back to get you, trust me. But anyway, you already know the way. And Thomas is like, "Umm…actually, I don't know the way, is there a map or something?" And that's when Jesus says, "You do know the way because I am the way. The only way to get to my Father is through me." And he reiterated what he has been teaching them, "to know me is to know the Father. If you have seen me, then you have seen the Father." Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. As the passage progresses, Philip is included in the conversation. Again, there is this focus on, "If you know me, then you know the Father."

When Jesus says, "I am the way," he doesn't say "I am a way." How the Greek sentence is constructed makes it absolutely clear and irrefutable that Jesus is making an exclusive claim here. He is basically saying, don't go looking to anyone else to point you in those directions, because I am the only one who can!"

Well, that feels pretty exclusive, doesn't it? Yes, it is. And exclusivity makes a lot of us feel uncomfortable. So much so, that many people, including Christians, pastors, and scholars, try to find a loophole here. People want to discount the validity of the Gospel of John, they want to find a problem in the Greek, you name it. Yes, John was written later than the other Gospels but scholars believe that it is still accurate and authoritative. John was written for the purpose of demonstrating that Jesus is the son of God and that is what he does. Thus, he makes this very exclusive claim that Jesus is the only way to the Father. But the Scripture I just read isn't the only one.

What other Scriptures point to the exclusivity of Jesus?

1. John 3:16-18 (Jesus speaking to Nicodemus), For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

2. John 3:36 (later in the conversation)- Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them.

3. Acts 4:12 (Peter, speaking before the Jewish ruling council) – Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."

4. Rom. 10:9 – If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

5. I John 5:12 - Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

And there are many others but I'm going to stop there for now. I do believe in looking at the full narrative of Scripture – if we look at all of the Bible – it points to Jesus as the way to heaven. I've searched to see if the Bible allows for other options, possible openings, that might allow for another way and I haven't found any. There are some things in the Bible in which there is tension – it says this but it also says this – and we have to really dig and pray and interpret. But there isn't tension here at all --- Scripture clearly points to Jesus as the Son of God, the fulfillment of God's promise from Genesis to Revelation, and the only way to the Father, the only way to receive salvation, the only way to heaven.

And that makes logical sense to me. Why would Jesus have voluntarily died on a Roman cross for us if he was just one option among many to provide a way to be saved? If there were other ways to receive salvation and get to God, then why would Jesus even need to do all that? Why would Christians throughout the ages have needed to stand their ground and lose their lives? Why would Christians around the world today be risking their lives to follow Christ? Some may say they are disillusioned but I personally don't believe so. If we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, proving his divinity, proving he is Lord of all – then that means we have to also believe everything he said. We can't pick and choose.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki