The Way, the Truth and the Life

Here is a great example that if you do not study and know the Torah, then you are not going to understand what the Mashiyach Y’hoshua is saying when he said: “יהושע (Y’hoshua) said to him, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). How many times have you read over this verse or even quoted it? Did you really know what the Mashiyach was saying? The fact of the matter is that the majority of the time that this verse is quoted, it is way out of context and is being quoted to say something that is not true to this statement. To truly understand this statement, one has to go to the Torah and understand what is written there first.

Let us break the sentence up and have a look at some of these statements individually to get the full understanding of what our Savior was saying.

The Life

What was the Mashiyach saying when he said that he is the life? Let us look at a few Scriptures that reveal to us what the life is. “But do not eat flesh with its life, its blood” (Gen 9:4). “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make a covering for your lives, for it is the blood that makes a covering for the life” (Lev 17:11). “for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood is for its life. And I said to the children of Yisra’ĕl, ‘Do not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it is cut off” (Lev 17:14). “Only, be firm not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, do not eat the life with the meat” (Deut 12:23). So as you can clearly see, the life that Y’shua was talking about is his blood. “He redeems their life from oppression and from violence; And their blood is precious in His eyes” (Psalm 72:14). Is it the blood that is precious in the eyes of the Almighty, or is it their life? The life of a person is in his blood. “יהושע (Y’hoshua) therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Aḏam and drink His blood, you possess no life in yourselves.

“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood possesses everlasting life, and I shall raise him up in the last day” (John 6:53-54). What Y’hoshua was saying to his disciples was not to physically eat his flesh and drink his blood as that is against what the Torah teaches. What he was saying was that they should “eat his flesh” do as he did, and “drink his blood” that his blood was for the covering of their sins.

Clearly you should now see that the blood of Y’hoshua that was spilled on the torture stake was for the covering of our sins.

This is what Y’hoshua meant by “I am the life”

The Truth

When the Scriptures speak of truth, it is referring to the Torah of YHWH. Here are some Scriptures again that show you this to be true. “He who walks blamelessly, And does righteousness, And speaks the truth in his heart” (Psalm 15:2). “Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the Elohim of my deliverance; On You I wait all the day” (Psalm 25:5). Is Dawid wanting to be taught in Truth or in the Instruction of YHWH (Torah)? Or is it not maybe the same thing? Let us see what he has to say about this. “You are near, O יהוה (YHWH), And all Your commands are truth” (Psalmlm 119:151). “The sum of Your word is truth, And all Your righteous right-rulings are forever” (Psalm 119:160). Here you can see that Dawid is referring directly to the Torah as the Truth. So if someone speaks truth, they are speaking the Torah of YHWH, on the other side of the coin, if they do not have or speak the Torah of YHWH, then there is no truth in them. This is what John was saying when he wrote: “And by this we know that we know Him, if we guard His commands. The one who says, “I know Him,” and does not guard His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever guards His Word, truly the love of Elohim has been perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:3). John had a very good understanding of the Torah and of Y’hoshua. With this knowledge, he showed us that we are still to obey the Instruction of YHWH.

“But you shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that did not obey the voice of יהוה (YHWH) their Elohim, nor did they accept instruction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth” (Jeremiah 7:28). Here Jeremiah was prophesying and revealing that Israel did not accepted the Torah (Truth) of YHWH. That is why Israel looks like it does today.

Daniel was also a great prophet and was righteous as he lived in truth. He understood that the Torah of YHWH was truth. “Now I, Neḇuḵaḏnetstsar, am praising and exalting and esteeming the Sovereign of the heavens, for all His works are truth, and His ways right. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble” (Dan 4:37), “As it is written in the Torah of Mosheh, all this evil has come upon us, and we have not entreated the face of יהוה (YHWH) our Elohim, to turn back from our crookednesses, and to study Your truth” (Dan 9:13), “But let me declare to you what is written in the Scripture of Truth, and there is no one supporting me against these, except Miḵa’ĕl your head” (Dan 10:21). Is Daniel saying that we must turn from crookedness and study the Almighty’s truth? What is his truth? The truth is the Words of YHWH which is His Torah!

Here is another example: “These are the words you should do: speak the truth (Torah) to one another, judge with truth (Torah) and right-ruling for peace in your gates” (Zech 8:16)

“I rejoiced greatly because I found some of your children walking in truth (Torah), as we received a command from the Father” (2 John 1:4). Here John is telling us that the Almighty rejoiced greatly when he found some of the children walking in Torah as was commanded by Him. Is this not after the death and resurrection of the Mashiyach? “I have no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in truth (Torah)” (3 John 1:4). YHWH is clearly happy when we turn to His Truth and follow His Torah, He rejoices when we do. He becomes sad when we turn from doing the Torah and even becomes angry too.

So when Y’hoshua said “I am the truth” he was saying that he was the Torah of YHWH and we are to follow in his footsteps.

The Way

Now if you go read the Torah, especially Leviticus, you will notice very quickly that the people of Israel did not go directly to the Almighty for the forgiveness of their sins. They went to the priests with their offerings and the priests performed the sacrifices and presented it to YHWH. The High Priest also made a covering of the sins of the nation once a year on Yom Kippur. The High Priest had to set himself apart from the nation and from sin in order that he does not die when he enters into the Most Set Apart of the Set Apart place. This is because the presence of YHWH was there and if the High Priest did not cleans himself from ALL sin, he would have fallen dead immediately. Aharon the High Priest was also referred to as Mashiyach (Anointed One). So basically, the priests where the way to the father for the forgiveness of sins.

Let us look at a few Scriptures: “And you, speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, and they shall make the garments of Aharon, to set him apart, for him to serve as priest to Me” (Exodus 28:3), “And you shall put them on Aharon your brother and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them, and shall ordain them, and shall set them apart, and they shall serve as priests to Me” (Exodus 28:41)

“and shall gird them with girdles – Aharon and his sons – and put the turbans on them. And the priesthood shall be theirs for an everlasting law. So you shall ordain Aharon and his sons” (Exodus 29:9). Here you can see that the priesthood is an everlasting law. If it is everlasting, does that mean that it is still a law today? Is today part of everlasting?

“And Aharon shall make a covering upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of a covering – once a year he makes a covering upon it throughout your generations. It is most set-apart to יהוה (YHWH)” (Exodus 30:10). Here is where it describes some of the duties of the High Priest (Aharon at that time) that was done on Yom Kippur every year.

“And he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull as a sin offering – so shall he do it. And the priest shall make a covering for them, and it shall be forgiven them” (Lev 4:20), “and shall bring his guilt offering to יהוה (YHWH) for his sin which he has sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a female goat as a sin offering. And the priest shall make a covering for him, for his sin” (Lev 5:6), “And he shall prepare the second as a burnt offering according to the right-ruling, and the priest shall make a covering for him, for his sin which he has sinned, and it shall be forgiven him” (Lev 5:10), “The guilt offering is like the sin offering, there is one Torah for them both: the priest who makes a covering with it, it is his” (Lev 7:7). In these verses, who is it that actually forgives sin? It is not the priests that forgive the sins of the people; it is YHWH who forgives the sin. It is however the duty of the priests to present the sin of the people with the covering of blood to YHWH so that their sins may be forgiven. Without the priests, no sin could be forgiven as there is no one to present the sin and it’s covering to YHWH in order to be forgiven.

With the death and resurrection of the Mashiyach changed this law? Certainly not, it is an everlasting law. Does Y’hoshua haMashiyach have the ability to change any of the Commands and Laws of his Father? DEFINITELY NOT! So what happened after the death on the torture stake and the resurrection of our Mashiyach? Y’hoshua became the High Priest who presents our sins with the covering to his Father so that our sins may be forgiven. So as you can see, nothing has changed.

So when Y’hoshua haMashiyach said: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”, he was saying that he was:

• The Way – the High Priest who presents our sin with his own blood as the covering to YHWH his Father so that our sins may be forgiven.
• The Truth – He is the Torah of his Father and requires us to walk in the Torah just as he did.
• The Life – It is his blood that is the covering for our sins that took the place of the blood of the slaughtering of lambs.

Without these three, no one can come unto the Father. Y’hoshua has become all three so that we can come unto the Father through him.

Nothing has changed from the Instruction of YHWH given to us through Mosheh. We just have a perfect lamb that laid down his own life so that we do not have to bring our own livestock to the priests to be slaughtered. We are to walk as he walked by guarding to DO the Torah of YHWH. However, if we fall short of doing any of the instruction of YHWH, we can go to our High Priest and have him present the sin with the covering of his blood to the Almighty so that our sin may be forgiven so that we too may have eternal life.