Why Wouldn't We Believe Him?

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (Jn.14:6)

"I'm sure He didn't say, 'I am THE Truth'," a friend once said to me.  Behind her words lay, I think, a common cultural acceptance that there are many truths -- and for that matter, many ways -- into the heart of God, and that it is a sign of elitism, even snobbery, to insist that one way is superior to another.

And yet, there is the inscription over the door of a university in Germany: There are many doctrines, but one Truth.  Suppose there are multiple gods, as in India, for example. In that case, there may be multiple pathways and multiple truths expressing the limited boundaries of those gods, whose jurisdictions do not impose on one another.  But we are unable to follow every one of those paths to reach every one of those gods in our lifetime.  Therefore, wherever we end up, we have still reached only a partial truth, not THE TRUTH.

If we accept that there is but One God, Creator of heaven and earth and all that is within them, there can be only one Truth, one Path, one Way to that God.  Or to put it another way, that God is Lord of all our paths, able to guide us to Himself from wherever we begin -- in some analogous way, like "All roads lead to Rome."

As Lord of Creation, Jesus is able to guide us to the Father.  He alone has 'the words of everlasting life." He goes after the straying sheep, those who have lost THE WAY:  I have come to seek and to save what was lost.  He has not come to judge our wrong beliefs, but to correct them, to bring us back into the household of the Father.

No one comes to the Father except through me.  No other religious leader has ever made such a claim.  "Believe what I tell you," they might say, but never "I am the Way."  No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him.  There is no other way; there is no other path than the one already given to us in the Son of God.

The question is, "Why can't we believe that?"  Was there anything in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth to indicate that He was lying or deluded when He made such a statement?  Was there anything grandiose or self-seeking in Him that would lead Him to overstate the case?  "I AM THE TRUTH."

It seems to me that we either accept His words and come to Him to find the Truth of Who God Is, or we reject His words and go after our own Truth.