Jumping Into the River

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

As English, Gentile, readers of Scripture, we cannot possibly know the weight, the import, of these words as they would have been heard by a Jewish audience.  "Way" means very little to us, other than in a general sense of "path."  To the Jew, however, the word Halakha/ Way means everything: 

Halakha is the way Jews implement God's commands in daily life, the sum and substance of the written and oral Torah, the rabbinic legislation and the commentaries.  When Jesus says, "I am the Halakha," He means that He is the Life contained in the commandments/ laws/ teachings of God.  To accept Him as our Life, as did Paul [It is no longer I that live, but Christ Who lives in me to the glory of the Father], is to fulfill the entire law brought to perfection.

There is no "other" way; to live the law by our own effort is futility---who can blame the Jews who abandon the "way"?  To be scrupulous in obedience to every jot and tittle in the law is to be satisfied with our own 'perfection,' rather than with the fullness of life offered by the overflowing abundance of God living in us---the River of Living Water.

We need only allow God to live in us and through us, for we ourselves can never know enough or do enough to be as fully alive as God created us to be.  What a marvelous plan---God does expect us to follow the Way, but only by surrender to the One Who Himself is the Way, the Life, and the Truth!