The Door That Is a Person (Part II)

The Fathers and the Faith: How the Early Church Interpreted John 14:6

The Rev. Dr. Ronald Moore

Dec 17

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” — John 14:6 (NKJV)

The words of Christ in John 14:6 form the heartbeat of Christian theology, but they are also the foundation of Christian spirituality. The early Fathers did not read this verse as a philosophical axiom to be dissected—they received it as revelation, to be believed, lived, and adored. What we find in their writings is a unified chorus: Jesus Christ is not merely the teacher of divine things, but the divine thing itself. He is the Way we walk, the Truth we confess, and the Life we receive.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430): The Road and the Destination

In Tractates on the Gospel of John (Tractate 42), Augustine writes:

“Walk by the Man, and thou shalt come to God. For by Himself, who is God and Man, He is the Way whereby thou goest, the Truth whereto thou goest, the Life wherein thou abidest.”

For Augustine, Christ’s humanity is the Way—the path of obedience, humility, and love that draws us upward. His divinity is the Truth and Life—the goal and rest of our pilgrimage. The Incarnation is not an incidental act of compassion but the very road on which creation returns to its Creator.

Thus, salvation is not an ascent we engineer, but a journey we are carried upon. As Augustine said elsewhere, “God became man that man might become God”—that is, restored to communion with the Divine Life.

Key insight: Christ is both the journey and the destination. To walk the Way is already to enter into the Life.

John Chrysostom (c. 349–407): The Exclusive Mediator

In his Homilies on John (Homily 74), the golden-tongued preacher insists:

“He saith not, ‘I show the way,’ but ‘I am the way’; not, ‘I teach the truth,’ but ‘I am the truth’; not, ‘I bestow life,’ but ‘I am the life.’”

For Chrysostom, this language could belong only to God Himself. The prophet may speak truth; the Redeemer is Truth. The verse therefore establishes both Christ’s divinity and His uniqueness. All other paths—whether pagan devotion or self-made righteousness—are shadows and imitations.

Chrysostom connects the saying to the tearing of the Temple veil: what was once hidden in the Holy of Holies is now open, for the curtain is replaced by a Person.

Key insight: Christ alone is the meeting place of heaven and earth—the living Holy of Holies into which all must enter.

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444): The Word Who Is Life Itself

Cyril, the defender of Nicene faith, reads John 14:6 through the lens of the Incarnation’s mystery:

“He is the way of access to the Father because He is by nature the Truth and Life of the Father.”

In Christ, the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3) becomes the bridge by which the created returns to the Creator. To know the Son is to participate in the very communion between Father and Son.

For Cyril, “truth” is not mere accuracy—it is ontological revelation: the unveiling of what is truly real. To be “in the Truth” is to dwell within the divine relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit.

Key insight: Salvation is not a transaction but participation—our adoption into the life of the Triune God.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274): The Triple Cure for the Human Soul

A millennium later, Aquinas distilled the Patristic consensus into scholastic clarity. In his Commentary on John and the Summa Theologiae (III q.1 a.2), he writes:

“Christ is the way by which we go to God; as man He leads us, as God He brings us to the end. He is the Truth, teaching all that leads to eternal life; and He is the Life, bestowing grace that makes us live spiritually.”

Aquinas taught that Christ restores the whole human person. As the Way, He heals our will, teaching us right conduct. As the Truth, He illumines our mind with divine knowledge. As the Life, He renews our very being by grace. The human creature, fractured by sin, is made whole again in the threefold gift of the Redeemer.

Key insight: The verse expresses not only who Christ is, but how grace heals us—mind, will, and life reunited in God.

The Unified Voice of the Fathers

From Augustine to Aquinas, the Church reads John 14:6 as the axis of all theology—the Incarnate Word as both path and goal. The pattern emerges clearly.

Christ is the Way because in His Incarnation and mediatorial work God has bridged the divide between Himself and humanity. He is the Truth because He perfectly reveals the Father, showing us reality as it is. He is the Life because He draws us into the divine life itself, sanctifying us by the Spirit.

In these three titles the Fathers saw the whole of salvation history compressed: God descends in the Incarnation to raise us up (the Way), reveals Himself fully in the Son (the Truth), and shares His own being with us through grace (the Life).

This Trinitarian and Christocentric reading became the soil from which later Christian thought—Eastern and Western alike—would grow. The verse is no ornament to the Gospel; it is the Gospel, rendered in six words.

Conclusion

The Fathers never treated John 14:6 as a claim to be softened or relativized. They treated it as the Church’s charter. Christ is not one among many roads to God; He is the road that God Himself laid down in His own flesh. Every sacrament, every creed, every act of faith depends on this reality.

To read the verse as they did is to stand in the apostolic stream: to believe that salvation is neither a ladder nor a labyrinth, but a living Person.

Next in the series (Part III): Hooker to the Caroline Divines—how Anglican theology and worship made “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” the living rhythm of the Church.

The Rev. Dr. Ronald Moore is the Vicar of St. Luke's Anglican Church in Corinth, Mississippi. He is also associated with Saint Michael and All Angels, where he serves as a member of the clergy.