It is simply an awesome and yet wonderful and utterly glorious thing to meditate on God’s love for Himself. In one sense it is taking a spiritual stroll into the very glories of the Godhead. If it is true that by definition and biblical revelation the one God is triune, then we need to understand how He operates within the Trinity as far as revelation will take us. Holy Scripture is the revelation of the mind and love of God and yet it is also the revelation of all of the character of God. When we read John 14:6 and are told that we cannot go to the Father but through the Son, we usually nod our heads and go on with life. But we must deal with Scripture with prayer and spiritual understanding. A text cannot be understood by looking at the Greek and a few commentaries. We must seek the Lord to give us understanding. After all, Christ is still our Prophet and the Holy Spirit is still the One that gives illumination.
Can we understand any aspect of the Holy God who exists as triune except how He says He reveals Himself? He tells us that He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. John 1:17-18 has some very clear teachings in this matter: “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The text itself tells us that grace and truth came into our reality (realized = reality) in Jesus Christ. In other words, as we look back at John 1:14 the body of Christ was the very dwelling place of the glory of God’s grace and truth. The glory of God’s grace and truth are recognized in their reality in Jesus Christ. The grace of God was shown in concept in the Old Testament as it looked to the New Testament reality, but in Christ the very grace of God came and dwelt among men. In fact, the grace of God dwells in the hearts of men as the life of God who is Jesus Christ. In other words, if we want to know the grace of God we must see the glory of that grace shining in Jesus Christ.
With that in mind, let us look at John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'” In light of the fact that Christ is spoken of as the very outshining of the glory of God (radiance of in Hebrews 1:3) we know we cannot understand God Himself without beholding Him in the shining forth of His glory. We must look at this in terms of the Trinity. The Son is the very Word of God and is God Himself. A word is what we use to express ourselves or our thoughts with. Christ is the expression of the glory of God. Therefore, if we want to see God we must go to Him through the Son. The Gospel consists of the glory of God in Christ: “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4). The Gospel is termed in this verse as the gospel of the glory of Christ. But what is that glory? “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). The Gospel is the glory of Christ because the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the face of Christ and is only seen in Christ.
There is no Gospel apart from seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ. There is no Gospel apart from seeing the Gospel as the Gospel of the glory of Christ. The glory of the Gospel is not about how great man is or about what God has done for man, but the glory of the Gospel is all about the glory of God as within the Godhead. It is in light of this that we see John 14:6 as something far more than a mere proposition. This text tells us that the way to the Father is through the Son and there is no other way to see and love the Father but through the Son. This text tells us that there is no other place that we can discover the truth about God but in Christ where the glory of His truth shines. Jesus Christ is not just something about the truth, but He is truth itself. He did not only come to give us propositions about the truth, but He came as the shining forth of the glory of God who is truth. This text also tells us that Christ is the life. It is not just that there is life and Jesus tells us about life, but He is eternal life itself. The person who has Christ has the life and the person who does not have Christ does not have the life.
I John 1:1-3 is clear that Christ is the Word of life and that life was manifested and it is that life that is eternal life. In some way, then, we have no way of understanding God except through the Truth Himself and receiving life Himself. Christ is the very truth of God and is eternal life Himself. If God loves, then His love is displayed in Christ. But since God is love His love is never apart from His love for Himself. All that God does in displaying Himself is His love for the Son. God loves to display His grace and truth in salvation but that is because Christ is His grace and truth in reality and on display. There is no Gospel apart from God’s love for Himself which is to say apart from His love for the Son and shining His glory through the Son and putting the Son on display. The Gospel is not primarily about human beings, it is about the love of God for Himself and that love displayed in Christ.
God Loves... Himself 
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