Tie that together with Matthew 11:27. Those who can know the Father are those who are having the Father revealed to them by the Son.
It is through the life, the works, and the words of Jesus Christ that we come to know the names of God. Moses asked God to show him His way. If you want to see what God is like, if you want to see the mind of God, if you want to see the nature of God, if you want to see God's whole attitude, Jesus Christ is saying, look at Me! He is the way because, of all of mankind (all who have ever lived), He is the only one who has intimate knowledge of the Father that is totally, completely, unmarred by sin. His vision of God is absolutely perfect and accurate.
Jesus Christ shows the way men should walk. Actually, I should not say, should. The way men must walk. He shows us the direction, the manner, the method of doing things. The way to God lies in knowledge of the Son. This is exactly what Christ has done, in declaring the glory of the Father to mankind.
When you go to Jesus Christ and you ask Him the way, He says, Come. Follow Me. I'll show you. That is why He is the way. He shows us! It is not just in words. He shows us the mind of God, so that we know the name of God - because we see Him in all kinds of circumstances. As Jesus acted, so would the Father act. (If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.) And so we have no excuse when we say that we cannot understand the Father, or that we cannot know God - that He is distant from us. How can I keep the third commandment if I do not know God, and I do not know His name? It is right there in the New Testament. We have been shown.
In addition to that, He is truth. There are people who can speak truth. They can teach us truth. I can teach you truth. Many others can teach us truth. But Jesus Christ was truth. He embodied it! Everything that He did and said was absolutely right on the mark - every time, without fail. No misleading, no shadow of turning. No time, at any time in His life, was there ever even the tiniest hint of deception about God, about what He is, or the way to go, or the way to do things. Everything is right on the mark.
These are two of the strongest statements in the entire Bible about the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not only equal to God - He is God! Jesus Christ not only reflects God - He reveals God. He was not a mere statue - like the moon reflecting the glory of something else. He was a channel for it, completely and totally. Completely holy, He has the authority to judge the world. There is no clearer view anywhere of what God is like!
Now what did He do when He became a man? The full revelation of God, the complete expression of God in a human body - He is unique. He imposed upon Himself all the time and space limitations that are imposed upon all other human beings. He had every opportunity to waste time, to get drunk, to be a glutton, to get angry, embittered, depressed, upset, frustrated, to have headaches, to strike out at others.
He had the opportunity to live through the deaths of loved ones, and to face His own death as well. And so, in Jesus Christ, we see God coping with life on the same terms as other men. And we are able to see the kind of character that God possesses. We are actually able to see it in actual, real life, everyday kinds of experiences, if we will just dare to meditate on these kinds of things.
We can have firsthand information about how we ought to react in our situations in our life. We see God teaching. We see God healing. We see God laying down His life. We see God correcting in love. We see God patiently counseling.
