Whereupon Christ, after his usual manner, taketh occasion to clear up that ground of consolation further unto them; and to let them see the true way of coming to the Father, that thereby they might be helped to see that they were not such strangers unto the way as they supposed; and withal, he amplifieth and layeth out the properties and excellencies of this way, as being the only true and living way; and that in such a manner, as they might both see the way to be perfect, full, safe, saving, and satisfying; and also learn their duty of improving this way always, and in all things, until they come home at length to the Father, saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”

Christ then saying, that he not only is the way to the Father, even the true way, but that he is so the true way, as that he is also truth itself in the abstract, and so the living way, that he is life itself in the abstract, giveth us ground to consider, after what manner it is that he is the Truth and the Life, as well as the Way; and that for clearing up and discovering of his being an absolutely perfect, transcendently excellent, incomparably preferable and fully satisfying way, useful to believers in all cases, all exigents, all distresses, all difficulties, all trials, all temptations, all doubts, all perplexities, and in all causes or occasions of distempers, fears, faintings, discouragements, &c. which they may meet with in their way to heaven.  And this will lead us to clear up the duty of believers, on the other hand, and to show how they should, in all their various cases and difficulties, make use of Christ as the only all-sufficient way to the Father, and as truth and life in the way, and so we will be led to speak of Christ’s being to his people all that is requisite for them here in the way, whether for justification or sanctification; and how people are to make use of him as being all, or, as being made of “God to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” 1 Cor. i. 30.

Ere we come to the words in particular, we would look upon them as having relation to Thomas his words in the preceding verse, wherein he did little less than contradict what Christ had said in the 4th verse, and learn several very comfortable points of doctrine, as,

I. That Jesus Christ is very tender of his followers, and will not cast them off, nor upbraid them for every escape whereby they may provoke him to anger and grieve his Spirit; but gently passeth by many of their failings, when he findeth they are not obstinate in their mistake, nor perverse in their way.  For how gently and meekly doth he here pass over Thomas his unhandsome expression, finding that Thomas spake here, not out of obstinacy and pertinaciousness, but out of ignorance and a mistake.  And the reason is, because, 1.  Christ knoweth our infirmity and weakness, and is of a tender heart, and therefore will not “break the bruised reed,” Isa. xlii.  Well knoweth he that rough and untender handling would crush us, and break us all in pieces.  And, 2.  He is full of bowels of mercy, and can “have compassion on them that are out of the way, and can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” Heb. iv. 15. v. 2.