What Is Truth?
When He was on trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said – "'For this reason I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.' Pilate said to Him, 'What is truth?'" (John 18:37b-38a). This question has haunted us ever since the beginning: What is truth?
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Is truth relative, or is it absolute? Do you have your own private truth, and I have mine? More and more, the world is falling under the deceptive ideology that truth is relative. But as Jesus told Pilate – "I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth." Just the evening before, at the Last Supper, He said – "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me" (John 14:6). How can we know the absolute truth? Jesus is the absolute God in the flesh, He is absolute Truth! And a little while later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed to His Father about His Apostles – "Sanctify them in Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17).
Later, the Apostle Paul wrote – "For though we walk in the flesh, we don't wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the throwing down of strongholds, tearing down false ideologies and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to discipline all disobedience, when your obedience will be made full" (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). We need to take a stand for the truth, but not "wage war according to the flesh"; rather, speak the truth but season it with honey, not vinegar: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!
In the Old Testament we read – "Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Psalm 85:10). This is the ideal we should aim for. Truth is truth whether we believe it or not, but when truth is combined with mercy, righteousness,and peace, more and more people will come to believe in the truth ...in Jesus.
How can we know the truth? Jesus said – :If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31b-32). Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God – "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ...The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw His glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1 & 14). His "word" is not just what's typeset in red in the four Gospels in a red-letter edition of the Bible, it is all of His teachings passed on to His Apostles – "There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they would all be written, I suppose that even the world itself wouldn't have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25).
Also – "So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold the traditions [the teachings passed down] which you were taught by us, whether by word [orally], or by letter" (2 Thessalonians 2:15). There are "many other things" that Jesus passed on orally to His Apostles, then they passed on to their disciples, and so on, before the canon of the New Testament was decided upon 350 years later, at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. For those many years, Christians were being persecuted and it was dangerous to write down too much. They developed tremendous memories: many of the Early Church Fathers had memorized much of the Old Testament and the Apostles' writings that were in circulation.
Well then, if we didn't have the full Bible until 350 years after Christ was on earth teaching His Apostles before He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, what is our firm foundation for the divinely-inspired absolute truth? If not the Bible, then what? The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy – "These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly; but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:14-15). The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, not only the Scriptures, like many Protestants believe.
So, to avoid being deceived by false ideologies teaching that truth is relative or there is no truth, we must abide in Him, the Living Word, and in His written word passed down through the Apostles "so that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him, Who is the head, Christ" (Ephesians 4:14-15).
Jesus told the woman at the well in Samaria – "But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be His worshipers" (John 4:23). True worship is "ortho-doxy" in Greek. Then, in John 14:16-17, He said – "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see Him, neither knows Him. You know Him, for He lives with you, and will be in you."
And again – "When the Counselor has come, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me" (John 15:26). So our Counselor or Advocate, the Spirit of truth, our "defense lawyer" Who pleads our case before the Father, lives in us and helps us to worship in truth and discern truth from error. The Holy Spirit has given holy men of God the gift of correctly interpreting or telling forth the Scriptures ("prophecy" is "telling forth" as well as "foretelling"): "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation, [just] as no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (1 Peter 1:20-21).
In conclusion, "Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). Let us be diligent in seeking, getting to know, and properly interpreting the Word of Truth. This comes by getting to know Christ, the Living Word, intimately: spend time with Him!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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