The God of Truth
Ps. 31:1-5
As a campus minister, it is easy enough for me to see problems in our world today -- from individuals who are just not sure if there is any way to make sense of life to the "Gay and Lesbian Alliance." There is an almost endless list of people and groups without an anchor, without a foundation in a world of conflicting ideas. Universities today typically don’t help with these problems. Often, they make them worse.
But these are really just symptoms of one, underlying, fundamental problem: the problem of truth. The problem of truth is not new. You can see the problem, unchanged essentially from its modern form, in the exchange between Jesus and the politician Pontius Pilate. Pilate found himself in a position in which the truth was both rather obvious, rather unpopular and, shall we say, inexpedient. Looking for some way to avoid the problem of truth, Pilate questioned Jesus, and as John records in the eighteenth chapter of his gospel:
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here."
Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all. (NKJ)
Pilate tried to pretend that truth was either non-existent or unknowable. It is a reaction that has been shared by many throughout the centuries, but it is especially popular in our time.
Many particular questions come up as we attempt to communicate the Word of God to the world around us. In many ways these are just manifestations of the one key question, the question of truth. This is the basic debate the followers of Jesus must have with the world. With that in mind, we will have a look at this matter of truth.
We Cannot Over-estimate the Importance of the Idea of Truth.
When Jesus was about to say something that “went against the grain” of those around Him, He was fond of beginning with the word "amen."
"Amen" is essentially the Greek version of the Hebrew word for "truth." It is translated in the NIV, "I tell you the truth." Perhaps that should not surprise us from someone who claimed to be "the truth."
God and truth are inseparable according to the Bible. In Psalm 31 The LORD is referred to as "the God of truth." In the Bible, coming to God and coming to the truth are synonymous. On the other side of the coin, rebellion against God is identified with the rejection of truth. Paul puts the matter this way:
Romans 1:18 -- The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, (NIV)
Romans 1:25 -- They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator
Truth is central to the very character of God. Therefore, if Christians are to reflect the character of God, our ultimate concern must be with truth.
Yes, our concern must be with truth, but we cannot avoid the modern version of Pilate’s question, “What do you mean by ‘truth?’”
Many will grant us the term, but that is not enough. We must carefully consider: The Nature of Truth
We live in a world that has a “truth deficiency.” We live in a world where most people pretend that there is no truth.
We retain the word "truth" but its meaning has been twisted, truncated, and tortured.
A statement is true when it describes reality rightly. We live in a world, like that of Pilate, where the light of reality is unbearable to those living in darkness.
Trying to avoid this discomfort, "truth" has been gutted of its original meaning. It is now defined in all sorts of other terms. "Truth" is a quality of statements that make me feel good about myself. "Truth" is whatever brings me personal satisfaction. "Truth" is that which produces something I want.
When "truth" is measured by the individual or a group attempting to apprehend it, it is made “relative.” Our world has relativized truth to the point of obliteration.
If you study the society in which you live and the people you know, you will realize that this is very much the case. It is almost impolite in many circles to even speak of "the truth." It is considered immodest. It is considered arrogant.
Our era says there is no such critter as "the truth." There is your truth, my truth, his truth, her truth, their truth, and our truth, but certainly NOT the truth!
But if the central concern of the church is the truth, we have a lot of work to do. We must proclaim to the world -- a world that goes to great lengths to avoid the very idea of the truth -- we must proclaim to that world the message that the truth is available, and it is this that we are trying to deliver.
We must proclaim that there is truth that is "true for everyone, true everywhere, and true for all time."
In the early twentieth century it became fashionable to acknowledge that Jesus was "a great religious teacher" — only that, but nothing more. This was, in effect, a polite way to dismiss Christianity. This approach has become less popular as the hard reality of what Jesus actually taught strikes through this thin veneer of respect.
Jesus was that intolerant fellow. He was intolerant of the lack of, or the avoidance of, truth. It was he who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6)
The gospel and the apostolic teaching have a very interesting designation from both Paul and James, "the word of truth." (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:15) It is NOT your truth, my truth, their truth, or our truth. It is the truth; it is God’s truth, and thus, it is everyone’s truth.
It is this concept of truth that makes Christianity what it is. Without this idea of truth, there is no Christian faith.
We worship God because the reality, the truth, of the matter is that we are created beings and God is our Creator.
We preach the gospel to all creatures because the reality, the truth, of the matter is that we have all sinned and stand in condemnation before the Creator, and we stand in need of the salvation found only in Jesus the Christ. As we examine this, the truth, we find that:
Truth Has Important Results
The world expects certain results from its idea of "truth" -- results that are not always available. This is the case because truth is an accurate description of reality, and descriptions of reality do not always have results that people expect or desire.
The truth does not necessarily make you "feel good." Once a very wealthy young man came to Jesus. He told Jesus that he had observed the commandments and wanted to know, "What do I still lack?" Jesus told the young man to give up his wealth and follow Him. The young man "went away sad." (Matt 19) The truth did not make him happy at all. But then, the truth is not designed to make us feel good about ourselves. Truth describes reality. Butting your head up against reality can be, must be, very painful.
The truth does not necessarily produce "acceptance." The idea that we must “tolerate” everyone’s ideas is one of the gods of our age. If “tolerate” is here taken to mean, “never criticize or contradict” then we find that Jesus was a very intolerant person — which might explain why He is so hated by many today.
In John chapter 4 we have an account of an exchange between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. In that exchange, Jesus makes a statement that seems rather shocking today. He says to the woman, "You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews." Consider how intolerant this is. Jesus says to this woman, who has not even made his acquaintance, "Your worship is wrong." Today we hate to even entertain the idea that anyone could be “wrong” - - ESPECIALLY about things like worship. But like the Samaritan woman, we can be wrong. We are called upon to point out the truth. It can have good results, as it did in the case of the Samaritan woman, who acknowledged the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. It can have bad results for those who not recognize it. But regardless of results, we must be brokers of the truth.
The Apostle Paul emulated his Lord in this regard as well as others. In Acts 17 Paul addresses what might call the "Philosophy & Religion Department" at the university of Athens.
There Paul enunciated the following truths, which are about as popular now as they were then:
-- We can know God
-- God is the creator of all
-- God is self-sufficient
-- God is in complete control of His creation
-- God cannot be identified with anything made by human beings
-- God requires that we repent, and He will judge the world
-- God offers objective evidence for all this in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead
Only a few in Athens accepted these truths. They went against the “grain” of the time. These truths were probably "offensive" to many of those present. But that was beside the point for Paul, as it should be for us.
We must present truth in societies (like our own) that pride themselves on "tolerating everything except intolerance." The very common thought that “No matter what someone believes, if they are sincere, God accepts that" is warm, fuzzy, and VERY false. Jesus and His Apostles never said such things, both because of their love of truth AND their love for people.
The truth does not necessarily lead to "fluffy optimism."
While it is the case that the gospel is "good news," the whole truth is not just good news. In fact, part of what makes the "good news" so very good is the background truth of "bad news." When Paul presents the "good news" in the book of Romans, he spends a fair bit of time laying out the "bad news" first.
The Bible is shot through with an idea that is considered so unpleasant today that many simply refuse to hear it. This idea is that human beings can and do choose to do evil deeds, and that we are morally responsible for these evil deeds. Have you ever noticed that when some hideous crime is committed and discussed, there is this constant repetition of the thought, "He must have been crazy." Why does one so seldom hear, "He decided to do evil?" That is, after all, the Biblical explanation.
Without the "bad news" that we can and have done evil, the good news makes no sense. In a world where aberrant behavior is thought to be the result of our childhood experiences or our mental instability, there is no need for the gospel. We just need psycho-therapy and a carefully controlled social environment. But we certainly don’t need to repent and we certainly don’t need the grace of God!
The church is called upon to state the very unpopular truth about evil in this world, and the equally unpopular truth of the need for repentance. When you remember that John the Baptist literally “lost his head” for preaching repentance to a powerful man and his wife, you can see how dangerous the truth can be - - especially when it is truth about things people would rather not hear, things like the sinfulness of improper sexual relationships.
It is this very negative truth about the condition of humanity that makes the "good news" good. The "good news" seems like nonsense to a world that does not recognize the moral truth. But it is part of what the church must declare to the world.
The Truth Does not always attract people.
In John’s gospel (chapter 6) we read of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of a vast multitude starting only with five loaves and two fishes. But in many ways, this is not the most interesting part of this chapter in the Bible. Just after this, Jesus walks on the Sea of Galilee -- "another miracle" (as the little Xerox monk used to say in the TV commercial), but in many ways this is still not the most interesting part of the chapter. Later, Jesus teaches some truths about Himself that were not pleasing to the group following Him. He said things, true things, about being "the Bread of Life" and the necessity to "eat His flesh and drink His blood." It all leads to one of the most interesting verses in the Bible, John 6:66, "From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him."
We are not assured that the truth will attract everyone. There is this idea around the 21st century North American church that if you make the right plans, cook up the right gimmicks, and turn all the right sociological tricks, people will want to hear the truth, and thus will masses innumerable descend upon your congregation.
While we certainly should put "our best foot forward" that does not change the fact that there will be people, sometimes many people, who simply will not hear the truth. Our job is to speak the truth, as Jesus did. Just as in the case of Jesus, some will not like it and some will not accept it. The truth will not always attract people.
But the truth can do something that nothing else can do: it can "set you free."
In the last section of the eighth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus makes this statement: (John 8:31) "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (NIV)
God’s word opens a window on our own lives, the lives of our fellows, and the whole of creation. But since God’s word is truth, what we see through this window, while ultimately optimistic, is, nonetheless, stark. There is sin, there is rebellion against God, there is the active attempt to avoid the truth. But what we see is ultimately optimistic because two parts of the truth we see: God, as Creator of all, has the final control, and, God, as Redeemer, has done what is necessary to undo the effects of sin.
Finally:
The primary business of Christians is TRUTH -- the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us, God! When Paul summarized the mission of the church, he said [Ephesians 4:14-15] that when the leadership of the church had done its job of making the truth the controlling factor in the minds of Christians:
“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”
The mission, the work, the very goal of the church is the truth.
Almost every Christmas I re-read “A Christmas Carol.” I also enjoying watching the movie version in which George C. Scott plays the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. Perhaps you remember that at the end of Scrooge’s encounter with “The Ghost of Christmas Past” Ebenezer, tired of the discomfort of viewing his past life and the mistakes of that life, seizes the Ghost’s extinguisher-cap and presses it down over the Ghost’s lighted head until The Ghost of Christmas Past” disappears. In the movie version, the screen writer adds a very nice touch (and it is hard to improve Dickens!). As Scrooge presses the Ghost’s cap over its head, the Ghost does nothing other than cry out, “Truth lives!, Truth lives! Truth lives!” It does live. It does indeed.
Our age asserts, among other things, that there is no possibility of truth. It is one of those assertions that refutes itself, because if it is true, then it is false.
As William Cullen Bryant has written:
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
the eternal years of God are hers;
but error, wounded, writhes in pain,
and dies among his worshipers.
We are called to be the brokers of truth, who have said with the Psalmist, "Into your hands we commit our spirits; redeem us, O Lord, the God of truth!"
