Adventure Quest #2: Does Absolute Truth Exist? (this post is in the process of being written and incomplete at this time)
Adventure Quest #2: Does Absolute Truth Exist?
To Quest (a very active verb): To engage in a long, difficult and adventurous journey that requires hard work in order to achieve a worthwhile goal or a valuable possession; to give oneself to a focused search, a single-minded pursuit, that frequently involves challenges, exploration, and personal growth; to invest personally in a prolonged endeavor in which the process is just as important as the product; to engage in a mission or expedition in an extensive search to discover something important.
if we had been flies on the wall of the village Greek spa around 500 BC, we might have overheard this socratic discussion between the local philosophers (the “lovers of wisdom”) who liked to think about such things….
Heraclitus: “Okay, men, I really think we’re onto something here, and we’re not just flying by the seat of our pants as usual about abstract thoughts that lead us nowhere. I think we can agree on this, right? That surely there must be something significant behind this amazing universe we are all enjoying. When we look at this world of ours, it’s just way too coherent, too reasonable, too purposeful, too orderly, too-well-designed, too beautiful, too organized, too…
Pythagoras: “Yes, yes, we get your point! It’s easy to see that the universe is just too spectacular in every way to exist and carry on will-nilly. There must be a divine law, or a universal principle, or something behind all this. It doesn’t make sense otherwise! There has got to be a universal Thought behind all thinking, a universal Reason that inspires all reason!
Diogenes: “Exactly! We need to name this Reality behind all the other realities. There must be a word we can use for this universal principle, so we all know what we’re talking about when we talk about it, right?
Heraclitus: “I agree! I think the best name for this organizing principle is Logos! I know, I know, it’s the word we use in our bookkeeping when we add up numbers and count tallies and give an accounting of something mathematically. But what better word could we find for the underlying Logic behind all things? Our universe doesn’t add up if there isn’t a governing force making sense of the world, right? So I propose that Logos is the word we can use when we think of Reason, Thought, Word, Expression, Organizing Principle, Inherent Purpose, Transcendent Source. What do think of this, my friends?
Pythagoras: “Perfect! That was brilliant, Heraclitus! I wish I would have thought of that myself! But this Logos, this invisible intelligence somewhere behind everything, it is truly beyond our understanding, is it not? Is there any hope that we can get to the bottom of what it all means?
Herodotus: “Well, we can get the ball rolling by assuming what might be true just by using our good ol’ Greek logic. For instance, Logos is an expression, a Word that is spoken to bring order out of chaos, right? So maybe we can safely assume that all the truth, goodness and beauty we find in the world is somehow spoken into reality by Logos. And I would think that when Logos speaks, the world listens. And as soon as this Logos-Word is expressed, whatever is said comes into existence the moment it is spoken. Does that make sense to you men?
Thales: “Well said, Herodotus! That makes sense to me. But I have a question here… Are there any hints in the reality around us that point to Logos? Logos is invisible and inaudible, so are there visible or audible pointers that part the curtain and prove that there is a Logos? In other words, is there anything in our this-worldly existence that shouts to us the existence of this other-worldly Logos factor in the universe? What can we point to that certifies there is such a thing as Logos?
Orpheus: “Thales, Thales! You don’t have to ask the same question in a million different ways. We get it! But I do like the question. There must be some Logos that is arranging all the obvious coherence in this world. There must be lots of hints in our world that have been dropped by the Logos of the other world, something physical that represents this invisible structure that we’re talking about.
Heraclitus: “Yes, and that hint is harmony! Think of all the harmony we see in the world, when different things somehow fit together coherently. The universe is structured in such a way that there is harmonious function everywhere!
Pythagoras: “Well said! And what do we immediately think of when we think of harmony? Music! How unlikely that such a heavenly reality even exists in our world! The existence of music only makes sense when we see music as an expression of Logos, like the sunbeam from the sun. Think of the beauty of the musical sounds to our ears. Think of the fixed truths and order of the musical scales. Think of the goodness that music brings to our souls and to our world. Nothing moves us as deeply as music, am I right? On top of that, I would bet you a million denarii that even the stars and planets are all moving to the music of Logos! In fact, I wonder if Logos and Music are intertwined so intimately that we couldn’t even tell the two apart if we tried!
Diogenes: “Whoa! So music is not just a gift of Logos, but actually the physical expression of the spiritual Logos? So are you suggesting, Pythagoras, that when we play an instrument, or sing, or simply enjoy music, we are actually experiencing somehow the essence of Logos itself? Hold the phone. I’ve got to think about this for awhile.
Heraclitus: “While we’re thinking about Logos and music, I’ve got the perfect topic for our next discussion… Mathematics! Think of the structure and orderly beauty of mathematics, and the objective truth of it, and how mathematical music actually is?
Herodotus: “Okay, okay! Let’s sink our teeth into that later this week! We need to let this Logos idea digest for awhile. See you in a few days, gentlemen…”
Logos in the Flesh? Don’t be Absurd. In a sense the Greek logos is able to create truth and reality. The Greeks never dreamed that their logos would become an actual person. The idea that logos would take on flesh would be laughable and unthinkable, and would actually defeat their whole understanding of this ideal of an impersonal, governing force in the world. The Greek logos had many hints of the true faith, though, and has been called a “bridge-word” because of the many Greeks who baptized the Greek logos into Christian belief after finding Christianity a logical step forward.
The Hebrew Logos. The Bible used during the time of Jesus and the early Christians was usually the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The original Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but Greek was the prominent language used during Jesus’ time. The Septuagint had been translated several centuries before Christ, and so it was commonplace for New Testament writers to quote the Greek version and not the Hebrew version of Scripture. For the most part, when we see a quote from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, it is from the Septuagint. The Greek term logos was used literally hundreds of times in the Greek Old Testament, and was often used to highlight the Word of God. Logos was also used to translate “truth,” and implied thought, meaning, planning and design. It’s interesting that the Hebrew Bible’s logos was so similar to the Greek understanding. In many ways, the Greek Old Testament laid the groundwork for John’s use of logos. The Word of God in the Hebrew Bible (logos), as with John, signified the presence of the Lord. Logos suggested God’s self-expression, whether in creation, in the prophet’s message, or in the Torah itself. When a prophet declared “the word of the Lord,” the prophet’s words were considered coming from the mind and mouth of Yahweh Himself.
LOGOS: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word (Logos) was with God, and the Word (Logos) was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, for God created everything through Him; not one thing came into being except through Him. In Him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.” (John 1:1-4).
The ‘heavens’ of creation is a vital part of God’s created order and design, which brings us to ‘logos.’ For, behind the written Word is the living Word, and behind the living Word is the creative Reason that resulted in all the beauty, order, and design of nature. Thus, the sky and all God’s handiwork in the heavens is an integral part of Logos.
The Greek Logos. The Greek term for “word” was logos. Logos evidently started in the centuries before as a mathematical term, meaning to count up or give an accounting for, as in bookkeeping. It was still used occasionally in that way, such as in Matthew 12:26. For the most part, the term logos evolved into a Greek philosophical term. Using their famous Greek logical thinking, many Greek thinkers looked at our reasonable, well-ordered world and concluded that there must be a universal principle of Reason that is behind the running of the cosmos. They thought, mostly as a logical necessity, that there is an Intelligence somewhere, a transcendent source for this order that is beyond man’s understanding. There must be something that provides the world with this amazing form and coherence and exquisite design. They called this rather vague ideal “Logos.” This invisible force of Reason unifies the world into order from the chaos from before the world became reality. This logos is able to speak aloud, and whatever truth, goodness or beauty it speaks in fact exists the moment it is spoken. In a sense the Greek logos is able to create truth and reality. The Greeks never dreamed that their logos would become an actual person. The idea that logos would take on flesh would be laughable and unthinkable, and would actually defeat the whole purpose of this ideal of an impersonal, governing force in the world. The Greek logos had many hints of the true faith, though, and has been called a “bridge-word” because of the many Greeks who baptized the Greek logos into Christian belief after finding Christianity a logical step forward.
The Gospel Logos. The term Logos in John 1 has been the most debated and discussed term in all the Greek New Testament, according to the biblical scholars. It has been described and amplified and studied and defined in any number of ways. But for our purposes in the Christian faith, Jean Vanier’s definition of Logos is as good as any other: “Logos has come to mean the spoken Word, the thought and idea behind that Word, and the wisdom that inspired that Word.” The term logos was not a foreign word in that part of the world during the time of Jesus and the early Christians. The Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, was widely used for biblical reading and considered the Bible of reference of that time. John decided to adopt that term and baptize the Greek version with a more complete understanding of it from the Christian viewpoint. In the New Testament era, logos meant the expression of a thought of the Father through the Holy Spirit; an utterance or a word embodying a divine idea; a message through speech or in writing; or more generally, reasoning expressed by words. John’s logos would include these sorts of thoughts:
(1.) There is indeed a universal Reason that is behind the well-ordered and reasonable world. This powerful force of divine intelligence is the God of the holy Scriptures, Yahweh, the Sovereign God who put the cosmos together. This God is the Person who created the world with His spoken Word, “Let there be...” and has sustained it ever since.
(2.) This personal Creator God, the eternal Lord of the cosmos, wanted to yet again use His spoken Word to start a new beginning. God’s Word would once again be in the act of creation, but this time would create salvation and renewal. God’s spoken Word was actually a divine Presence, His Son, Jesus Christ.
(3.) The Creator God expressed Himself with His spoken Word, and His ultimate self-expression was when He revealed Himself to the world in the form of His Son. In this way, God revealed His divine Reason and Wisdom, and His desire to personally share His presence in this world He created. So God, the invisible Source of Reason and Wisdom, sent forth His Son as His visible, eternal spoken Word. Jesus, the spoken Word, is thus the Voice of God.
(4.) Jesus Christ is the Logos, the living Word of God, the Word who once said, “Let there be light!” That creative Word has taken on flesh and is the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus is the physical representative of God’s existence, heaven’s Ambassador of the Godhead to bring messages from His home. Jesus is the Co-Creator of the cosmos and has been face-to-face with the almighty God for all eternity. The Word that spoke light into the world has now become the Light of that world.
(5.) So John declares that Jesus, the Son of God, is in fact the Logos…not only the spoken Word of God in the flesh in a new creation, not only God’s thought behind that living Word, but also the embodiment of the Wisdom that inspired God’s spoken Word. John presents Jesus as the absolute revelation and self-expression of God. Jesus is Yahweh spoken into flesh, the holy Scripture in the form of a Person. If we want to read God’s mind, we read Jesus.
The Hebrew Logos. The Bible used during the time of Jesus and the early Christians was usually the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The original Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but Greek was the prominent language used during Jesus’ time. The Septuagint had been translated several centuries before Christ, and so it was commonplace for New Testament writers to quote the Greek version and not the Hebrew version of Scripture. For the most part, when we see a quote from the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, it is from the Septuagint. The Greek term logos was used literally hundreds of times in the Greek Bible, and was often used to highlight the Word of God. Logos was also used to translate “truth,” and implied thought, meaning, planning and design. It’s interesting that the Hebrew Bible’s logos was so similar to the Greek understanding. In many ways, the Greek Old Testament laid the groundwork for John’s use of logos. The Word of God in the Hebrew Bible (logos), as with John, signified the presence of the Lord. Logos suggested God’s self-expression, whether in creation, in the prophet’s message, or in the Torah itself. When a prophet declared “the word of the Lord,” the prophet’s words were considered coming from the mind and mouth of Yahweh Himself.
Yahweh is the Truth. God gave to Moses His name of Yahweh, which is about as close to a personal name of God as we’re going to get. Scholars have been lining up to solve this puzzle of a name for centuries, and have been unsuccessful. It is obviously an archaic use of letters, because Yahweh is the “to be” verb in the future tense. There is no “am” in the Hebrew language, which lead many to claim that Yahweh means, “I will be what I will be.” But many others say that God was using that non-word in the poetic sense with “I AM,” because He is trying to communicate that He is outside of time, so must always speak int the present tense. So now we can try to read Yahweh as, “I AM He who is,” “I AM the One who exists,” or “I AM the Existing One.” In other words, God declares the bedrock truth that upholds the universe… He exists! And this is the truth that Jesus bore witness to in his incarnation. Jesus basically said to the world, I am here to tell the one indisputable fact of the universe… that God exists in the world!
LORD. In Scripture, every time the reader sees LORD in all caps, that signifies Yahweh. This Name is used about 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible, and 700 times in Psalms alone. The first time we seen Yahweh in the Bible is in Genesis 2:4 = “In the day that Yahweh-Elohim made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for Yahweh-Elohim had not caused it to rain upon the earth…” The shortened form of Yahweh is Yah, or Jah, which is found over 40 times in the Psalms, including “Hallelujah,” which literally means “Praise Yah.”
To Be. The non-word Yahweh is connected with the Hebrew verb “hayah,” to be, to become, to happen. Martin Buber thinks the verb could also partly mean “to be actively present.” So Buber, and many other Jewish scholars, think the Name could mean something like, “I will be there as I will be there,” or “I will be what I will be.” In other words, “I live an uncreated existence, and yet I will be ready, willing, able to be present in whatever situation you are in.” Rabbi Jonathon Sacks believes that early Christian translations omitted that future tense altogether. He says that in this Name, the LORD claims to be “the God of the future tense.” In this important future tense, Sacks believes that He is a God of surprises, that we will have to learn to trust Him, and that we will only know Him through His moral commitments and His acts, not just His abstract essence. Dr. David Stern states his view that the root idea of Yahweh is “to breathe,” in other words, “I live!”
“What is the Name’s mystery? First, it has no vowels. Without vowels it is impossible to pronounce a word. But YHWH also has no real consonants! Y, H and W really are blowing sounds, rushings of air through the mouth. The point is one of elusiveness or abstraction. The Name of God is so subtle it could slip away from you. YHWH is not a God you can grab hold of and be sure you’ve got it in your mental grasp.” (Rabbi Arthur Green, These Are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life).
I Exist! The seventy Greek-speaking Jewish scholars who translated the original Hebrew into Greek around 150 BC, produced an authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint. This Greek version of Scripture was determined to be divinely inspired long before Jesus, and copies were spread around the Greek-speaking world. This version of the Scripture then, was the Bible that was used during the 1st Century, and thus by Jesus and His early followers. Whenever Jesus quoted His Bible (the Old Testament) in the Gospels, He is quoting directly from the Septuagint. That was the commonly used Bible during Christ’s time, in Jewish life and worship and study. The Septuagint translated Yahweh as “I AM the Existing One,” so that would be the most familiar way of referring to Yahweh. All Bible-reading Jews would have thought of Yahweh when hearing the phrase “I AM.” In the minds of the Jews, I AM would have been completed with “the Existing One” since that was what they were most familiar with. So Jews would have been thinking of their God as the Existent One, the only Being who is self-existent and truly independent. Only Yahweh God is the Essence of Being, the Ground of Being. Put another way, they would have thought of Yahweh as, “I AM Being.” One of God’s titles that has lasted through the centuries, “the Existing One,” is drawn directly from the Greek Bible’s version of Yahweh, the sacred Name that cannot be uttered. In the Orthodox Church, the Existing One is addressed every day in prayers and worship.
“I shall sing about the Lord’s faithful love forever, with my mouth proclaim your truth and faithfulness (“emunah,” rooted to same words as “emet”) to all generations; because I have said, Mercy is built to last forever; in the heavens themselves you established your truth and faithfulness. Lord God of the Angel Armies, who is as mighty as You? Your truth and faithfulness surround You!” (Ps. 89:1-2, 8).
Father God as Truth Unfailing. When Moses yearned to be assured of God’s divine nature and glorious Presence, Yahweh Lord promised Moses that He would make all His “goodness” pass in front of him. Shortly thereafter, while on the holy mountain, the Lord kept His promise to Moses and passed before him, declaring His Name and revealing His true nature, His sacred attributes: “And the Lord Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with Moses, and pronounced the Name of the Lord; and Yahweh passed in front of Moses and called out, ‘Yahweh! Yahweh! A God of tender mercy and gracious compassion, slow to anger, abundant in lovingkindness and truth (or faithfulness, emet), maintaining His mercy for a thousand generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin, yet not excusing the guilty or ignoring sin.” (Exodus 34:5-7). God chose to reveal His true essence, the fixed qualities of His character that are constant, will never change, are eternally true. This is what the Lord wanted Moses to remember about Himself above all else. Yahweh Lord chose to reveal Himself as a trustworthy God of love and faithfulness, mercy and truth. The true faithfulness of God’s character even extends to His creation, a universe that is unchangeable, perpetual, constant. God has His faithfulness surrounding Him, circling Him in truth, so that from any angle, He remains certain, an immovable Rock. No matter how you look at God, His word is His bond. Keeping His promises from one generation to the next till the end of time. God is Emet, the Father who is Truth Himself.
“This I why I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is a friend of the Truth, who belongs to the Truth, listens to my voice.’ And Pilate said to Jesus, ‘What is truth?” (John 18:37-38).
TRUTH: (Hebrew, “emet;” Greek, “aletheia”). “All truth is God’s truth.” Truth is the only absolute in the world. If everything else in the world falls part, only Truth will remain standing; the building blocks of all creation; the framework upon which we build our faith; the true Reality that has established the world’s reality; that which can never be truly altered or changed; that which is universally trustworthy as facts of life; the foundation of what is truly real in our experience; the plumblines from which to measure our lives; that which is common knowledge in God’s mind; that which lines up with God’s perspectives; established facts from God as opposed to a person’s changeable opinions or preferences; that which is solid and certain as opposed to a lie, deceit, an illusion or superstition; the tangible fundamentals issued forth from the intangible mind of God. Truth is always true even when discounted or disbelieved. Since the Almighty God is the ultimate source of all truth, then it follows that the ultimate presence of truth resides in the Trinity of Truth: Father God is Truth, the Lord Jesus is Truth, and the Holy Spirit is Truth.
“One word of truth outweighs the world.” (Alexandre Solzhenitsyn, Russian author, early 20th century);
Mission Statement of Jesus. What led up to Pilate’s famous question as he stood toe-to-toe with Jesus? What prompted Pilate’s question was the Son of God giving His life purpose in one sentence: to “bear witness to the truth.” Jesus took on flesh in order to reveal the indisputable fact of God’s existence in the world. Jesus testified to the truth by revealing Himself, the Author of truth. Jesus came into the world to show us that truth actually exists. He became incarnate to show the world what God’s living Truth looks like in real life.
“I AM the Truth!” (John 14:6).
The Father was clear about His request of the Son. I want you to bear witness to the truth, He instructed. I want you to save the world we so carefully created, He said. I want you to be truth in the flesh on the earth, God to the rescue representing the truth of my love. Did the Father send the Son on a fool’s errand? Maybe, if you mean that Jesus was a holy fool.
Are the Gospels true? Can we trust the Gospels? Since we base all the following on Scripture, particularly the Gospels, this is the first question that needs to be answered. If we can’t trust that the Gospels are true and God’s Word, then all the following answers to the nature of truth will not have a leg to stand on. So, the answer here is, Yes, we can safely claim that the Gospels in the Bible are true and are reliable as a foundation of our belief in in the truth of Jesus. For many reasons, it does not require blind faith to accept the Gospels are true:
- Historical Evidence: The existence of Jesus as described in the Gospels has been verified by non-Christian historians, like the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius. The life of Christ has been so well-documented by Jewish manuscripts and many ancient historians that there is more evidence for His existence than for historical figures from Plato to Caesar;
- Manuscripts: The Gospels have more ancient copies from the original texts than any other ancient text in history. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, as early as the 2nd Those manuscripts were written so close in time to the originals that the biblical Gospels have been declared authentic, even by textual critics;
- Accuracy: The thousands of manuscripts based on the original texts have been proven to be virtually identical to the originals. That’s the way Jewish and early Christian scholars worked. They were trained to repeat what they see accurately, meticulously, and essentially verbatim. The reader of the Gospels can be assured that the Gospels being read today are faithfully reporting what was originally written by the gospel authors;
- Archeology: Time and again the geographical and historical details have been corroborated by extensive archeological digs, and the accuracy of Scripture in general and the Gospels in particular has been proven far above other literary and historical sources;
- Eye Witnesses: The Gospels were written in firsthand accounts by eye witnesses and composed within their lifetimes through their personal experiences with Jesus. These writers went to their death proclaiming the truth of their gospel accounts. Would they have sacrificed their very lives for something they knew to be a lie or a sham? No, they wouldn’t;
- Common Sense: Do any of the Gospel reports ring false, or written in a fictional form? Does the character and life of Jesus seem concocted or invented in some way? Have His moral teachings been bettered or seen as unwise through history? Jesus is presented in the Gospels as someone that could not be invented out of thin air. The reader logically cannot see Him as merely a great moral teacher, since He claimed to be on an even level with God. Did Jesus seem like a liar, a fraud, insane? No, He didn’t. So the only option left is that what the Gospels say about Jesus is true. Since we have more evidence that the Jesus of the Gospels is true, more trustworthy than Plato or Caesar or any other historical figure, we can accept the truth of the Gospels using logic and common sense.
- Personal Change: The Gospels have been proven true by the personal experiences of countless readers by containing a life-changing spiritual power. It’s clear that God has invested His divine energy into the words of the Gospels. Many, many skeptics have done thorough research to investigate the authenticity of the Gospels, and they consistently come to the realization that they are simply believable and completely true.
So what? Once we have accepted that the Gospels of the Bible are true, reliable, and authentic, then we can move on to what they have to reveal about the truth of Jesus. And that begs questions like these… So What? Why should I bother? What difference does this make in my life? Does the truth of the Gospels even matter? At all? If one is honestly and intentionally seeking the truth about life, and then basing one’s life on that truth, then this matters a great deal. One glaring example of this is that the resurrection of Jesus is the most well-verified event in human history. Isn’t that a fact that calls for our response? When we ignore what is established truth, then this becomes the most important factor in one’s life, doesn’t it? Because of the truth of the Gospels, which includes the resurrection, then it follows that only in Jesus can we find the irrefutable, absolute truths in the universe. “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6).
CHRIST IS THE AMEN. Amen is a descriptive divine title Christ gave to Himself in Revelation 3:14: “These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness…”
- His self-given title of Amen is fulfillment of the prophetic title given to the Lord in Isaiah 65:16, “The God of Amen.” (translated widely as “The God of truth”).
- By giving Himself that title, Jesus is declaring that, not only is He full of truth (John 1:14), and that He came into the world to testify to the truth (John 18:37), but also that He is The Truth, Truth incarnate, Truth-in-the-flesh; He is the final accomplishment of the promise of God; He is the most certain fact in the universe, the world’s sure thing; He is the fulfillment of God’s purpose and will; He is the ultimate Yes! to questions about truth; He is the concluding Word of God; He is the Blessed Assurance; He is the Last Word; He is the Great Amen to all the godly prayers ever spoken; He Himself is the word of approval that completes the Father’s plan.
“Make them holy by your truth; teach them your Word which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them, so they can be made holy by your truth.” (Jesus praying to the Father for His followers, in John 17:17-19).
MAKE HOLY: To set someone apart from sin for God’s use; to be dedicated to God’s service; to have a purpose and a role that is sacred; to have a sanctified assignment that separates someone for godly purposes; to develop a distinctive identity as God’s representative.
Truth will always have a strong pulse, for the Scriptures are alive and at work. The Bible is God’s spiritual breath exhaled into the believer, offering life-giving communication. Far from a dead book, the Bible is full of divine energy, crackling with the power of truth. The Word is not a pile of dead leaves, a collection of lifeless words and stories raked into a stockpile of moral guidelines, abstract propositions and historical data. Through the Holy Spirit, Scripture has the ability to transform people. It has a life of its own, working on the believer as guide, critic, teacher and surgeon. The Bible is God’s directional, pointing us to Jesus, who is the source of the very energy the Word offers. The Word is God’s floodlight, revealing who we are and who God is. “There is no understanding the God of Israel without deep sensitivity to the holiness in words. For what is the Bible? Holiness in words.” (A. J. Heschel). The Bible is God’s set of vocal cords, speaking the truth, articulating what’s on God’s mind. The Bible is God’s potter’s wheel, used by the Potter to shape our life into something distinctive and useful. Believers who live into Scripture cannot help being set apart, made holy. Believers living in the Word are just naturally, much like a priest, representing God and made useful for His service. When we live into the Word, our life purpose becomes sacred, and we are sanctified in the process. The eternal truth of the Word renews our life and sets us free to serve the ever-living God.
God is Truth – the One who created Reality and established it on the earth; the universal Fact that founded the world; the divine Reference Point for all that is true; the one fundamental essence of trueness.
God is Faithfulness – the One who is perfectly loyal to His righteous nature; the Being who is purely committed to His trustworthiness; He who is permanently, unfailingly true to His promises.
“This is why I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is a friend of the Truth, who belongs to the Truth, listens to my voice.” (John 18:37).
Mission Statement of Jesus. What led up to Pilate’s famous question as he stood toe-to-toe with Jesus? What prompted Pilate’s question was the Son of God giving His life purpose in one sentence: to “bear witness to the truth.” Jesus took on flesh in order to reveal the indisputable fact of God’s existence in the world. Jesus testified to the truth by revealing Himself, the Author of truth. Jesus came into the world to show us that truth actually exists. He became incarnate to show the world what God’s living Truth looks like in real life.
Who, Not What. We don’t know if Pilate was asking his famous question, “What is truth,” as a cynic, a skeptic, a manipulator, or an earnest seeker of the answer. But we do know he asked the wrong question of Jesus, didn’t he? Instead of What, he should have asked Who. Tragically, he didn’t realize that he was staring directly into the Answer to his question, standing right there in front of him. Little did he realize that truth is a Person, not an abstract concept. It’s hard to blame Pilate though, because we don’t normally think of an intangible concept as being a tangible, flesh and blood person. When an abstraction turns out to be an actual Person, so much so that the concept is the Person’s identity, that’s difficult to digest. Is it even possible for a human being to be so saturated with something, so in union with and in synch with it, that the person can be identified as that concept? No, that is humanly impossible. It’s difficult enough to try to understand a divine being who contains all the truth in the universe, but to literally be that truth incarnate? Faith needs to be activated, to say the least. When an established fact like a mathematical concept is understood, that’s one thing. But when that concept becomes somehow a tangible reality and takes on flesh? But to believe in God is to accept that this type of impossibility is possible. As it turned out, Pilate, Truth had a pulse, God’s pulse, and you didn’t have eyes to see it. The certain fact is that Jesus was so deeply joined in union with truth, truth is so invested in Him, that God is actually Truth itself.
Concept to Reality. The more we think about it, though, the more we can see this principle that God loves to turn the abstract into something tangible. In His mercy and wisdom, God makes truth accessible to us by taking the impersonal and making it personal. Word became flesh (John 1:14). Wisdom is embodied in Christ (1 Cor. 1:24); the Spiritual becomes personal (John 14-16). Love is an abstract principle until it is fleshed out, put into practice (1 Cor. 13). Tangible creation was just an idea in the Creator’s mind until He made the material world out of nothing (Genesis 1-2). So for truth to become a Person, for God to be Truth itself, maybe this isn’t so foreign an idea. And it follows that if the Trinitarian Godhead is Truth itself, that means that the Father is Truth, the Son is Truth, and the Spirit is Truth.
“And the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:14, 17).
How could John do this? How could he presume to summarize all there is to know about the eternal Son of God in two little words? Well, he did. Jesus in a nutshell…Grace and truth. Many Biblical scholars believe that John 1:14 and 17 is an intentional repetition of the phrase in Yahweh’s important self-revelation (Exodus 34:6), which included “abounding in love and faithfulness.” John 1 no doubt hearkens back to Yahweh’s nature in Exodus 34, flatly stating that Jesus is of the very same eternal nature as Yahweh, the glorious God of the Hebrew Bible. The fact that the Hebrews saw truth and faithfulness as interchangeable points to God’s character, that He is true to His word, true to His nature, that God keeps truth certainly and with stability and trustworthiness. God is literally, truly faithful. And Jesus is truly Yahweh in the flesh.
“The Jesus way wedded to Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for 50 years as a North American pastor. The way comes first. We cannot skip the way of Jesus in our hurry to get to the truth of Jesus as He is worshipped and proclaimed. The way of Jesus is how we come to understand the truth of Jesus, by living Jesus in our homes and workplaces, with our friends and our families.” (Eugene Peterson).
The Spirit of Truth. The longest conversation that Jesus had with His disciples is known as His Farewell Address, found in John 13-16. There is no doubt that Jesus chose His last words carefully and underlined them with special importance. He spoke of His leaving, among other things, which saddened His disciples very much. But then Jesus sought to encourage His disciples by declaring that when He leaves, He will be giving them a unique gift, the Gift of a lifetime, His Holy Spirit. Significantly, Jesus referred to His Spirit as the “Spirit of Truth” three times in His farewell words. We learned some fascinating and profoundly helpful aspects of the Holy Spirit in these words of Jesus near the end:
(1.) The Spirit of Truth will dwell within us forever. He will be accessible and helpful at all times, and will remain as close to each of us as our next breath;
(2.) The Spirit of Truth is largely unknown in this world, which is blind to the truths of God;
(3.) The Spirit of Truth is sent to us by Jesus from the Father. In other words, in this Trinitarian mystery, the Holy Spirit was commissioned by the Son and given to us directly from the Father;
(4.) The Spirit of Truth can only be released to us if Jesus returns to the Father in heaven. When Jesus goes, the Spirit comes and stays;
(5.) By revealing the Truth of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Truth, among other things, will convict of the truth of our sinfulness, of our need to look for Christ for our righteousness, and the truth of the eternal judgment of the evil one;
(6.) The Spirit of Truth will guide all believers into all the truth of Christ, into whatever special truths there are to know about Jesus. In this role of guide, He will teach and instruct us, will reveal and remind us of what is to be known of the Lord;
(7.) The Spirit of Truth submits to the Father and the Son and doesn’t even give Himself the authority to speak on His own. The Spirit speaks only of what He has heard from Christ. The Spirit is the ultimate listener, will hear the word of Jesus, and will declare those truths to us;
(8.) The Spirit of Truth is Good News for us! We are not abandoned or left alone to fend for ourselves. We don’t have to stumble blindly through the Christian faith trying to figure out what we are to believe, what we are to do next, how we progress spiritually, how we prepare for eternal life with God, what the Scripture has to say to us. Good News! The Spirit of Truth will live in us to do all that needs to be done, with our cooperation, as He takes us in triumph to the finish line! The fact is we can only understand spiritual truths when we are able to discern them through the Spirit of Truth.
(9.) The Spirit of Truth has already absorbed from Jesus what is in the mind of God by virtue of their intimate fellowship with each other. The Divine Three do not keep secrets from each other, and they all know what is on each other’s mind. They are so intimately in union that they are eternally indivisible, and somehow inside each other. The Spirit knows everything the Son knows, who knows everything the Father knows, who knows everything in the universe there is to know. What a wondrous mystery!
“The wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God previously hidden. It was to us God revealed these things by His Spirit. For the Holy Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given to us. We do not use words that came from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-13).
“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” (Blaise Pascal, French scientist, mid-17th century);
Truth and the Intellect. Give young people and each other the tools to pursue and understand the truth; train them in the ability to reason effectively; enable them to develop insightful common sense and logical thinking; help them be comfortable in exploring the truth intellectually and spiritually; strengthen the ability to memorize and grasp factual data; sharpen their discernment between wise and unwise, true and false, loving and unloving, mindful and mindless, logical and illogical.