Truth – Part 3

My grandfather, the late Bro. Angelo Buonadonna, in his youth, could only read and write in Italian. He became a Christadelphian almost 100 years ago by read­ing a book called Guida Alla Vertia — Guide to the Truth — by Bro. Gaetano Gariti. Bro. Gariti wrote this book in the early days of the 20th century as a teaching guide for the Italian immigrant community to learn all the doctrines of the “Cristadelfiani”. On the cover of this book is quoted the famous question raised by Pontius Pilate: “What is Truth?” — John 18:38 (actually Bro. Gariti’s book cites Giovanni 18:38!).

As Christadelphians we use the word Truth often in our discussions with each other, in Bible classes, in preaching and quite often from the platform on a Sunday morning. When we do so we are generally referring to our distinct set of beliefs. To outsiders this does on occasion seem patronizing and arrogant. Even within our own community we often don’t appreciate the full extent of what the Bible means by the word “truth”. The focus of this chapter is on this simple word truth, which expresses a concept loaded with profound meaning.

When Pilate raised this question he was hardly expecting an answer that would require 263 pages of closely spaced 10-point typescript — as is the case for Guida Alla Vertia. Though there is no punctuation mark in the Greek, the New Testament in 26 Versions indicates that virtually all English Translations take it to be a question, not a declarative statement. A famous painting by the Russian artist Nikolai Ge captures the moment when Pilate posed these words to Christ.¹In this picture Pilate’s right hand is held out in a gesture meant to show dismissal. In English the sentence is given a question mark, but it easily could have been a declarative statement with Pilate not expecting any answer at all — in which case the translators should have put an exclamation point.

How was the question asked? Indifferently?

Clearly without being there, or having a video image of the encounter, it is not possible to be exactly sure how Pilate asked this question. There are certain things that reading a text cannot always tell us. The inflection of the voice, the wave of the hand (as the artist Ge imagined), or something similar… could have meant that Pilate was simply saying, dismissively, that “Truth” didn’t matter. In other words, he knew that the Jews had brought Jesus to him for political reasons and that the charges against him were all trumped up. In this case, the “Truth” of the accusations against Jesus didn’t matter one way or the other.

…Or philosophically?

On the other hand, Pilate could have meant it as a question in a deeper philosophi­cal vein. ‘Is it really possible to have absolute certainty about anything?’ Or, ‘Can anything be proven beyond doubt?’ He might have said something like: ‘After all, there are many religions in the world, all professing to have the “truth”; what gives any one of them the right to the exclusive claim of having THE “truth”?’ Such protestations can be deeply disturbing and confusing especially to young people, who might hear a question like this posed at school or by their peers. Hence it is far from trivial to seek an answer to the question: “What is truth?”

In the modern world we have gone philosophically from Newtonian determin­ism to quantum uncertainty, whereby it is postulated that nothing can ever be exactly specified. In quantum physics there is a concept called the “Uncertainty Principle”. This theory removes the idea that the universe works like a perfect mechanical instrument. In its place one must instead deal with probabilities. It turns out that it is impossible to be sure of the position and motion of any object to an absolute degree of certainty, because the very act of measurement changes the state of that object.

Imagine, for example, that you have to shine a light on a particle to see where it is. The light beam itself has energy that can interact with the particle and disturb the very position and motion you sought to measure in the first place. Many phi­losophers have adopted this principle of physics and extrapolated it to mean that nothing in life can be absolutely certain. If that is true of Bible knowledge, then I am certainly wasting my time typing these words and worse, you are completely squandering your time reading this essay!

Two basic questions

With these thoughts in mind, let’s step back and consider two basic questions:

1. Does Truth really matter?
2. Is it possible to have absolute “truth” or complete certainty in the things of God?

Both of these queries have profound implications for our calling and ultimate salvation. We will attempt to give concise, but thoughtfully accurate answers to both of these questions.

I believe that the answer to the first is simple and straightforward. In fact the nature of “Truth” seems to have been of special concern to the Apostle John, because he uses the word more often than any other Bible author (22 times). (The word “truth” is used, altogether, 222 times in the King James translation and nearly as often in the NIV — 214 times.) The key verse is:

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

Free from what? The obvious answer is free from sin and death — “O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory!” (1 Cor. 15:55). Thus, unless you think overcoming the grave is of no consequence, one has to believe by these words that Bible “truth” is critical to our salvation. Without this “truth” we might as well eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die — and unfortunately that is the way so many people seem to live their lives. Grasping for all the wealth and pleasure one can greedily acquire in this life — with absolutely no thought of eternal consequences.

The answer to the second question should be equally obvious to a Bible student: “In (the) hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began” (Tit. 1:2, NKJV). God cannot lie; thus what He has promised is certain. Furthermore, since He could swear by no greater He swore by himself, thus confirming the certainty of His promises (Heb. 6:13-17). Finally, He assured us of the truth of His promises, beyond any measure of doubt, by the resurrection of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:17). Thereafter Jesus revealed himself to reliable witnesses, so none should have any uncertainty as to the immutability of the Word of God.

The remainder of this essay will thus focus solely on answering Pilate’s question to assure ourselves that we fully appreciate — what is truth?

The first meaning of “truth”

The word truth actually has two possible meanings. The first idea that usually comes to mind is that truth defines what is correct versus that which is false. It contrasts honesty with lying. As the Apostle John wrote: “No lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). Thus as Christadelphians we consider the false doctrines of orthodoxy to be nothing other than lies. We also know that no liar will be in the Kingdom of God (Rev. 21:27; 22:15); hence, false beliefs on fundamental doctrines separate us from the grace of God and doom us to eternal destruction. The Scriptures emphasize over and over again the essential need for correct true doctrine — here are a few examples to prove this point:

• “Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you” (1 Sam. 12:24; see also 1 John 2:21)
• “For I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law” (Prov. 4:2, NKJV)
• “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Tim. 4:16)

There can be no doubt from these passages that the doctrines, as expressed in the Scriptures, claim to be absolute truth. The apostle also tells Timothy that they provide the means of obtaining salvation. No matter how compelling other precepts may be, if they contradict the doctrines expressed in the Scriptures, they must not be truth (Gal. 1:8). That is the ultimate test of whether or not a religious principle is one that we ought to heed.

The practical application

The contrast between what is false and what is honest also has direct implica­tions with respect to our character. It is not enough to simply know a set of facts that make up true doctrine. Truth has to be our bond in the way we deal with everyone around us — “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds” (Col. 3:9). Sometimes one is tempted to tell a falsehood to hide one’s own sins. The cover-up is usually worse than the original offense, as we have seen so often in public life in recent years. It should not be so among us; to do a brother or sister an offense secretly, and then to cover it up under the cloak of confidentiality, is unethical no matter how you try to dress it up (cp. Deut. 27:24). Telling the truth is as important as knowing the truth!

The hallmarks of “truth”

The Bible has some built-in mechanisms to help us identify true doctrines. We will consider two of them, the first is “repetition” and the second is “consistency”.

The prophet Isaiah tells us, “The word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line…” (Isa. 28:13). True doctrines thus can be identified by the fact that we need not rely on some obscure verse or some esoteric knowledge of language to understand their meaning. They are principles that are mentioned over and over again, so that we have no doubt as to their veracity.

Consistency is the other important identifier of Truth. By this I mean that all the verses connected to a true doctrine should be self-consistent, with no contradic­tions. The insights given in the New Testament might expand on the spiritual significance of a teaching in the Old Testament, but shouldn’t contradict it.²Generally we end up calling such concepts first principles.

We can demonstrate the ideas of “repetition” and “consistency” guiding us to a Truth by taking a specific doctrine for example, the “resurrection of the dead”. Most mainstream Christianity has extremely confused ideas about this doctrine, and have wed it with the ancient Greek pagan idea of an immortal soul that lives on beyond death of the body. However, Bible teaching couldn’t be plainer. There are at least 42 references concerning the resurrection of the body (at the last day) and not a single one of them mentions anything about an immortal soul, or any sort of continuing existence after death.

Most of the verses teaching the truth on the resurrection of the dead are crystal clear. They range from the words of the prophet Daniel:

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2, NKJV).…to those of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians:

“Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Cor. 15:12, NKJV).

The apostle is already fighting the influx of pagan philosophy into the thinking of the early Church.

Some other definitive references to the truth concerning the resurrection of the dead include Job 19:25,26; John 11:24-26; John 5:29; John 6:39,40,44,54; 1 Thes­salonians 4:16; and many others. Some of these references have been mangled by modern translations that have deviated from the more direct literal transcription of the King James Bible. Nevertheless, the overwhelming evidence derived from repetition and consistency makes most scholarly versions of the Bible suitable for teaching. I personally have used the KJV, NKJV, NIV, NEB, RSV, and even the Catholic Douay version of the Bible to teach the Truth.

The second meaning of “truth”

Now let us turn to the second meaning of the word truth, which applies equally whether we are considering ancient Biblical languages or modern English. The second possible meaning alludes to picturing what is perfect versus imperfect, or comparing something that is real versus something that is unreal. For example, we say that a line is drawn straight and true — or a sailor might set his ship’s course on a true heading. In this and similar expressions, we are not comparing honesty to lying. We are instead indicating that an object or issue is correct with respect to some standard. We find this second concept of truth used frequently in Scriptures. In this case it is also a matter of doctrine (i.e., teachings), but this connection may not always be readily appreciated. Some examples:

“And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” (Exod. 34:6, NKJV).

This passage speaks of the perfection of God; it is not comparing God’s honesty to that of liars. The LORD God is a standard of perfection, and that is the character we are trying to develop in ourselves.

Another example:

“He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He” (Deut. 32:4, NKJV).

Again the word truth is used to show that the works of God are a standard of perfection.

The most elegant example of this alternate meaning of the word truth is exempli­fied in the passage describing the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ:

• “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ ” (John 14:6, NKJV).
• “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17, NKJV).

Jesus is the way (to the Kingdom), and the perfect image of the character of God, the true image of the Everlasting God revealed in the flesh so that we could behold him with our own eyes and touch him with our own hands.³

As we have taken on the physical image of God through Adam, we must now put on the spiritual image of the Father through Christ:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, NKJV).

It should be obvious from this passage that Jesus not only taught the truth, but he was the truth. His character is the Father’s character (John 12:45). His love, mercy, compassion and concern for us are the same as the Father’s, but now made manifest in the flesh. With Jesus the abstractions are gone and the reality of the new Adam purged from sin is revealed.

The practical application again

It should be the same in our lives — the truth must be not only in our minds, and spoken by our lips, but it must be made manifest in every action in our lives. The Truth must be revealed by our love for our spouses, our care and concern for our children, and for our brothers and sisters in our ecclesias. Indeed, it should be revealed by our love for all mankind (it is not possible to be a true follower of Jesus Christ and hate another human being). The truth is displayed by the labor we willingly do in the ecclesia, the things we do to help one another as the need arises, and the generosity with which we give our wealth and time to the work of the Lord. All of this is as much truth as are the facts that we believe embodied in our statement of faith.

I hope that we now appreciate that truth is correct belief in contradistinction to the lies of false religion, and that it is also a way of life after the pattern revealed by the character of our Lord Jesus. Without both of these meanings, understood and carried out, we cannot claim to have the truth.

1. What is Truth? (Christ and Pilate), 1890, by the Russian artist Nikolai Ge.
2. The New Testament reaffirms nine of the Ten Commandments of the Law of Moses and in most cases expands the spirit of that code. The only commandment not endorsed in the New Testament was the ritual of the Sabbath. Without fail all the major truths of the Old Testament are included in the New Testament; only the ritual of the Law was eliminated. Ironically, once the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, it also became impossible for Jews really to keep the ritual of the Law.
3. I mean this not only metaphorically, but also realistically — the way humans would prove the existence and actions of any historical person, i.e., through the testimony of reliable witnesses (1 Cor. 15).