Our sermon title recalls Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?”
And even though, as we’ll see, he didn’t seem to ask it in earnest, it is indeed a query worthy of serious consideration.
And of course we look to God’s inerrant word for the understanding of all matters that pertain to faith and life; and while Jesus did not reply to Pilate at that time, the testimony of the Scriptures can guide us towards arriving at an answer to this vitally foundational question: what is truth?.
Let’s start with a word of prayer:
Gracious Father, it is my prayer that the words of my mouth and the meditations of the hearts of Your people assembled here, will be acceptable to You, and that the Holy Spirit will indeed guide us into all truth, to the praise of the glory of Your grace. I ask it in Jesus name, amen.
We heard in our Old Testament Scripture reading references to the truth from Psalm 119:
In vs. 30: I have chosen the way of truth; Your judgments I have laid before me.
And in vs. 43: take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I have hoped in Your ordinances.
In this great Psalm David praises God for His Word, the Bible, as it is only through Scripture that we can come to know who God is and how to praise Him.
Concerning the truth, it is also written by that same inspired psalmist, in that same Psalm 119 in vs.142: Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.;
in vs. 151: You are near, O LORD, And all Your commandments are truth.;
and in vs. 160: The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
In the New Testament, David’s inspired testimony is confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He prayed to the Father in His High Priestly prayer:
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” (as recorded in John 17:17)
Jesus also said to those Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” -Jn 8:32
So what is truth? Well, so far we can say that truth is grounded in the very character and being of God, reflected in His holy law, as praised by the Psalmist.
Also, knowing the truth comes from abiding in the word of God, and knowing the truth brings freedom, as experienced by those disciples who walked with the Lord.
Now, how is this at variance with the unbelieving world’s understanding of truth? What about other religions? Well…
Buddha said, “I am a teacher of truth”
Muhammad said, “I am a prophet of truth”
Jesus said, “I AM THE TRUTH”
Indeed Jesus declared in that oft quoted passage written in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Thus we see that truth is exclusive, and that it derives from and is revealed by God, and thereby, truth is authoritative.
Even so, just like Pilate back then in the Governor’s headquarters, the culture at large today and even many in the church are noncommittal about truth.
“What is truth?” is still as urgent a question now as it was then.
Does truth even exist, and if it does what is it? “Who is Truth?” is a much easier question to answer: The living, incarnate Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
When He was before Pilate He had said, “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." to which Pilate, in the presence of Truth personified, responded by flippantly asking his famous question, “what is truth?”
I say flippantly because he didn’t even wait for an answer, but went out of the judgment hall, to tell the Jews that he found no guilt in Jesus.
Apparently Pilate had judged that whatever this kingdom was that our Saviour claimed to be the King of, it was not a threat to the authority of the Roman emperor, nor to the “Pax Romana” (that is, the peace which existed under the domination of the Roman empire). So Pilate intended to dismiss the unjust charges brought against Jesus by the Jews.
Still, it is difficult to know exactly how to take this question Pilate posed. Was he being sarcastically cynical – thinking that no one knows what truth is anyway? Was this the rhetorical question of a skeptic, or that of a politician weary of the strife and deceit of governing? Its hard to say.
Nevertheless, it is clear that for Pilate there was no absolute, identifiable body of knowledge that can be labelled “truth.” As far as he was concerned, truth was either nonexistent or it was relative.
But it wasn’t just Pilate, a Roman, who had a problem with truth; so did the Greeks. When Paul went to Athens, as recorded in Acts 17, what did he see? A city chock full of idols.
Every god imaginable had an altar there, and to make sure that no deity they hadn’t heard of was left out, they even made an altar with the inscription “To the unknown god.”
So what does that tell us about their view of truth? As far as the Athenians were concerned,
truth was pluralistic. It did not reside with one god but with many gods. There was no one true god, in stark contrast to the words of our Lord when He prayed to the Father:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)
There was no truth in the darkness of Athens. Superstition and confusion held sway in the society of the Greeks as well as the Romans.
And even here and now the culture around us appears to be in much the same state: there is no consensus as to who or what constitutes truth, nor even acknowledgment of any moral absolutes.
The prophet Isaiah wrote of this deplorable situation: Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Is. 5:20)
We see this in the distorted perspectives of marriage and family; in man’s laws that totally disregard the value of human life; and even the breakdown of distinction between male and female.
Truth has been sacrificed on the altar of selfishness and perversity.
When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus 'What is truth?', he exemplified the state of the heart common to unbelievers: dead in trespasses and sins.
He revealed the sad fact that when people do not believe in the One true God of the Bible, in their minds there is no such thing as truth. They know neither where they came from nor where they’re going. There is no ultimate meaning to life.
This distortion of reality is described aptly in the book of Ecclesiastes which opens with this: The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem… "…vanity of vanities… all is vanity." (vs 1:1-2)
Solomon was inspired to write this to teach us to hate and fear sin, which is the cause of all this vanity and misery, and to value the knowledge of the truth that Christ embodies, as he closes his sermon on hopelessness and vanity, with these words:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments*, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecc 12:13-14) [*Remember that the psalmist wrote that all God’s commandments are truth].
Christians are delivered from the tragic meaninglessness of unbelief by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, according to the apostle Peter and applicable to us today, beloved. Hallelujah.
To be a Christian is to be a believer in truth, in reality, and in the meaningfulness and purpose of life, and to be able to see life as a child of the absolutely sovereign and perfectly wise Creator God, with the unspeakable comfort of receiving the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)
And to know the wonderful truth of the gospel, sealing to us a blessed eternity hereafter, as per the familiar text of John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”.
And here is a less well-known but powerfully relevant passage from 1st John chapter 5 and verse 20: And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
The only true world-and-life view is that portrayed by the Bible. Any other is false and invalid, a fool's fantasy that will pop like a bubble upon death into eternity.
When the Lord Jesus Christ informed Pontius Pilate that His cause in the world was to 'bear witness to the truth', we should understand that as the mission of the church: to challenge the false views of reality, the bogus worldviews that exist in the minds of men.
Now the natural man is offended by the true view of life according to the word of God; and the unbelieving world, as long as it remains unconverted, refuses to accept the truth.
Signs and wonders make no difference, as revealed in the account of the rich man and Lazarus where Jesus quotes Abraham: ”If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead." (Lk 16:31) - and someone did.
Unless the Spirit of Truth regenerates a person, that person will remain dead in trespasses and sins. The spiritually dead cannot make a decision to believe the truth.
As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
The apostle Paul reinforced this teaching in his 1 st letter to the Corinthians: But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:14)
Even so, the truth sets people free. Let the gospel of the crucified Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) be heard – not in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance (1 Thess. 1:5) – and this depraved modern culture will give way to the leaven of the kingdom of God. That’s good news.
Jesus came to reveal the truth in His very incarnation as per John 1:14: 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.
And not only this, but He also sends the Spirit of Truth to regenerate the spirits of sinful men and women to know and believe the truth.
So whereas the unregenerate cannot know truth, the Holy Spirit gives new life to
undeserving sinners, as the apostle Paul proclaimed to the converted Corinthians: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (1 Cor. 2:12)
And to the Thessalonians: we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. (2 Thess. 2:13)
And so, tying this all together, in answering the age-old question, “what is truth?”, we see that there is a rich tapestry revealed. What is it?:
-it is the truth and faithfulness of God in His word and promises;
-it is the truth of grace in the hearts of God’s people;
-it is the truth of the Gospel, which comes from the God of truth; is written in the Scriptures of truth; has Christ, who is truth Himself, as its substance; and the Spirit of truth who leads to it and makes it effectual;
-it is the truth of the entirety of God’s word, and every particular doctrine of it: the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh; His coming into the world to save sinners; justification by His righteousness; pardon by His blood; atonement by His sacrifice; the resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting.
-And Jesus Christ Himself is truth, He is true God, and true man; the truth of all the covenant transactions, of all the types, promises, and prophecies; whatever He said and taught is truth, and the truth of all doctrine comes from Him.
Let us take heart then, that even in today’s decadent, secular culture, steeped in relativism and disrespect for authority, especially that of the sacred Scriptures, God’s word is still truth, or as Martin Luther put it in his famous hymn: God’s truth abideth still.
Through the Bible’s account of the truth of Jesus and His life, Christians come to know Him who is truth; to love Him, and to obey Him.
As we know the truth, let us live the truth, and tell the truth; realizing above all else that Jesus is the Truth, the Way of salvation and the Life forever blessed, for all who receive His gospel by grace through faith. Let us pray…
Thank you Father, for sending Your Son to establish the kingdom of God and bring in the gospel age in which we are now living. Help us to understand what our responsibilities are, and what we have cause to hope for, as by the power of the Holy Spirit, we bear witness to the truth of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.
Preached at Auburn Road Presbyterian Church 8-4-19.
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