What Is Truth?

What Is Truth?

Truth is often defined as doctrinal precision; the things that one believes or rejects. Many Christians claim to have it. Some hold it loosely, willing to admit they might not have everything figured out. Others hold it more tightly, certain that all there is to know can be found within their four walls. And in many places, to ‘have the truth’ also means that you can belong. To ‘leave the truth’ means you have drifted from correct doctrine, God, faith, and even salvation. It also means you can no longer belong.

When I was excommunicated by the religious community I grew up in, it was because I had supposedly ‘left the truth’. In some way, I had abandoned the faith and doctrine that made one a true believer. I had drifted into error and untruth and, in doing so, I was no longer walking with God. I had become apostate.

That wasn’t true. The reality was that I had simply abandoned a particular version of ‘truth’ held by a certain group of people. I had not abandoned the truth of the Bible. Because the truth that the Bible speaks about is not a doctrine but a person, and that person is Jesus Christ (John 14:6).

To say that truth is a person doesn’t mean doctrine is irrelevant, but it does mean doctrine only has meaning when it leads us to him. And I had not left him.

A New Day In An Old Story

When Jesus arrived on the scene, he was coming in fulfilment of long-held Jewish hope and expectation (Luke 24:27, 44, Acts 3:18). For centuries, the nation of Israel had looked for a Messiah, one who would rescue them from exile, lead them into glorious liberty, and reign over them in justice and peace. The arrival of the Messiah would signal God’s divine approval of the nation and the restoration of His presence in their midst.

Jesus was indeed the long-promised saviour but his arrival was in fulfilment of a much older and far greater story (Gen 3:15). With his coming, the reality of humanity’s story was illuminated in full, with all its long and depressing history of rebellion and disconnection from God. But his coming also heralded the turning point in history; hope, reconciliation, and homecoming for humanity that would be achieved through his life, death, and resurrection.

Held under bondage to Sin and Death, humanity, along with all creation, has groaned under the weight of such darkness. Yet as the prophet Isaiah promised, a day would come when “the people living in darkness have seen a glorious light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matt 4:16, Isa 9:2). Jesus was that light, the true light, who came to show us the way back to a reconciled relationship with God (John 1:4-5, 9).

Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming the kingdom of God was near, calling on people to repent and believe. But to believe in what?

“Believe That I Am He”

Jesus thought himself to be the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, the longed-for saviour of Israel’s ancient stories (John 5:39, 46). But he was more than just a Jewish messianic figure. He also claimed to be the Life, the truth, the only way to the Father, offering something far deeper and greater than mere national revival and Israel’s restoration (John 14:6).

Yes, he was the king promised from David’s line but he was born to rule over more than just a little patch of dirt stretched along the Mediterranean shoreline.  Jesus was the rightful king of the world, the one to whom every knee will one day bow and every tongue confess “Jesus is Lord” (Phil 2:9-11).

Jesus came as the true king over and against the prince of this world, the one to whom men and women have been enslaved for centuries. He came preaching the Kingdom of God as the only rightful dominion and himself as the one who would inaugurate it, for the good of humanity and indeed the good of all creation (Mark 1:14-15). He came preaching a new day in an old story, the story of God as King.

His message was often hard for his listeners to understand. They carried with them assumptions of what ‘kingdom’ meant, of what rulership would look like, of what liberation would entail. They envisioned an uprising against Rome, the overthrow of foreign powers, the return of God’s glory to the literal temple in the middle of the nation’s capital. They expected a warrior-like figure riding into Jerusalem in the name of the LORD, bringing political and national victory in his wake. They imagined a real throne, set up in David’s royal city, with a flesh-and-blood descendant ruling over Jerusalem’s ancient streets.

But Jesus was more than that. He was the new Adam, who would be victorious where the first Adam had failed (Rom 5:18-19; 1 Cor 15:45-49). He was the new Moses, who would lead his people through an exodus of deeply spiritual significance (Deut 18:15; Acts 3:22-23). He was the fulfilment of all Israel’s Laws, which had been intended to show them the right and proper way to relate to God for their flourishing and good (Matt 5:17).

Where the nation of Israel had failed through disobedience, he would succeed, in being obedient, even to death (Phil 2:8). He was the promised descendant of Abraham, the faithful Son through whom God had promised to bless all the nations of the world (Gal 3:16). He was the sacrificial lamb of God, slain before time, to make atonement for Sin and to rescue and redeem all of creation from Death (John 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18-20).

Layers Of Deeper Magic

The Bible tells one unified story and it’s the story of Jesus, who is King (Luke 24:27). Many stories exist within the one great story, all of them important in deepening our understanding of who Jesus was and is. But not every story needs to be known or fully understood before we can arrive at the truth.

So much of the Old Testament points forward to Jesus, he is the lens through which the story of the nation of Israel is told. Understanding Israel’s story is to understand how they thought of Jesus and what they had hoped he would realise for the nation.

But it is also to understand that Israel’s narratives exist within a much larger story, that rescue didn’t mean revolt against Rome and that God’s plan didn’t start at the cross but in a garden, long ago. This isn’t just a story about one nation but about all nations, about two kingdoms, and about the battle between Life and Death (Gen 12:3; Rev 7:9-10).

It’s about the One who opens the way back to God, who brings light and salvation, and who illuminates truth. It’s the story of Jesus, who is King, and the announcement that God’s Kingdom has come at last, that Sin and Death have been defeated (1 Cor 15:54-57) and that God is making all things new (Rev 21:5).

At Just The Right Time, Christ Died For Us

This is our story, each one of us. Lost and enslaved by Sin, our relationship with God is broken (Rom 3:23; Rom 6:23). Made in the image of God and destined for glory, we are instead subject to disillusionment and death, ruled by our selfish desires. Even creation was subject to the fulitility of death and decay and longs for the freedom that will one day finally come (Rom 8:19-23).

In His great love, God sent His Son into the world (John 3:16-17). Jesus showed us what being truly human looks like – selfless, merciful, forgiving, holy (Heb 4:15). Through his miracles and healing, he showed us that God’s kingdom has the power to defeat Sin. Even Death was no match for him (John 11:25-26).

He showed that he was the rightful king over all things, healing on the Sabbath, changing water into wine, casting out demons, even commanding the wind and waves to obey his voice (Mark 4:39-41). In his resurrection, he was proven to be who he claimed, the one and only Son of the Living God, King over all the earth (Rom 1:4). And he showed that the way into the kingdom was by believing in him, following him through death and out the other side.

How exactly is one to enter this kingdom? A person must be born again, he told a confused Nicodemus in John 3:3-5. They must die in order to live, they must be buried in order to rise again (Rom 6:3-5).

“I Am The Way The Truth And The Life”

Jesus was sent into the world to save all those who would believe in his name (John 3:16-18). Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, both Lord and Saviour, true King and the one who has healed the breach between God and humanity, are those who believe the truth (Rom 10:9).

Believing this truth is what sets you free (John 8:31-36). It breaks Sin’s hold over you. Your identity as a person of the dominion of darkness dies and is buried (Col 1:13-14). You are born again into the Kingdom of Light, that same kingdom that Jesus preached about during his ministry and that was inaugurated at his glorious resurrection (1 Pet 1:3; 2:9).

This is the good news: that the Kingdom of God has broken into our world, that the powers of Sin and Death have been defeated, and that Jesus reigns victorious as King (Matt 28:18; Acts 2:36).

Truth Is A Person: Jesus Christ

Truth isn’t something you own but something you receive. It’s not something you do but something that has been done for you (Eph 2:8-9). But the gospel is much bigger than your or my personal salvation. It’s the good news that Jesus is King and the powers of darkness, evil, death and sin have been overcome in his name (Col 1:19-20). God is in the resurrection business and He’s busy putting all things right, not just for humanity but for all creation (Rev 21:5).

Truth doesn’t ask us to abandon knowledge or the pursuit of biblical understanding (we call this theology), but it consistently asks to check what our life is being built around and what lies at the centre of our faith. Is our Christian life built around a list of dos and don’ts, a flattened faith of simply affirmations or negations? Or it is built around a person, the person, who was the Truth, the Way, and the Life?

Jesus is not the subtext but the substance (Col 2:17; Heb 1:1-3). And when our lives are reoriented and built around him, when we are living in his light, walking in his way, and participating in his kingdom, we have the truth (1 John 5:20).