What is Truth?
For the Lord’s Day:  the 4^th of June 2006

 John 8: 12-30

Introduction:  As any informal review and comparison of the various media outlets will indicate, we have become a nation that accepts a wide range of opinionated beliefs.  Truth in a great part has given way to an odd and strange assortment of opinions.  There may even be more than one variation on any essential truth.  This is the worldly reaction to all faiths these days, to suspend any real belief and publicly agree that everyone is completely free to develop their own opinion.  Even the Church of Jesus Christ is infected with this opinionization.  Once I was talking with a “Christian” friend about the Reformed particulars.  Of course he recognized our freedom to think whatever we would.  But, he was very cautious about expressing any absolute claims to truth.

To him and many others, the claim of truth seems beyond comprehension.  Pilate’s question “What is truth?” in John 18: 38 gives a special emphasis to this idea.  However, in these verses of scripture recorded by the Apostle John; Jesus speaks about the revelational aspect of His claim to truth.  In John 8: 47 and 1 John 4: 6 we see a further indication that “comprehension is not a free act of existence, but is grounded in the determination of existence by divine reality.”

“Whoever is of God hears the words of God.”  (John 8: 47a)

“We are from God.  Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.  By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”  (1 John 4: 6)

So, it would seem there is something more to this idea of truth than meets the common eye!  But, Pilate’s question is still the world’s question.  However, in our time, we are more likely to hear the question this way:  “What do you mean by truth?”

The Meaning of Truth:  Should we take our American court understanding?  When a person swears in court to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, what does it really meant?  In our English language, there are five possibilities of meaning:

1.        a real state of affairs
2.        something firm, solid, valid and binding
3.        something which is confirmed
4.        in history, it separates the real events from myths
5.        for Philosophers, it is real in an absolute sense 

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato understood truth to be the ideas that will last forever.  He taught, that if there was no absolute, then life, the little details and even our existence had no meaning.  For him, an enlightened pagan, the only thing that was truly true is that which always is:  the divine being.  He called it by name:  The Logos, the power of reality beyond and behind the universe.  Unfortunately Plato saw through a glass darkly, to our knowledge there is no record of any ultimate and final discovery of the One True God by his methodology.

Within God’s plan of history, it was to another that He revealed Himself.  “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.  So Abram went, as the Lord had told him’.”  (Genesis 12: 1-4a) 

Very simply, to make matters short, Abraham obeyed and God counted his faith as righteousness.  And from his seed comes the Old Covenant family of God, because God intended to raise up for His own name and glory a body of believers, who would call on His Name and give Him faithful worship.

So there, we have two of the ancient men who have dominated history in their own way according to God’s purpose.  One was a man of truth, the other a man of faith.  In all of our discussion of truth today, we must remember that it is by faith we are saved – and yet the purpose of our study this morning is to prove the absolute dependability of the faith which has been given to us.

Have you ever tasted white strawberries?  Very few people have.  Once, my did tasted a few that he found growing along the edge of his woods.  White Strawberries are extraordinarily rare.   It is said by the few  with  first hand  experience, my father included, that the taste is exquisitely sweet. The point of this story is that not everyone can experience the taste of white strawberries.  To comprehend, you have to talk to someone who has had the taste.  So it is with our understanding of truth, we have to dig back in time and literature to find out what truth really meant, so that we are not left hanging like Pilate of old with an unanswered question vital to our understanding of life.

Hebrew Truth:  Our ordinary understanding of the English word “truth” fails to do justice to what is described in the Hebrew Scriptures.  In its various forms, “truth” is used over one hundred times.  There it is rendered with several connotations: firm reliable, solid, faithful, tested, perceptible, true and lasting.  Generally, the Hebrew word designates a reality, “which is firm, sure, authentic and unchanging.”  While the Hebrew word “emeth” is used as a legal term, it can also indicate a validity beyond the area of law.  This reference is to facts which always demand recognition by all men as reality.

This recognition of the eternal reality of God’s Word and Law is expressed in Psalm 119: 160; and Psalm 19: 9.  This eternal truth is the source of real knowledge, and in that truth there is trust and confidence which is expressed in Psalm 31: 5, revealed in Isaiah 45: 19 and invoked in Isaiah 65: 16.  On appeal, moral and legal standards are guaranteed as the goal of divine action in Exodus 34: 6.  As the foundation of such truth, God is worthy of our total devotion.  “The works of His hands are truth and right, and all His commands are unconditionally valid”.  His words are trustworthy and true precisely because He is God!

Greek Truth:  The Greek word aletheia has an original meaning of non-concealment.  It indicates a state of being that can be seen, indicated or expressed.  This state can, when it is disclosed, indicate the real or absolute state of affairs in legal, historical and philosophic use.  In our time, we may well speak of this idea of “true truth” in the words of Francis Schaeffer.  While the Old Testament is not so much concerned about raising the question of what is truly true, there is the sense that what God is and says is truth. 

This idea is wholly compatible with the Greek ideal, “since in  the practice of history  and in historical and philosophical enquiry, it is essentially the task of the logos to reveal and indicate, aletheia can also denote an aspect of the logos”. Aletheia thus denotes a normative absolute that requires action based upon the full understanding of disclosed knowledge. 

For this reason aletheia is pregnant with the sense of “correct doctrine”, because this shows what the truth is.  Once the truth is known, action on that truth as an act of obedience conveys a sense of accepting the “authoritative teaching”.  In this way, truth and law can become joined in correct doctrine.

The New Testament Meanings of Truth:  The word aletheia occurs over one hundred times in the New Testament.  Of these, almost half occur in the Gospel and Letters of John.  This indicates that the idea of truth is mightily important to the convictions of John the Apostle.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus Christ lays claim to be the Truth.  And while the Synoptics do not make the idea as dominant, this claim appears in the controversies of the last week of Christ’s life.

In the New Testament, the word  may convey the following meanings:

1. it is that which “has certainty and force”.
2.  it can also have the meaning of “judicial righteousness.”
3.  it often takes on the weaker sense of “uprightness”.
4.  it is also that “on which one can rely”.
5.  it may also signify “sincerity” or “honesty”.
6. it implies the “real state of affairs”.
7.  it is used as “statement of truth”.
8.  it is also the “true teaching or faith”.
9.  it can also mean “genuineness, divine reality or revelation”.

 While the Greek concept of aletheia is primarily intellectual, the Hebrew emeth stresses the moral content.  While many commentators feel that John stresses the intellectual model, the focus of truth in who and what Jesus Christ is, seems directed more in the sense of the Hebrew emeth.  In several places, it may simply be used in the ordinary Greek sense of describing what is not false, but actual fact.  In  the stronger sense of describing the faithfulness of God to his own character and promises, it means the Christian revelation in and through Jesus Christ. 

It should readily be apparent that in a certain sense, John’s witness to the good news of Jesus Christ stresses this concept of truth.  And in this Gospel, the idea of truth is concentrated in the eighth chapter.  As we shall see next week, we then describe this chapter as “The Gospel of Truth”?

Application:  Now, I hope that we all realize the complexity of our calling.  While some of our Christian scholars believe that the case for Christ can be made philosophically, historically and critically – we all too well understand that men and women are born of God, their new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit completely.  And yet, how shall they hear?  The Bible tells us from preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God.  It is possible to present the faith irrefutably by the tools of philosophy and scholarship, however – very many people in this old world have not the ears to hear or the willingness to listen. 

As we noted earlier, there is a profound difference in the comprehension of Plato and Abram!  Even today, we have many of Plato’s stripe within the Christian Church.  They believe that they believe because of the soundness of the arguments and historical evidence contained in scripture.  But, this is not enough – there has to be a seed of faith deep within us to convince us that the Gospel is true, and further, that deep rooted seed of spiritual strength from above is finally what saves us by and through the power of God.

It is my prayer that this is so in your regard, I have seen too many people over the years, who were believers of convenience on the philosophical basis of truth who walked away when something else caught their fancy.  Then their concept of truth changed and they gave the faith up much as Jacob’s brother Esau: for a mess of worldly pottage.  Let it not be so for all of you!  May the Lord bless you and keep you as the Apple of His eye, sound in the faith and safe in the hands of our Lord.  Amen.

^{Logan County Mission 24 February 85 – Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA) 18 January 87
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA) 19 February 89}
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PREACHING RESOURCES

 Barrett, C.K.  The Gospel According to St John.
Bernard, J.H.  ICC: A Critical & Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St John.
Bromiley, Goeffrey W.  “Aletheia”, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.
Brown, Raymond E.  The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John.
Calvin, John:  Commentary on the Gospel of John.
Tasker, R.V.G.  Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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