[Faith-talk] "They that are on the side of truth, listen to me" (John 18:37).

[Poppa Bear via Faith-talk]

I was reading a short article about truth in relation to the message of
Jesus and decided to share it. I believe that when Jesus said, "The truth
will set you free," that the statement is a priceless reality that we should
strive to understand as we enter into a relationship with Christ, because He
himself declared that He was "Truth". Well, below is the article, it is
fairly short and one of those pieces that I think can help to tighten up the
screws of our understanding of what the idea of truth means in the
scriptures.

 

Embodied Truth

Posted by Ravi Zacharias on April 11, 2012

The first and most important step to understanding the nature of truth is
exemplified in a conversation between Jesus and Pilate. The conversation
began with Pilate asking Jesus if indeed he was a king. The very surprising
answer of Jesus was, "Are you asking this of your own, or has someone else
set you up for this?"  

In effect, Jesus was asking Pilate if this was a genuine question or purely
an academic one. He was not merely checking on Pilate's sincerity. He was
opening up Pilate's heart to himself, to reveal to Pilate his unwillingness
to deal with the implications of Jesus' answer. In the pursuit of truth,
intent is prior to content, or to the availability of it. The love of truth
and the willingness to submit to its demands is the first step.

But second, Jesus said something even more extraordinary. After claiming his
lordship was rooted in a kingdom that was not of this world, he said, "They
that are on the side of truth, listen to me," (John 18:37). Jesus was not
merely establishing the existence of truth, but his pristine embodiment of
it. He was identical with the truth. This meant that everything he said and
did, and the life he lived in the flesh, represented that which was in
keeping with ultimate reality. And therefore, to reject him is to choose to
govern one's self with a lie.

God's answers to life's questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny
are not just proven by the process of abstract reasoning, but are also
sustained by the rigors of experience. And in the reality of history, God
has demonstrated empirically the living out of truth in the birth, life,
death, and resurrection of his Son, recently celebrated. In short, the
intimations of truth come in multisensory fashion. The Guardian of Reason
leads us to check the correspondence of his word with reality and to
ascertain the coherence of the assertions. But our experience in life proves
those truths in concrete reality. Our grand privilege is to know God, to
bring our lives into conformity with truth, which leads us to that coherence
within. Christ has said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my
disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
In a world increasingly enslaved by error and alienation and seduced by
images to believe a lie, how wonderful to be freed by the truth to Christ's
peace. The Scriptures tell us that the enemy of our souls is the father of
all lies. He will do anything to keep us from coming to the truth because it
is the most valuable thing in the world, and leads us to the source of all
truth, to God alone.

To all of this the skeptic might say that such conclusions may be drawn only
if the God of the Bible exists. To that I heartily answer, Absolutely! And
on numerous campuses around the world it has been my thrilling privilege to
present a defense for the existence of God, the reality of the resurrection,
and the authority of the Scriptures unique in their splendor and convincing
in the truth they proclaim. But let us not miss what the skeptic unwittingly
surrenders by saying that all this could be true only if God exists. For
implicit in that concession is the Law of Non-contradiction and the Law of
Rational Inference, which exist only if truth exists. Truth, in turn, can
exist only if there is an objective standard by which to measure it. That
objective, unchanging absolute is God.

I heard a cute little story, growing up in India. It is the story of a
little boy who had lots of pretty marbles. But he was constantly eyeing his
sister's bagful of candy. One day he said to her, "If you give me all your
candy, I'll give you all of my marbles." She gave it much thought, and
agreed to the trade. He took all her candy and went back to his room to get
his marbles. But the more he admired them the more reluctant he became to
give them all up. So he hid the best of them under his pillow and took the
rest to her. That night, she slept soundly, while he tossed and turned
restlessly, unable to sleep and thinking, "I wonder if she gave me all the
candy?"

I have often wondered, when I see our angry culture claiming that God has
not given us enough evidence, if it is not the veiled restlessness of lives
that live in doubt because of their own duplicity. The battle in our time is
posed as one of the intellect, in the assertion that truth is unknowable.
But that may be only a veneer for the real battle, that of the heart.

Ravi