THIS question, was asked by one who did not wait for the answer which he might have received from the ONLY ONE who could and would have told him what it was. What the Lord bad just said was the occasion of Pilate asking this question, “What is truth?”
Jesus had replied, when questioned about His Kingship. Pilate said, “Art thou a king then? and Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king; to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world; that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:3737Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. (John 18:37)).
Thus the Lord sums up the whole of His testimony by one word, and that is the word truth; and He further adds that every one who hears what He utters, gets for their listening the mum. How important it is to know that in the midst of all the error, deceit, fraud, and lying, then as now abroad, there is ONE, who has spoken, who has absolutely said nothing but, what is perfectly reliable.
Scripture says that “no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:2121I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. (1 John 2:21)), and it does not matter who propagates falsehood, from Satan downward. The one who hearkens to Christ has before him the fact of everything exactly as it is.
This is a great relief to an anxious soul, and moreover, no number of men or demons can alter one jot or one tittle of that which is true; no, not all the councils that were ever called together in Christendom can alter one word of the Living and True God. What they can do, and have done, is to foam out their own shame, and make the error and darkness they are in more manifest. Man by nature has not the TRUTH, for he has believed the devil’s lie, and has obtained thereby perverted, unreal, untrue thoughts of God.
We once saw on an infidel placard the motto, “We seek for Truth;” this to us sealed their condemnation, and that for two sufficient reasons, ―one, they had not the truth, or they would not be seeking for it; and the other, they did not know where TRUTH was, for if they had, they would not want to seek for it. The fact is, TRUTH is, what was, what is, and what shall be, and no one but God could compass the past, the present, and the future.
This being so, the Lord Jesus, who as “God manifest in the flesh,” was born into this world to bear witness to the TRUTH.
All manner of lies have taken possession of the heart of man, as we see in Matthew 15:19,19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: (Matthew 15:19) a long list of wickedness (with no good admixture) flowing out of the heart of man, commencing with evil thoughts and ending with blasphemies.
The Lord also said respecting those who believe in Him, when addressing the Father on their behalf, “Sanctify them through thy TRUTH, thy word is truth.” Thus in the word you have “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” and all that has been added by man is so much “untampered mortar” (Ezek. 22:2828And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken. (Ezekiel 22:28)), which will not stand the ravages of time, much less of eternity. But if man’s thoughts thus perish, the prophet Isaiah, and also St Peter (who quotes from him), says, “The word of the Lord endureth FOR EVER” (Isa. 40:88The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. (Isaiah 40:8); 1 Pet. 1:2525But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. (1 Peter 1:25)).
When the Lord was asked, “Who art thou?” (John 8:2525Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. (John 8:25)), He said, “Even the SAME that I said unto you from the beginning”―that is, He was absolutely what He said He was. And showing thus that He was the eternal TRUTH, ever abiding the SAME, which is indeed one of the divine titles of the Lord (Ps. 102: 27).
Again it is said of Him in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “Jesus Christ, the SAME yesterday, and today, and forever” (13:8).
Thus one who has the obedience of faith, has divine certainty in regard to the past, the present, and the eternal future. It is recorded in the address to the Church in Philadelphia (Rev. 3:77And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; (Revelation 3:7)), where one of the last phases of the Church’s history on earth, as responsible, is traced; that they had there, although held with little strength, those who did not deny the Name of Jesus, and held fast to HIS WORD. Happy such companies, who are now found in these blessed conditions; surely God has a resource for His “little flock,” even amid all the surging tide of error, delusion, heresy, infidelity, and blasphemy, which is now raging,―ready to engulf all that is righteous, holy, pure, and true,―but, as of old, so now, the edict shall go forth, on behalf of God’s people, to check the power of Satan and “spiritual wickedness in high places”― “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:1111And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? (Job 38:11)).
The Word of God ever sets that which is true over against that which is false, that we may cleave to the one and shun the other. The Lord Jesus Christ is the standard of truth, because all the plans, purposes, and councils of God center and revolve around Him, and anything and everything, to get its true value, must be seen in connection with Him.
Man’s little life here is but vanity and an empty show, but that connected with Christ is ever abiding, and therefore true. All the works of God are true to their Creator; it is only base fallen man that gives the lie to God, both as regards creation and also redemption; but as God’s Word is forever “settled in heaven” (Ps. 119:89), so man cannot alter it, cannot add to it or detract from it, except for his own mind, and even then only for a time, for he’ will wake in eternity, to find that every word of God still exists, as it will abide forever.
The word of truth needs no vindication, hence the folly of those who seek by their own decrees or councils to send forth their own commandments, and so obscure or deny to men the only light of truth there is in the world, even that contained in the living and abiding Word of God.
We will now quote a few passages of Scripture to show that as the sun―the monarch of the day― gives light to all the creation, so the Word of God shines by its own effulgence to those who have the light of life. All such happily bask in the healing beams poured forth from the Sun of Righteousness, set high up in redemption’s cloudless sky.
“For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in TRUTH” (Ps. 33:4).
T. R. W.