Skip to main content

What is Truth?


John 18.37: For this reason I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.

Jesus tells us more than once why He has come into the world. For instance, in Luke 4 He uses Isaiah to tell us that He has come to declare the “year of the Lord’s favor.” Earlier in John’s Gospel, John tells us that Jesus came to save and not condemn the world.
In our text, Jesus tells us that He has come to bear witness to the truth. We find ourselves asking, like Pilate, “what is truth?” To what does Jesus witness?  Some commentators tell us that Jesus is king, that his kingdom exists, that the answer to Pilate’s question is “yes,” as in “Yes, I am the king.” I wonder though if this is everything Jesus meant; the only thing to which He bears witness is that He is king. The problem here is that this seems to put Jesus in playing a game with Pilate based on different meanings of king. Is this what Jesus was doing hours before He died – playing word games with the procurator?
I think not.
Jesus has spent His ministry witnessing to something more expansive, something that required more public exposure than a private conversation with Pilate could provide. What is this truth to which Jesus bears witness?
John tells us in chapter 3 of his gospel that God loves you, that He gives both acceptance and freedom; that He offers – he wants – relief for you. Right now.
And it has always been so.
Jesus came to bear witness to the truth of Heaven’s reality, that there is a reality in which care, love, and acceptance is available for everyone. Jesus’ life bore witness to a reality that we cannot see but which we must see to live in it. Jesus bore witness to the truth as it really is, despite what it might look like with a king hanging on a cross.
It has always been so. It must have been for it to be truth.
God loves you and wants you back. He wants you not to possess you, but to bless you. Living His Life is the Life you were made to live. Now.
So much so, that He is willing to die for you.
As king.
On a cross.
And that’s the truth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Obedience Rather Than Sacrifice

Saul it seems, was instructed to have the Israelite completely destroy the Amalekites – people and animals. Rather, Saul allowed the Israelites to capture the Amalekite king, and to bring back the choicest live stock. When Samuel returns to visit Saul, the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle are clearly audible. Assuming that the Israelites had done what had been directed, Samuel finds this noise to be somewhat unexpected, and so he asks Saul to explain what has happened. Saul’s response is a two-parter. The first is that the people have brought back the best of the plunder to sacrifice it to God. The second is that Saul was afraid of the people and so he let them bring back the plunder [and in this explanation, we don’t know why]. Samuel’s response is his mission for God, and he will complete it. Samuel tells Saul that he has failed in his mission to destroy the Amalekites and as a result God has rejected him as king of Israel. In Samuel’s discussion with Saul, he says:
Post a Comment
Read more

Elders redux

A reader (I am always amazed that people actually read this blog) submitted a rather long comment on the original post on Elders. It is apparent that the reader did some good homework as the comment has several, well, more than several, reference citations. It is clear that they both read the original post and did some Bible study before posting their comment. Because the comment was so long, I thought it appropriate to post another entry rather than bury the response in the comment log. In the following discussion, I have included the text of the comment without the Scripture references. If you want to read the comment in its entirety, scroll to the Elders post and click on the comment. --------------------------------------------------------- [Comment~~~~The church is expected to be a people in exactly this sense. We are the people of God who are charged with continuing and preserving the values, culture, hopes, and the identity of God’s people in our time.~~~~ Does this include th
7 comments
Read more

Naaman's Dipping and Requests

The familiar story of Naaman dipping in the Jordan is a story with more than a few twists. Let's review the story first. Naaman we are told had been used by YHWH to punish Israel and our story describes him as a man of valor in high regard by his boss, the King of Syria the current thorn in the side of Israel. It turns out though that Naaman suffers from some sort of leprosy.  On one of Syria's raids into Israel, the Syrians captured an Jewish girl who had found her way into Naaman's household as a servant for his wife. Knowing of Naaman's illness, she suggests to her matron that there is a prophet in Israel who could help him. This message gets transmitted to Naaman who takes it to his boss. The boss - the king of Syria, tells Naaman to travel to Israel and gives him a letter to Israel's king directing that Naaman be healed. Upon Naaman's arrival in Israel he gives the letter to Israel's king who reacts in a panic. He does not even consider finding t
4 comments
Read more