November 18, 2007
John 14:6
I am the Truth
“I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
What is truth? What makes something true? Is truth simply what is true to you? Or is there a universal truth that is true for everyone? What is truth? We live in a society that is continually changing truth. Truth is not what it once was, it has changed…at least in our perception of it. Truth used to be a universal capital T truth. It was transcendent, it was from above. Truth used to be viewed as something that was set, that was. Truth for thousands of years truth was what God said it was. The church then took advantage of that for its own personal gain and used the capital T truth that comes from above to control the ignorant masses. Then the masses got educated and society shifted. This shift for you historians was the shift from pre-modernism to modernism. As a result of this shift the nature of our understanding of truth changed. Truth was no longer capital T or a universal truth that came from above, but a universal truth that was out there to be found. This was the age of science and reasoning. Truth still existed in our understanding as universal as total…it was just a truth that needed evidence and study to support. Many of you were alive at the peak of this modernist movement, in fact many of you probably think along those lines. Modernism is fading. In the shift from modernism to postmodernism our understanding of truth has shifted once again. Truth is no longer a capital T universal truth that is out there to be found…but a lowercase personal truth that is within to be discovered. Postmodernism makes truth a relative entity. What does that mean? Has truth changed? Or is it just our perception of truth that has shifted? What is truth?
When I was little I used to get into all kinds of trouble. I was a bratty little kid and well let’s just say there is a good reason my dad has all grey hair now. I was a troublesome little kid. I would try to get away with anything. We had a rule that you could not watch t.v until your chores were done on Saturday morning. I hated that rule…by the time you got all your chores done…all the good shows were over. So I would watch t.v before doing my chores sometimes. My mom used to ask me if I had done my chores. Bratty little kid that I was I would tell her that they were done even when they weren’t. Of course she had a knack for catching me…but was what I said a lie? Or was it simply my perception? I was satisfied with how clean my room was…so maybe to me it was clean. So maybe I was telling her the truth right? After all…what is truth?
You may be wondering…wait…why are we talking about truth and not the way this week. We are out of order. Yes we are. But, from the very start we need to have a clear understanding of truth that we have established in order to accept and discuss the way and the life. Truth is the foundation upon which we must build, so it seemed only appropriate to start with the foundation.
What is truth? This is on the heart of every intellectual and scientific mind. There are many things out there, many opinions on life…but what is the truth? You may think that this is a new question…but its not: In John 18 we find that someone asked it a long time before we ever did.
Jn 18:37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Jn 18:38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him
What is truth? Its an age old question that has been on the hearts of men for thousands of years…’what is truth?’. We live in a society that is built on relativism…that is built on tolerance. There is no universal good or universal evil…there is only good for you bad for me and bad for you good for me. Our society truly believes that truth is a relative thing. Whatever you believe is right for you…whatever I believe is right for me…but does that make it so? Is that what truth really is?
I once talked with a girl who had a very interesting view on truth. She was pretty intelligent for the most part, but then I started having a hard time talking with her when we reached a moral issue. I tried explaining to her that what she was saying was wrong…but she just said, well it’s not wrong for me. I was blown away. What does that even mean? It’s not wrong for me. From this we got into a discussion on the nature of truth. She did not believe in an absolute truth…so I asked her by what lens she viewed the world if not by some form of absolute truth. This is how she replied: She said: “Life is like a stained glass window and people are like bees. Each bee looks in from a different piece of the stained glass window and as a result see what is on the inside a little differently. One bee cannot then say to another bee that what that bee saw was wrong because he just saw it from a different perspective. So while each bee knows what he saw…that was only his perspective. The other bee saw the same thing but a different perspective and thus one cannot say to the other that he is right. They are both right.” This girl saw the world as relative…that all truth was really a matter of opinion not a matter of fact. Do you see the problem with her analogy though? Her reasoning breaks itself down. A stained glass window distorts what you see. Neither bee was right in what it saw for they both saw distortions of the truth. The analogy is not totally fitting. But she is right. The stained glass window is the world…people are bees and what they see are distortions of the truth…just because they think they know what they saw…they do not. The truth is what lies on the inside…what is undistorted…that is the truth. The religions of this world take partial truths and distort them…but there is only one truth.
Truth does exist. Just because our perception of it changed does not make truth any different. Truth is absolute…truth is universal. The problem is our society has lost view of that. The line between fact and opinion blurred and people are overlapping their ideas. We live in a world that thinks that if opinions are relative…then so are facts because facts are just the opinion of a single person or group. If I say that sausage is the best type of pizza in the world does that make it true? It may be to me sure…that is my opinion. To you it may be mushroom. There are matters of opinion that lack a universal truth to them, where the answer is relative. To you the best pizza topping is pepperoni, or cheese, to me it is sausage. To you the best music is rap…to me calling rap music is an oxymoron. There are matters of opinion where truth does not exist in an absolute sense…but there are also matters of fact. But the world does not want to accept this. The world does not want absolute truths, it wants relativism. Relativism demands nothing of you…you can do whatever you want and there is no reason to feel guilty for it.
People want choices. People want options. The biggest crime in the world today is intolerance. You want to eat you have 40 different places to choose from, 60 different items you can get at each place…we build monuments of choice in our everyday lives because we are in a culture that demands options. Yet we have confused marketing with morality. Just because you can choose what company you want to make your shoes…does not mean you can choose what God is like. Here is the problem: truth is intolerant. Red is red no matter what you call it. Wrong is wrong and right is right no matter how you think about it. By nature the world has absolutes and by nature truth is exclusive it is intolerant. Something cannot be both red and green at the same time. Truth is truth whether you like it or not. It is by its nature exclusive. You don’t get a choice. You don’t get options. The truth is what it is. If you don’t believe me, try pulling some relative ideology to a police officer. “Well, officer…I know I ran that stop sign…but too me…a stop sign does not mean I have to stop…I think of stop signs as a suggestion.” Mike in the back is a cop. He can tell you what would happen if you tried to pull that.
Truth does exist. It is absolute. Matters of opinion are relative…matters of fact…are not. Gravity is no less gravity simply because you choose not to believe in it. God is no less God because you choose not to believe in Him. Reality is not a construct of belief…what you believe something to be, does not change what something is. Truth is what it is. It is not relative, it has not changed. Truth is truth and truth is very important aspect of scripture.
Truth is an essential aspect of scripture. We took this scripture out of order for this very reason. 29 times in the Gospel of John alone Jesus uses the phrase: “I tell you the truth.” Truth is the foundation for all that we know and for all that we do. Without truth how can we trust in the promises of God? Without truth how can we know right and wrong? We cannot. Without truth we have nothing. In the Old Testament God sent His message of truth to men. How do we know it was true…because historically we have evidence supporting that it happened. What God said happened the way He said it. Thus what God said was true. However, in the New Testament truth is seen in a different way. Truth is not so much a message that is given to men from God. Truth is a man who God has sent. God sent His son Jesus to be truth. To show us truth. Jesus is a revelation of God’s truth. He is an embodiment of God’s word and God’s word is truth. So when God says I am love…Jesus displays the truth of what that looks like. Jesus is not a man with a message He is the truth! Where does truth come from? Truth comes from God.
Jn 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus is the truth of God. We can trust in His promises. We can rely on His word because He is the embodiment of truth. Jesus does not lie…He does not deceive…He is incapable of that because He is truth. How do we know that Jesus is the son of God? Because He is truth. How do we know that He saved us from our sins? Because He is the truth. How do we know that Jesus is the way to life? Because He is the truth. How do we know that Jesus is life? Because He is the truth.
There is no way to deny the historical facts of the life of Jesus. We know He was a man who claimed to be from God…but where those claims true? Absolutely. How do we know that? Jesus miracles serve as a validation of His identity. We know what Jesus said was true because of what He did. No man could do the things Jesus did. It is by His divine power, by His miracles that He proved that He was the Son of God. Man cannot raise the dead. Man cannot heal the sick. Man cannot turn water into wine. But God can. Ultimately though…it is not the miracles of Jesus that truly validate His identity, it is the resurrection of Jesus that does that. Through Jesus resurrection from the dead we see not only that He truly was the Son of God…but that everything He said was true.
But how do I know that? How do I know that Jesus was the Son of God? How do I know that? Historically we know that Jesus really was a man who walked this earth…we know He did exist. If we know He existed in light of the things He says there are only three options for what He could be:
1. Is a liar. Perhaps Jesus just made it all up. That is certainly possible. Yet I would find it hard to believe that there are a lot of people who are willing to die for something they knew was a lie. I could tell you I was super man and maintain that position for my entire life…but if you were to torture me and try to get me to say I was not superman…you better believe I would fess up to save my own life. Furthermore, even if for some reason Jesus were Himself willing to die for a lie…there is no way He could convince those closest to Him to die for that same lie. The fact is the 12 disciples apart from John were all killed for their faith. If He was a liar…they would have to be in on it. Plus, with as much opposition as Jesus had if anything recorded in scripture was not true…His enemies would have refuted it and it would have lost credibility and been destroyed. The problem was His enemies could not refute what happened because it was true. So it is not really a viable option that He was a liar.
2. Is that He was insane. Jesus did not know He was lying because He honestly believed His own lie. Also possible…but to think that a psycho would be so consistent that He never contradicted Himself…to think that a lunatic could outwit all the religious minds of His day…to think that a mental patient could see through all the well laid traps left for Him is hard to swallow. Yet when you look at the brilliance of what Jesus said…you cannot really believe that He was insane.
Skeptics try to say that Jesus was just a good moral teacher…but that is impossible. A good moral teacher could not say the things Jesus said. He would not be good. To claim to be the son of God and to have the power to save man from their sins when that was not true is not just an absence of good…but would make the person who said it an evil man comparable to Lucifer himself. A good moral teacher could not say the things Jesus said and be a good moral teacher. Either Jesus was a liar…or He was crazy…or He is who He claimed to be. The Son of God…The Lord of Lords. If He is not a liar…if He is not a loon…then there is but one option open to us.
Jesus is the way…Jesus is the truth…Jesus is the life…no one comes to the Father except through Him. Not a lot of choices offered here. Not a lot of options. The truth is…there are many roads that lead to death…but only one that leads to life. Jesus is the truth, which is how we know He is the way and the life. By His very nature God is exclusive. He is not a god with many other choices…He is the only God. One…singular.
This world will tell you many things: “Certainly Jesus isn’t the only way”…you don’t have to follow Him that far. You don’t have to sacrifice that much….The world wants you to believe in choice in options. The world does not want you to believe in truth. If you believe in truth then you must accept that not all roads are equal. If you believe in truth then you must accept that some things are right and some things are wrong. If you believe in truth…then there are limitations in this life. The world doesn’t want that. The world wants you to live with it…in it. The world wants you to believe its lies. The world wants to deceive you…the question is…will you. Jesus is truth. He is the only truth. You can accept Him or reject Him but without Him…there is no life.
