The issue of truth is often neglected within theology, specifically within prolegomena. I’m not certain the root of this, but I have noticed the general trend. When we “contend for the truth”, or “defend the truth”, often what is being argued is a certain way in understanding. It is as if the whole realm of truth is narrowed into a funnel of factual statement. If we could only get all of the facts correct, and make sure that our theology is “sound”, we then will be giving people the whole counsel of God, and be bringing the Gospel in unadulterated glory.
If we take seriously the texts of Scripture, it doesn’t take long before these mindsets are destroyed. Truth is, of course, factual statement to the degree that truth is reality. What does it mean that the truth shall set you free? What does it mean that God desires that we have truth in the inward parts? What does it mean when Joseph was challenged as to see if the truth was “in” him? Why is the word of the LORD in Elijah’s mouth considered true, as if it could be untrue in someone else’s mouth? The issue of truth must, by necessity in these verses and the plethora of others, expand far beyond the conventional comprehension of “facts”.
We are in a day and age when truth is being lost, and not truth in the sense of “correct understanding”, but truth in the sense that when it enters “into” it brings freedom. Truth is being diminished into something less than truth, into cliché and truism, as if a statement that is technically correct somehow constitutes truth and reality. All of this is for the sake of perpetuating systems and institutions, both educational, political, and religious. We exchange the truth for “truths”. Doctrine becomes most important, and in this, we negate all reality.
Why is it that so many see that church is boring? Why are so few interested in the weighty matters of theology and discourse of the Bible? Why do so few probe for answers? It can be said that many simply don’t actually care about God, even though they come to the Sunday meetings and put in their tithe. I know this is fact. Yet, even among those who have had the heart circumcision, and they want to know God deeply, there is so often an abusive neglect of the Scripture, of serious reflection, and of a godly study. Truth is about turning the hearts from the things of God back to the God of all things.
Where does it happen that in standing upon truth that you can actually end up rejecting and denying truth? The “where” here is obviously within the heart, but the question that we all need to wrestle with unto the shedding of blood is where that dividing line can be drawn in our own hearts and lives. In our emphatic zeal to uphold and defend truth, we can make the statement to stand as the end all be all, rather than realizing that the statement is speaking of something real. There is an actual substance to what we are speaking about. A fact, ultimately, is only a statement of something beyond itself. The law of gravity, which we take as fact, is not the expression of gravity, but the explanation of it.
Art Katz has said somewhere, “I don’t think we love God any more than we love truth.” And indeed, what Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2 is that what saves us from that ultimate deception of the last days and the false signs and wonders is the love of the truth. Truth, then, is something more than fact. If our love for it has the capability of guarding us from deception, and not the mere comprehension of it, then there must be something beyond the statement in and of itself that we must love. You love a person, or being, and not simply a concept. To love a concept is often a faulty love, self initiated, and self focused. Loving truth, though, is a love for the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that the spirit of the speaking that “true word” must also be in line with the word itself, and that character and life of the one speaking must also stand in strong affirmation of everything that this true word stands for.
Shall we consider the question of deception? Is it the utterly false thing that Satan uses as temptation? Does he not parade around as an angel of light? The lie is not always a lie. Sometimes it is actually true. In the Garden, it was the serpent that deceived the woman. Yet, the deception did not come from a lie. It came from a truth. She misquoted God, and I believe unintentionally. The serpent then corrected the woman, and in correcting her, deceived her. The word of truth in the serpent’s mouth was rendered a lie, because the character of the serpent was not in line with the reality of that truth.
Our premium of how we consider truth needs to be elevated. We worship a Messiah that claimed, “I am the truth”. It is only a couple chapters later that Jesus stood before Pilate and was asked, “What is truth?” The answer was silence, not because Jesus had no answers, but because to give an answer in the moment when Pilate is staring truth in the face would be to rob Pilate the reality of what constitutes truth. In this we see that truth is not something to have, or to comprehend, but rather it is something to be. God desires truth in the inward parts. Even the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth, and He leads us into all truth. It is not by having truths, or correctly explaining truths, that we or they we’re speaking to are set free. It is by being true, by having truth in the inward parts, being led into all truth by the Spirit of truth that liberty comes.
If we think that the whole point of the Bible is for God to inform us of how to be saved and how to live in godliness, then we have completely forfeited the Gospel for which the apostles all died. It is not about information, but transformation. It is not about perceiving correctly, but being correctly. Any statement within the Bible, whether Old Testament or New, if it is held on to as mere fact, it is as dead as the letters of the Law written on the tablets of stone. We, even we Christians, have made a Law and brought “another Gospel” by which men might be saved. We claim it is all of grace, quoting various Scriptures throughout the letters of Paul, only to then turn around and use the very same letters of Paul as regulation and “truth” that we must be held accountable to.
This is not the Gospel. This is not truth. Jesus’ words were spirit, because it was by the Spirit that He spoke. Jesus spoke truth because He is truth. If the Law alone, no matter how correctly understood and obeyed, could not bring one to righteousness, because righteousness is by faith, then how is it that we claim that truths alone, no matter how correct our understanding of those truths might be, can justify us before God? Do you honestly believe that God is impressed with all of your debates and arguments and divisions? Do you seriously think that God actually cares about whether you’ve held doctrine more correctly than your brethren that you purposefully split from? Is it not more important that the reality of that truth come into your heart, so that you could never divide over such trivial matters? Would it not be more important that the actuality of these statements drive us to loving the brethren enough to build them up in love instead of dividing in animosity?
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