Jesus and Truth

Mark Dunagan
07/31/11 - Sunday Morning

Jesus and Truth

Before Pilate Jesus proclaimed, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37), to this Pilate responded, “What is truth” (18:38).  If Pilate thought he had just issued an answerless question, he was mistaken.  One chapter earlier, Jesus had answered the question, “What is truth?” when He said “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17).   This is one of the things that makes the Bible so unique, not only in the ancient world, but in the modern world as well.  The certainty with which prophets, Jesus and the apostles speak takes even the modern breath away.  They bore a certainty about their existence, character, and purpose.  When Jesus said, “God’s word is truth”, He was saying that Scripture is true in the absolute sense.  It was not merely true to Him or true in His time, or true "more or less".  What God had given was true absolutely, universally and enduringly.

Their World was Small?

One argument that comes from the academic world is that the biblical writers could speak with such certainty because their world was so small, while we, on the other hand, can no longer do so because our world has become so big.  After all, they say, we must deal with advances in science, a global community of ideas and various other complications.  Furthermore, we face today unprecedented religious pluralism and thousands of different truth claims.  Yet David Wells accurately responds, “While religious pluralism may be a novel experience for us, it is putting us in touch with the world that surrounded the biblical authors probably more directly than any other.  The pluralism and paganism of our time were the common experience of the prophets and apostles.  In Mesopotamia, there were thousands of gods and goddesses, many of which were known to the Israelites—indeed, sometimes known too well.  In Christ’s time, there were hundreds of sects of one kind or another along the Mediterranean rim.  Moreover, there was the official Roman religion that blended politics and religion through a deification of the Caesars.  And there was Greek philosophy as well.  Pluralism was the stuff of everyday life in biblical times” (No Place for Truth, David F. Wells, p. 263).

Added to all of the above, the biblical writers faced all the various temptations and vices that we find ourselves surrounded by today (Romans 1:26-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

 

The Pagan Mind

• “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).
• “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 16:25).
• “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Proverbs 28:25).
• “Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what kind of wisdom do they have?” (Jeremiah 8:9).
• “I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself; nor it is in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23).

It is so easy for me to read any and all of the above passages and immediately make a modern application by applying the verses to what I see happening in my time.  That is good (Romans 15:4).  Yet what I often forget is that the passage had an original application then as well.  Those verses were initially written because the world that surrounded God’s people was a world that put all their trust in feelings and intuition rather than in God’s objective truth.  David Wells makes the following observances about how the cultures around Israel in the Old Testament thought:

• Intuition and imagination, including dreams were viewed as far more reliable sources of knowledge than reason.  If something bad happened, the best ally was first intuition and secondly, the aid of "men of magic".
• They did not distinguish between objective and subjective reality.  Their perception was the world; appearance was reality.
• Truth was known from experience. If one tried it and it seemed to work, then that had to be the right thing to do.  “Today, reality is so privatized and relativized that truth is often understood only in terms of what it means to each person.  A pragmatic culture will see truth as whatever works for any given person” (Wells, p. 280).
• The supernatural realm was neither stable nor predictable and history had not real meaning or value; their lives were centered in the experience of the moment.  History was irrelevant, for the activity of the gods in the past offered no reliable information of how they might act in the future.
• They did not appeal to moral absolutes.  They determined what was ‘right’ experimentally.  Therefore, pagan religion sought to bring society into harmony not with moral absolutes, but with the rhythms of life.  If life seems to be working—then one must be right.  If I am prospering, then I must be right with the gods (Luke 12:19).

The Biblical Mind

• Truth is Rooted in History

“Unlike Israel’s pagan neighbors, the biblical authors did not view history as terrifying, and unlike modernized Americans, they did not view it as worthless.  To the contrary, they viewed it as the very arena of redemption” (Wells, p. 272).  In the Old Testament, God’s people were often reminded of what God had actually done on this planet, especially events like their deliverance from Egyptian bondage (Psalm 78:11-16).   Over and over the prophets viewed the Exodus as the time when the nation was born, when it had to assume the moral and spiritual responsibilities  of being a delivered people.  We might say that the prophets were continually calling each new generation of Israelites to “be Exodus people”.  In like manner, New Testament teaching is also rooted in the fact that God has worked in human history:

• “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32).
• “For we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
• “And we are witnesses of these things..” (Acts 5:32).
• When Stephen preaches in Acts 7 he cites one historical event after another.
• “And we are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem” (Acts 10:39).
• Paul’s speech in Acts 13:17-41 is a history lesson.
• Paul’s sermon in Acts 22 and 26 is a retelling of Jesus appearing to him.
• “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
• “He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, beheld by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).
• “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).

Finally, Paul could simply say, “For the king knows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:26).   David Wells observes, “The resurrection of Christ had nothing to do with the religious imagination, nothing to do with parables of existence and symbols of inner experience; it had everything to do with an act of God that was public, external, and objective” (p. 269).   “The biblical authors wrote from the conviction of the uniqueness of biblical faith—a uniqueness that was not a matter of perception but of fact, not simply of their inner experience but of the objective facts of their history” (p. 270).

Applications

• Therefore, as God’s people we need to “know our history” (Deuteronomy 5:15; 7:18 “You shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt”),  because it is here that we learn about God, what He has done, and how He can be trusted.
• Now and then when we share the gospel with others we are challenged.  Someone might say, “Have you ever seen a miracle?”  “Did you see Jesus rise from the dead?”  And here we might feel stifled, yet, our response should be, “No, but others, many others have" (John 20:30-31; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8).  You see, God has worked in history and He has worked more than once.  And it wasn’t that one person thought he or she may seen or heard something, but many people throughout the centuries have seen God’s power displayed:

 

1. The flood: Matthew 24:37-38
2. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: Matthew 11:24
3. Deliverance from Egyptian bondage: Joshua 2:9
4. The sun standing still
5. God speaking through all sorts of prophets
6. The works of God in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 18) and Elisha
7. The return of Israel from captivity
8. The deliverance of Israel during the time of Esther
9. The preaching of John the Baptist
10. The Miracles of Christ: Acts 2:22; John 11:47
11. The Resurrection of Christ
12.  The miracles of the Apostles

 God offers us objective truth that is intended for all men (1 Timothy 2:4,6) —truth is rooted in actual, real events; it is not private and different for each person.  This truth is not discovered by human insight or cleverness, but is revealed.  This truth is not what has been described as an "inner voice", one does not merely "hear it from within", but only from without (Romans 10:17).   This is truth in which God, not man, supplies the meaning.  How wonderful to know that real truth actually does exist and I have can access to it. 

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017

www.beavertonchurchchrist.net