What is Truth?

By David Block

“Then Pilate said to him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.' Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?'” (John 18:37-38)

A few months ago, I was working on a different article and I came across something that surprised me. I happened upon a George Barna poll of American teens that questioned them on whether or not they believed in moral absolute truths. Only 4% of non-Christian teens said that they believed in moral absolute truths. This is upsetting; but, the sad thing is that their Christian counterparts faired only five points higher at 9% (The Barna Group Ltd., Teenagers Embrace Religion but Are Not Excited About Christianity (Ventura, CA, 2000). As Christians, this stat should alarm or -like myself- nauseate us. If these stats don't mean anything to you, allow me to point out some things that might change your mind.

First of all, what is an absolute truth? It is a fact or reality that is free from exception, qualification, or restriction. An absolute truth is an undeniable fact. Most people would agree that the earth's gravity or 1+1=2 are absolute truths. We know that whenever you add one and one the sum will always be the same, hence an absolute truth. Believe it or not there are people that deny these natural or general absolute truths. However, these people ought to be confined to an institution or are presently university philosophy professors.

A problem arises when people deny moral absolute truths. This is where our current postmodern society triumphs and cashes in. You can see it all over television, radio, newspapers, magazines, movies, books and even in your fellow Christian. Unfortunately, we can conclude from the Barna poll that many people in the church have jumped on the world's bandwagon once again and have denied that moral absolute truths exist.

But what exactly is a moral absolute truth? It is the belief that there is an objective moral code that exists, which does not depend upon emotion or circumstance. This morality is not based upon an individual or even the majority of individuals but transcends all of mankind. Morality, then, is based upon something that exists outside our reality. For some, this is an impersonal force that governs the universe. For the Christian, our moral absolute truths come from God.

If you read the Bible, and I suggest that you do, you will notice the multiple references to truth throughout the Old and New Testaments. Concerning truth we find that Christians relate to truth in the following ways: They should worship God in truth (Psalm 145:18; John 4:24), they serve God in truth (Joshua 24:14; 1 Samuel 12:24), they walk before God in truth (1 Kings 2:4; 2 Kings 20:3), they should buy truth (Proverbs 23:23), they love truth ( Zech. 8:19), they rejoice in truth (1 Cor. 13:6), they speak truth to each other (Zech. 8:16; Ephes. 4:25), they judge with truth (Zech. 8:16), they meditate on truth (Phil. 4:8), their fruit is found in truth (Ephesians 5:9), the truth abides and is in them (2 John 1:2), truth is believed by them (2 Thes. 2:12-13; 1 Tim. 4:3), and they are a pillar and buttress of truth (1 Tim. 3:15). For a Christian to say that they don't believe in absolute truth is craziness. Looking at all these verses concerning truth and the Christian, how can a believer say that there isn't absolute moral truth? Before we answer this question let's look at what the Bible says concerning God and truth.

First of all, we see that all of God's actions are done in truth. “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy,” (Psalm 111:7). In the prayer of Jesus, he says that the words of the Father are truth (John 17:17). These are amazing statements about God and truth! In addition, we find that the Bible states that God is “a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he,” (Deut. 32:4). All that God does is truthful, all that God says is truthful because one of his eternal and infinite attributes is truth. Just like so many people say that God is a God of love we can say that God is a God of truth.

Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:3), did not want us to be confused about his relation to truth and so he actually equates himself with concept of truth. In John 14:6 he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Here, Jesus says that he, personally, is the way to God, the embodiment of truth, and the source of all life. It is plain to see that when you talk about God, you are in fact, talking about absolute truth for he is the source of absolute truth. To not believe in truth is to not believe in the God of the Bible.

In America today, so-called Christians are denying the truth of God in many ways. They worship God the way they want to, with songs that make little or no theological sense. The words from the pulpit are filled with self-help, metaphysical garbage instead of the truth of the Word. Christians continually say “I feel” or “I think” or “I believe” instead of saying “The Bible says this” or “God says to do this”. They have consigned truth (God) to a place under their own emotions, pleasure, and checkbook. They feel that a sin is not a sin when it has a good outcome, like cheating on taxes or stealing bread for your family when you have no food. The moral absolute truth has become obsolete next to the relativism, pragmatism, post-modernism and just plain stupidity of today.

My article now comes to its natural conclusion in a topic that is extremely tragic. I shudder when I write what follows this paragraph because I know that the arrow is not far from my own mark. But I must write it, because God's word is truth and I must stand on the promise that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” (John 8:32).

Therefore, we must examine who the Bible says are those that deny truth and what awaits them. The first to deny the truth of God was Satan. Jesus says that he is the father of lies and the truth is not in him (John 8:44). In the same verse Jesus says that the devil has nothing to do with truth. This teaching on Satan is easy to take. But Jesus says that those that do not believe in what he was saying and claiming, are actually children of Satan. He explains that they are are doing what Satan desires, which is to have nothing to do with the truth and are spreaders of lies. We see this same idea in 1 John 5:10 “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.” Also in 1 John 1:10 we read, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” So the conclusion can be made that if you deny the absolute moral law of God given to Moses, deny the testimony of God concerning his Son by the prophets, deny the commands and warnings of Jesus, and deny the commands and warnings of the apostles then you have denied all truth, and Truth himself.

The Scriptures are crystal clear as to what awaits those that deny truth. So I close with these words with no commentary of my own. My prayer is that God's truth will invade the church so that we might avoid seeing our friends face what is promised:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18).

“But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury,” (Romans 2:8).

“Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith,” (2 Tim. 3:8).

“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness, (2 Thes. 2:9-12).