THE
BIBLE MEETS LIFE
We
recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It’s
amazing to think that our smartphones today have more computing power than the
entire bank of computers NASA Mission Control had in 1969. 1 That doesn’t mean
landing on the moon was an easy task. Some 400,000 engineers, technicians, and
scientists were involved in this mission. Because critical calculations had to be
precise, they were checked and rechecked. Everything had to go absolutely right
for the mission to be successful. 2
As
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prepared to land the lunar module, it would’ve
been disastrous if Mission Control had told them, “Execute the moon landing
however you think best. Don’t worry about the calculations; just do whatever
feels good to you.” Disastrous? Yes, because the truth—the precise science that
would land them safely—was absolute and could not change at the whim of the
astronauts.
We
want this form of absolute truth in science and physics; yet, many believe
truth is subjective and personal and doesn’t apply to behavior or religious
beliefs. Jesus Christ shows absolute truth exists in all aspects of life.
John
18:36-38a
36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of
this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the
Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. 37 Pilate therefore said unto him,
Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end
was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 38a
Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
Hours
before His crucifixion and death, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pilate had
been appointed the governor of Judea, and he represented the most powerful
figure in the world, the Roman Emperor Tiberius (14 BC–AD 37). Pilate could
have seen Jesus as a rival, someone trying to usurp his authority, but Jesus
made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this world.” Pilate saw that Jesus was not
a rival king in the usual sense, but He was a king nonetheless.
As
king, Jesus said He had come into the world for this: “that I should bear
witness unto the truth.” Pay close attention to the subtleties in this passage.
No more weighty or consequential definite articles may appear in the whole of
Scripture than the definite article “the” in these verses. Jesus might have
said the purpose of His life was to testify to my truth. Or a truth. Or some truth.
Instead, Jesus referred to the truth.
Pilate
had no interest in the truth and, with a skeptical tone he asked, “What is
truth?” This Judean governor may have been the world’s first post-modern
relativist, and he lived some two thousand years ago! Some commentators have
attempted to impose a philosophical interpretation that Pilate was sincerely
seeking truth. This is not the case. Pilate had neither time nor interest for truth.
Jesus testifying to “the truth” was merely frivolous to Pilate.
Here
was Jesus — “the truth” (John 14:6) — standing before Pilate, and yet Pilate
could not recognize the truth.
We
can know the truth; it is available to us because Jesus Christ is truth
embodied. His mission and message is “the truth.” We can “know the truth,” and
it will set us free (8:32). His Holy Spirit guides us in the truth (16:13), and
His Word sanctifies us through the truth (17:17).
How
can we know what truth is? Truth is what corresponds with reality; it
corresponds to what we know to be accurately represented in the world around
us. Truth exists whether we recognize it or not. Pilate did not recognize the
truth in front of him, yet the truth was there. Truth is absolute—true for all
people at all times and in all places—or it is not truth at all.
Absolute
truth is from God. Jesus “dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (1:14). Jesus
said, “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (18:37). The Source of
truth is God and when we connect to the Source—God—we hear the voice of Jesus (truth).
Therefore, we cannot know truth without God.
John 1:14-18
14 And the
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare
witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh
after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man
hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him.
KEY
WORDS:
Grace for grace (1:16)—A phrase emphasizing the mercy of God toward His people.
God’s grace finds its ultimate fulfillment in the saving work of Christ.
The
first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are a powerful prologue to the life
and teaching of Jesus. John showed us that Jesus’ life did not “begin” at His
human conception or birth; He is God Himself, who has always existed and is the
agent of creation. But in the wondrous and amazing power of God, “the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us.”
Hebrews
1:1-2 tells us, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time
past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us
by his Son.” Through the prophets of old, humanity gained a glimpse of God’s
revealed truth, but when “The Word” became “flesh,” truth came to live among
us! Jesus has “encamped” and taken up residence among us; truth no longer came
second-hand through the prophets; the truth came directly to us in Christ.
Because
Jesus came from God full of grace and truth, “of his fullness have all we
received, and grace for grace.” Because of Jesus we have received one blessing
after another. By knowing the absolute truth in Christ and dwelling with Him,
we go from strength to strength and receive grace upon grace. When we follow Christ
we live in victory regardless of our outward circumstances.
Knowing
Jesus Christ is the only way to know truth. Earlier, John wrote that Jesus,
“the true Light,” came into the world, but “the world knew him not” and even
“his own received him not” (John 1:9-11). The reason? “That light is come into
the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil”
(3:19). Our world is in trouble because it has not recognized or received Jesus
Christ—the light and the truth.
In a
society held together by the Judeo-Christian ethic, the principle of absolute
truth holds sway. Even those who are not ardent followers of Christ have an
understanding that absolute truth exists. But as society has pushed further
away from the tenets of Scripture and has driven Christ ever further out of the
people’s midst, moral relativism has crept in and is now taking over. Without
the light of Christ and the truth of Scripture He gave us, culture has joined
Pilate in questioning what truth is.
Surely,
we’ve all seen what happens when businesses and leaders come up with their own
standards for morals and ethics. Many of us have been personally affected by
their poor decisions and hurtful actions. But our top business leaders are no
longer getting courses in ethics. Harvard Business School is considered one of
the premier schools for leaders, but they dropped all their ethics courses. In
response Chuck Colson said (in 2008), “They are all about diversity and
sensitivity, not inculcating character based on moral absolutes. We are now
paying the price.” 3 Michael Anteby, a former professor there, echoed that in
his book titled Manufacturing Morals: The Values of Silence in Business School Education:
“I
grew up in France where there were very articulated norms …. Higher norms and
lower norms. Basically, you have convictions of what was right or wrong, and
when I tried to articulate this in the classroom, I encountered … silence on
the part of students. Because they weren’t used to these value judgments in the
classroom.” 4
Truth—absolute
truth—exists. The laws of science and math teach us that. Moral and ethical
truth also exists—and we know that when we encounter Jesus who is the truth.
John
8:30-32
30 As he spake these words, many believed on him. 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Truth
is not merely something we can know intellectually; we also can experience
truth in Christ! “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free.” But Jesus included a condition with that knowledge. We cannot exaggerate
the importance of the word “if” in verse 31. We will only find freedom and be
saved if we continue walking with Christ. It is not enough to know the truth in
our mind. Truth is holistic; we must live it out.
Moral
relativism falsely claims it is possible to live outside of defined truth and
still be free. Actually, living outside of Jesus’ truth and teaching confines
us to a prison of our own making. We will know the truth and be set free only
by consistently obeying God’s Word and continually walking with Jesus. Ye shall
know means that as we pursue truth by following Christ, truth will be obvious.
We do
not believe in some abstract or metaphysical truth. Jesus calls us to “continue
in my word.” My word—the truth and teaching of Jesus Himself. We will not have
spiritual freedom, moral clarity and lasting fulfillment without the word of
Christ; therefore, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16).
The
truth of Christ imparts great freedom! But from what exactly are we set free?
Slavery in any form is wrong and evil, but the worst kind of bondage is the
slavery of sin we bring on ourselves. Earlier, Jesus referred to sin and said
twice that the religious leaders would die in their sins (John 8:21,24). We
might also see this freedom in other ways in the Gospel of John: freedom from
condemnation (5:24-29), freedom from darkness (12:46), freedom from the power
of the evil one (17:15), and freedom from death (5:24).
I
have found the freedom and joy that comes from living in the truth. A few years
ago, when my wife was expecting triplets, our maternal-fetal physician
specialist told us, “I recommend a fetal reduction.” Two of our triplets were
sharing a placenta, a serious condition called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion
Syndrome. Fetal reduction. That’s nothing more than a euphemism for aborting
one of our babies.
Years
earlier we both had made the decision to follow Jesus and live by His truth.
But what happens when that truth we’ve committed to live by is on a collision
course with the truth of a dangerous situation? In our case, truth was a matter
of life or death. It didn’t matter. God’s truth is absolute. My wife told the specialist,
“We will trust God. There will not be a ‘fetal reduction.’”
God
lavished us with “grace for grace.” Three years later, our sons are in complete
health. And Ryder James, the most high-risk of the triplets, has the most
amazing ear-to-ear smile. What if Audrey and I had followed a different
standard of truth and had ended his life? Instead, we chose to follow Jesus.
The truth of Jesus set us free.
LIVE
IT OUT
In
referring to the gospel, mathematician Blaise Pascal said we should “make it attractive,
make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.” 5 The scales of
truth always tip in our favor as believers, but the responsibility does too.
What will you do to point to the truth revealed in Jesus?
Know.
Because the Bible teaches us how to live and points to the truth in Jesus, commit
to read it through. Discover what it says about matters of faith, ethics, and morality.
Read.
Learn more about our need for truth in the book Unimaginable: What Our World
Would Be Like Without Christianity by Jeremiah J. Johnston (Minneapolis, MN:
Bethany House, 2017).
Engage.
Talk with a friend who is not yet a believer. Listen to his or her views on absolute
truth and share how you found the truth in Christ.
.
Hope to see everyone this Sunday!
In His Love,
David & Susan
Teacher Notes:
.
Hope to see everyone this Sunday!
In His Love,
David & Susan
Teacher Notes:
Answers to Tough
Questions: Defending
What You Believe
DOES ABSOLUTE TRUTH
EXISTS?
Song:
Voice of Truth – Casting Crowns
Give
each group member a sheet of paper and a pen. Play the song and encourage them
to listen carefully to the words of the song and write down
what it teaches them about truth.
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of
truth
After
the song is over, allow a few volunteers to share their responses. Discuss.
- Emphasize that the song portrays truth as a
person—Jesus Christ. So, this is important to remember because when we deny absolute truth,
we are denying Jesus.
Would you consider
this quote – truth? (my dad always quoted) St. Augustine / William Penn
“Right is right even if
nobody is right, wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong.”
How would you define absolute truth?
Absolute
truth is
something that is true at all times and in all places. It is something that is
always true no matter what the circumstances. It is a fact that cannot be
changed. For example, there are no round squares.
DISCUSS: Which of the following are true for all people, for
all places, and for all time: “Do not steal,” “No right turns on red,” “Love
your neighbor,” “Do not murder,” “Eat all your vegetables”? Why?
I. There
are many that wonder if we can really know the truth.
John
18:36-38a
36
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would
fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from
another place.” 37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You
say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is
to testify to the truth. Everyone on the
side of truth listens to me.” 38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
Hours
before His crucifixion and death, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pilate had been appointed the governor of Judea, and he represented the most powerful figure in the world, the Roman Emperor
Tiberius (14 BC–AD 37). Pilate could have seen Jesus as a rival, someone trying
to usurp his authority, but Jesus made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this
world.” Pilate saw that Jesus was not a rival king in the usual sense, but He
was a king nonetheless. As king, Jesus said He had come into the
world for this: “that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Jesus might have said the purpose of His life was to testify to my
truth. Or a truth. Or some truth. Instead, Jesus
referred to the truth. Pilate had no interest in the truth and, with
a skeptical tone he asked, “What is truth?”
How
does our culture answer Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”
- Pontius Pilate once asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Society answers
that question today by saying truth is whatever you want it to be. Even as many
people deny the idea of absolute truth — “truth that applies to all people at
all times”—science reveals the reality of absolute truth. Does absolute truth
also apply to moral and spiritual matters? Yes! Because only one God rules the
universe, only one standard for truth exists, and He has revealed that standard
in Jesus Christ.
- Many people today believe that truth is relative — that what’s true for
you isn’t necessarily true for me. We are expected to tolerate, even condone,
everyone’s choices because perceptions and opinions are valued as the highest
measure of truth. However, this is illogical. According to the very definition
of truth, the idea of relative truth is itself a contradiction. Aside from
this, the most important fact is that Jesus is Himself the truth.
Where
are some different places that people search for truth? What are some ways you
filter or screen for truth?
- Here was Jesus — “the truth” (John 14:6) — standing before Pilate, and yet
Pilate could not recognize the truth.
Lasting
truths from John 18:36-38a?
- Jesus is King.
- Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.
- Jesus came to bear witness to the truth of God.
- To know Jesus is to know the truth.
- His mission and message
are “the truth.”
- His Holy Spirit guides us in the truth (16:13), and His Word sanctifies us
through the truth (17:17).
How
can we know what truth is?
II. We
can know what truth is because Jesus has revealed it.
John 1:14-18
14 The Word
became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory
of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15
(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke
about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was
before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of
grace already given. (grace for grace) 17 For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the
one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the
Father, has made him known.
How
are grace and truth demonstrated in Christ?
- KEY WORDS: Grace for grace (1:16)—A phrase emphasizing the
mercy of God toward His people. God’s grace finds its ultimate fulfillment in
the saving work of Christ.
- Knowing Jesus Christ is the only way to know truth.
What
did John mean when he said Jesus was “full of grace and truth?”
- Because Jesus came from God full of grace and truth, “of his fullness have
all we received, and grace for grace.” Because of Jesus we have received one
blessing after another. By knowing the absolute truth in Christ and dwelling
with Him, we go from strength to strength and receive grace upon grace. When we
follow Christ, we live in victory regardless of our outward circumstances.
In a
society held together by the Judeo-Christian ethic, the principle of absolute
truth holds sway. Even those who are not ardent followers of Christ have an
understanding that absolute truth exists. But as society has pushed further
away from the tenets of Scripture and has driven Christ ever further out of the
people’s midst, moral relativism has crept in and is now
taking over. Without the light of Christ and the truth of Scripture He gave us,
culture has joined Pilate in questioning what truth is.
What
are some lasting truths from John 1:14-18?
- Jesus, the Word, came to dwell as God with us.
- Jesus makes known God’s glory in the fullness of His grace and truth.
- We know what God is like, receive His
grace, and know His truth only through Jesus, God’s Son.
Truth—absolute
truth—exists. The laws of science and math teach us that. Moral and ethical
truth also exists—and we know that when we encounter Jesus who is the truth.
III. When
we trust and follow Christ, we discover the truth and experience life
and freedom.
John
8:30-32
30
Even as he spoke, many believed in him. 31 To the Jews who had believed him,
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching,
you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free.”
How
would you describe the connection between truth and freedom?
- Truth is not merely something we can know intellectually; we also can
experience truth in Christ! “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.” But Jesus included a condition with that knowledge. We cannot
exaggerate the importance of the word “if” in verse 31. We will
only find freedom and be saved if we continue walking with Christ. It is not
enough to know the truth in our mind. Truth is holistic; we must live it out.
Lasting
truths from John 8:30-32?
- Salvation comes through believing in Jesus.
- Authentic discipleship is evident in abiding in God’s Word and living by
it.
- Those who are faithful to God’s Word will know Him and the truth only He
provides.
Moral
relativism falsely claims it is possible to live outside of defined truth and
still be free. Actually, living outside of Jesus’ truth and teaching confines
us to a prison of our own making. We will know the truth and be set free only
by consistently obeying God’s Word and continually walking with Jesus. Ye shall
know means that as we pursue truth by following Christ, truth will be obvious.
The
truth of Christ imparts great freedom! But from what exactly are we set free?
- Slavery in any form is wrong and evil, but the worst kind of bondage is
the slavery of sin we bring on ourselves.
- We might also see this freedom in other ways in the Gospel of John:
freedom from condemnation (5:24-29), freedom from darkness (12:46), freedom
from the power of the evil one (17:15), and freedom from death (5:24).
What
are some ways you have experienced freedom through the truth of the gospel?
- I have found the freedom and joy that comes from living in the truth. A
few years ago, when my wife was expecting triplets, our maternal-fetal
physician specialist told us, “I recommend a fetal reduction.” Two of our
triplets were sharing a placenta, a serious condition called Twin-to-Twin
Transfusion Syndrome. Fetal reduction. That’s nothing more than a euphemism for
aborting one of our babies. Years earlier we both had made the decision to
follow Jesus and live by His truth. But what happens when that truth we’ve
committed to live by is on a collision course with the truth of a dangerous
situation? In our case, truth was a matter of life or death. It didn’t matter. God’s truth is absolute. My wife told the specialist, “We will trust God. There will not be a ‘fetal reduction.’” God lavished us
with “grace for grace.” Three years later, our sons are in complete health. And
Ryder James, the most high-risk of the triplets, has the most amazing
ear-to-ear smile. What if Audrey and I had followed a different standard of
truth and had ended his life? Instead, we chose to follow Jesus. The truth of
Jesus set us free.
LIVE
IT OUT
We end where we began. “What is truth?” The Bible
does not explicitly address the issue of absolute truth. Nevertheless,
Scripture, such as the passages we have examined, does readily connect truth to
God, and it naturally presumes it is absolute truth, meaning it applies to all
people at all times. Therefore, absolute truth exists because God exists. It is
fully grounded in His standard and ultimately and fully made known in Jesus
Christ.
THE
POINT: Truth
is found in Jesus Christ.
Dec
21, 2019 From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham
Q:
Why does it matter whether people believe in evolution over Biblical creation?
-- E.B.
A:
The entire educational system is rampant with evolution. Universities that were
founded upon Scripture now teach atheistic or theistic evolution, producing
skeptics, agnostics or atheists with little or no regard for God. Biblical
creation is the only answer that has stood the test of time because it is
founded on the absolute truth of God's Word that never changes.
Jesus Came into the
World to Bear Witness to the Truth - Christmas Day
Resource
by John Piper Scripture: John 18:37
Topic: Truth
Every
year Christmas poses a question to the world—and to you this morning—namely,
why did Jesus come? Or what is the meaning of Jesus Christ? Or, more
personally, what difference should this man make in my life? In my marriage, in
my work, in my leisure, in my thinking, in my emotions?
When
he was on trial for his life Jesus gave us an answer to this question. He said
in John 18:37, "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."
The
words were spoken at the end of his life, but they are about Christmas.
"For this reason, I was born . . . " For this reason there is
Christmas. Christmas exists because Jesus came to bear witness to the truth.
So,
what I would like to do on this Christmas morning is to think for a few minutes
with you about these words of Jesus. I suggest that we focus on two
implications of this verse, or two implications of Christmas, and then close
with an exhortation.
- Christmas means that there is truth—truth that everyone should believe.
- Christmas means that Jesus came to testify to that truth—He is the key witness.
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