Making a Difference! (2)

Ephesians 4:20-21

Truth is a Person
When Jesus stood before Pilate, John records that Pilate asked Jesus this question: “What is truth?” (John 18:38). If I were to go out on the street and ask that same question today, I would get all kinds of answers:

o I learned this week that philosophers have come up with five different theories to explain truth. But even with those theories many philosophers would still declare that there is no such thing as objective truth.

o L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, wrote this about truth: Truth, as a manifestation of human conduct, would be the holding or voicing of facts as one knows them and refusal to utter or hold statements contrary to what one knows.
In other words, truth according to Hubbard is limited to what one knows. That kind of reminds me of a conversation Abraham Lincoln once had with one of his detractors:

Lincoln said, "Well, let’s see how many legs has a cow?"
"Four, of course," came the reply disgustedly.
"That’s right," agreed Lincoln. "Now suppose you call the cow’s tail a leg; how many legs would the cow have?"
"Why, five, of course," was the confident reply.
"Now, that’s where you’re wrong," said Lincoln. "Calling a cow’s tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg."

o If you’re really bored sometime, just go to Google and type in “definition of truth” and you’ll get over 4 million hits. So there seem to be about as many different definitions of truth as there are people.

But by using the name Jesus, without referring to Him by his titles of Lord or Christ, Paul is referring to the historical Jesus as God in the flesh. So when Paul refers to the “truth that is in Jesus”, he is proclaiming that the sinless, spotless life that Jesus lived while He was here on earth is the demonstration of the truth that resided in Him.

We tend to think of truth as a concept or a principle, but the Bible is clear that truth is a person – Jesus. The apostle John testified to that truth at the very beginning of his gospel:

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...For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:14, 17 (NIV) But even more persuasive is the testimony of Jesus Himself in this very familiar verse:

“Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (NIV)

So I think that we would agree intellectually that according to the Bible, truth is a person, Jesus. But why is that significant? What difference does that make? More tomorrow...you are loved!