What Is Truth? – John 18:38

by Chris Simmons

The title of this article proposes an age-old question. We read in John 18:37-38, “Pilate therefore said to Him, ‘So You are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’ Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth?’” Jesus spoke of His purpose to reveal “the truth,” while Pilate did not ask about “the truth,” but rather skeptically asked about the concept of “truth.” In similar fashion today, the question is not a matter of “what is truth?” but rather “is there truth?” Before we can debate over what is truth, we have to overcome the spirit of relativism, and humanism that says there is no truth in matters of spiritual and moral import.

Despite man’s effort to cloud the subject, the concept of truth is not really all that complicated. Webster, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary © 1996, defines truth as, “1. the quality of being true; as: (a) conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is, or has been; or shall be. (b) Conformity to rule; exactness… 2. That which is true or certain concerning any matter or subject, or generally on all subjects; real state of things; fact; verity; reality.” Just as there is “fact” and “reality” and thus “truth” in matters such as physics and chemistry, so also in matters of religion, salvation and righteousness before God, there is “fact” and “reality” and thus there is “truth.” Just because man does not agree on what truth is on a given subject does not thus negate the fact that there is truth. Man continues to debate the issue of the origin of the earth and mankind, and whether it was created by an all-powerful God, or whether it came into existence by a “big bang” and then evolved into its present state. The debate though does not nullify the existence of facts, reality and truth regarding the origin of all things, and the facts, reality and truth render all else to be error. The presence of the theory of evolution in every textbook in the world and the support of the most scholarly in the world can not overcome the facts and reality of how things really came to be. Today, people would seemingly suggest that if a matter of God’s word is debated that perhaps there is no truth and, correspondingly, that there is no error. It can’t be both ways. Either God created the world or He didn’t. Either the Bible is inspired, or it isn’t. Either the Bible demands baptism for the remission of sins or it doesn’t. One is truth, the other is error.

Responsibility for defining truth lies with the One who has all authority, power and might. All things are subject to God (I Corinthians 15:24) and there is “no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1). Therefore, God has all right and responsibility for the definition of truth. Since the creation of the world, it is Satan who continues to vigorously attack, malign and lead man in opposition to truth. Beginning in the garden of Eden, Satan attacked the simple truth that God had established and communicated to Adam and Eve. Truth comes from God and truth is defined in all that God has revealed to man. We read the words of David in II Samuel 7:28, “And now, O Lord GOD, Thou art God, and Thy words are truth…” Jesus divinely confirmed this in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth.” Truth however loses it’s status as such when not viewed in its entirety. David wrote in Psalms 119:160, “The sum of Thy word is truth, and every one of Thy righteous ordinances is everlasting.” Truth is not defined by simply a portion of God’s word but by the sum, or the entirety of it. A great volume of error has come from people who presume truth to come from a misapplied portion of the scriptures without considering “the sum of Thy word.” To base truth on some of God’s word to the exclusion of other passages is to utilize human judgment in defining truth. Spiritual truth is never subject to human definition or judgment.

If we can agree on the tenet that there is truth, the question not only being raised in our nation’s academic lecture halls, but also in the Lord’s church, is whether truth can be known. Can we know what God’s will is on any given subject, whether it is the work of the church, the plan of salvation or marriage, divorce and remarriage? Regarding such topics, there are even some of our brethren in the Lord’s church who are asserting that God’s truth is unknowable or that man can not understand such truth. Jesus stated otherwise in John 8:31-32, “Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” Paul asserted that we can understand the “mystery of Christ” that had been made known to him by way of revelation (Ephesians 3:3). Truth is understandable and knowable and must be defended as such (cf., Jude 3).

For many people, the most uncomfortable characteristic of truth is that truth is exclusive. When it comes to “truth,” there is but one. Jesus declared, “I am THE way, THE truth and THE life, no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). Also we read of the prayer of Jesus that His disciples might be sanctified in “the truth” (John 17:17). Either you were right or you were wrong. Either you believed truth or you believed error. Truth excludes all else and renders all else to be in error. When truth is mixed with even the smallest amount of error, it no longer remains to be truth. Truth must be free from all error. Paul understood this exclusive and pure nature of truth, which is why when some false teachers sought to compromise the gospel with just one tenet of error (circumcision), he wrote in Galatians 2:5, “But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.” This one change to the truth of the gospel made it “a different gospel” and a distortion of the truth (Galatians 1:6-9). Any distortion of the truth makes it to be error.

We also need to appreciate and defend the fact that truth does not change. Human opinion can not be exercised in order to change truth as time goes by. Paul wrote in II Corinthians 13:8, “…we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.” John writes that we can indeed be “fellow workers with the truth” (III John 8) but all the efforts of men to argue, oppose and challenge the truth will never, ever change the truth. Just as the hammer will never alter the anvil, the most convincing human wisdom and the most compelling human arguments do nothing to alter the truth of God.