The truth is of a piece ... in fact, it is a Person. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” We might view Jesus of Nazareth as the most egocentric teacher who ever taught; so many of His lessons began with the words “I am.”
Throughout the Bible we encounter a God who takes the truth very seriously--even personally. The way He requires His people to speak and honor truth is encapsulated in one of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” In the litany of sinners that are doomed to the lake of fire in Revelation, “all liars” are included along with adulterers and murderers.
Human beings are infamous for their denial, twisting, shading, prevaricating and suppressing of what they know to be true. Jesus promised those who would follow after Him, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” The truth concerning Jesus Himself is the truth that leads us to freedom.
When Jack Nicholson’s character sat on the witness stand in the film A Few Good Men, he famously shouted out at Tom Cruise, “You can’t HANDLE the truth!!” The same can be said about most people in Jesus’ original audience--those who rejected His claims of authority and savior-hood--and, sadly, it can be aimed at most people in our day as well.
Most people content themselves with a noxious stewpot full of half-truths, misconceptions and outright lies when it comes to the eternal questions and their own ultimate purpose and destiny. Rather than taking God and God’s only Son at their word, believing, accepting and acting upon it, we prefer to compose our own personal versions of truth--a kind of “truth to fit us.” We object to a God of love holding His creatures accountable for their sin, even consigning many of then to eternal punishment. Our spirits rebel against that biblical doctrine, and so we tell ourselves that, “to me, God is totally, unconditionally loving and wouldn’t really punish anyone. After all, no one really believes in hell anymore.” This is only one obvious example of how we render truth palatable.
But there is an absolute truth, one not subject to change or popular approval. It is not a batch of doughy putty we can mold and sculpt to fit our preferences. It is a solid Rock, so hard and rooted so deep, no tide of mankind’s vacillating opinions can ever erode it. As we blithely navigate our boats through the waves of our lives, we are all destined to encounter the Rock of Truth at some point, either in this life or in the life to come. Those who refuse to acknowledge this ultimate Truth and take refuge in its sheltering crags, will at the end come crashing violently into it, at great loss.
Did you ever notice there is usually a good and bad side to most people, objects and activities in this life? Many a food tastes wonderful, but eating too much of it gives one a bellyache. Many of our favorite, engaging teachers were also the most demanding and unyielding. The most charming and exciting games can become boring and predictable after several hours. Work can be both fulfilling and frustrating hour by hour. It seems that nothing is either ALL positive or ALL negative...even Hitler was good at hanging wallpaper!
Truth is like that. Because of my rebellious nature and selfish preferences, I view the truth many times as distasteful, inconvenient, harsh and joyless. And, because God created me and knows me better than I know myself, He is aware of my ambivalence vis a vis what is true. My aversion to the Wholeness of Truth is no surprise to Him; in fact, much of the Bible addresses this.
The Bible depicts a wayward human race that avoids and evades the truth again and again. Even the favored, chosen Hebrew people, to whom God so clearly revealed Himself by dreams, signs, wonders, visions, prophets, writings, thunder and lightning--even they chose to turn away after man-made idols and false conceptions about the true God.
Interestingly, God’s reaction to this waywardness wasn’t to be flexible, re-group, rethink, resort to plan B, or take on a grandfatherly “boys will be boys” attitude. He didn’t poll His angels and other creatures and bend the truth to fit the times. Rather, He called out to the self-deceived truth-breakers, “Repent, turn back to Me and be reconciled. Come, let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they can be as white as snow.” Both Jesus and the preachers in the New Testament echo this theme: “Repent, turn from the false, come back to the Truth, believe it, embrace it, surrender to it, be saved and set free by it.”
God’s name for Himself is the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH--many pronounce it “Yahweh”--and it means “I am.” There was a time in the eternal past, before anything else existed, when all there was, was God the Three in One. He Himself is the I Am--the ultimate Truth that has always been and Has called you and me and all else into being. If you and I owe anyone anything, we owe our allegiance, gratitude and undying love to the Truth...the Whole Truth...the Truth Who Is.
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