WHAT IS TRUTH?

^[p. 65] WHAT IS TRUTH?

I think this is a legitimate and important subject of inquiry — and the more so as by the inquiry we are enabled to apprehend what sin is in principle. It is certain that in the coming of the Son of God into the world, the two great forces that were in conflict were the truth and sin.

Before going further into the subject, it may perhaps be assumed, that truth is, on the one side, the setting forth and expression of what is of God, and therefore in nature divine, and, on the other, the consistency of the creature morally with the position in which God has set it. It is evident that on the latter side only could sin come in, and consequently sin can never be co-extensive with truth.

In Christ we see the perfect realisation of truth. He is the truth. In Him has been fully set forth what is of God in nature and character before men; and at the same time, He has maintained before God, in true moral suitability, every position which as Man He was content to occupy in His presence. He set the Lord always before Him.

Of God, as such, it is said He is true; but not that He is the truth. In the Son is the expression — He is the Word. Hence it is not difficult to see that Christ is the test of everything.

Now sin in its fullest character and development sets itself to oppose and resist the truth. Had not Christ come and spoken to the Jews, they had not had sin, and the logical conclusion of this resistance of the truth is, that the man of sin takes advantage of the rejection of Christ to show himself as God.

The beginning of sin was, I judge, when the creature turned to itself as an object, and so ceased to have God as such. It departed from God. That is first ^[p. 66] seen in the devil, who sins from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. He first became enamoured of his own beauty, and puffed up, and afterwards, as it seems to me, coveted a position that God had given to man (as head and centre of a system) and had not given to an angel. Morally, Satan ceased to be in the truth of the creature. His position he could not change, but was no longer in moral accordance with it.

The same may be said of man. Being tempted, he sought to be as God, knowing good and evil. He, too, became an object to himself; self came in, and sought elevation, and he ceased to be in moral consistency with the position of the creature, though he could not alter that position. He stood not in the truth. The climax, as we have seen, is in the man of sin, the son of perdition. Backed up by Satan and worldly power, he opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or worshipped, and sets himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. He virtually says there is no God in the heavens, and man on earth is God. He has truly become an object to himself, and would be to others. He has wholly ceased to be in the truth of his position as a creature.

Now sin being such, and working in this way, it is evident that it must ever resist the truth, since in the truth there is the setting forth, not only of what God is in His blessed nature, but of what the creature should be before God. As we have seen, all this is found in Christ, and, in taking away the sin of the world, He Himself comes in as the truth. But this must be gone into a little more in detail.

The Son of God has come forth, become Man, not only full of grace and truth, but Himself the truth. This seems to point to a wholly new order of things in the universe, in that everything, instead of standing on its own footing of responsibility, will be established in and maintained by Christ. The first great step in this is in His having become Man. Though truly God,

^[p. 67] and ever expressing here what was of God; yet, having come into the position of the creature, He never ceased to be in moral suitability to the position He had taken. Perfect God-ward, in love, dependence, and confidence, He pleased not Himself. And all this comes out most distinctly in His death. In obedience He laid down a life in which sin had no place, and on which death had no claim; but was in suffering in perfect moral accordance with the character of God, though made sin that He might remove it from before God, and be Himself eternally separated from it, that He might in result take away the sin of the world, so that there might be a new creation in those that had been of the old. Hence we have sin removed, while Christ abides, the truth.

We arrive now at this point, that all is shut up in Christ. In Him alone is the eternal security of blessing — since in Him, not only is God’s nature displayed, but everything, every position in heaven or on earth, is headed up in Him in whom it will be set forth suitably to the character of God who created it.

Hence in the millennium it is not so much man, as Christ, that comes into view. He, so to speak, covers all. All is secured and maintained in Him. He fills all in all. It is of moment to see how everything, law, old covenant, flesh, old creation, the world, have all been brought to an end before God in Christ, and that He remains who is to fill all in all. He is the new starting-point, in whose death the true judgment of God has been expressed in regard to everything, while He Himself, as Man, is the truth, the expression of what is according to God’s mind as to everything, be it man, Israel, or what not.

Now Christians are of the truth, having part in the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. This is, of course, looking at them abstractly as in Christ, born of God. In this sense they cannot sin, being the offspring of truth,

^[p. 68] and not simply being responsible to abide in the truth; nothing can come from them but what is of the truth.

As to practically abiding in the truth, it is a question of grace, and faith that finds its delights and enjoyments in all that Christ is, so that we are maintained under the power of what is of God and divine, and morally in keeping with it.

The above is but a very bare and brief sketch of the subject, but may be of interest as opening up in measure how completely sin is to be displaced, and how in its place we have, in the coming in of Christ, the expression on the one side of what is divine, and blessed, because it is divine; and on the other, the maintenance and security of every position which God has created; the perfect triumph of truth over all.