THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH
2 Thessalonians 2:7-15; Ephesians 4:15-25;
The impression I have for our time together is that, in our walk here, we are to be lovers of the truth and lovers of the brethren. These thoughts run in parallel with what our brother has been bringing before us, and I trust that the scriptures would speak for themselves. We have in the first three the love of the truth, then in the last scripture the love of the brethren and how that is connected with being lovers of the truth.
But there are two thoughts that precede what I have before me. The first one is simply this, that above all we need to be lovers of God. It seems quite basic, but although it is the most basic thought of all, it is also the most important of all. These are the words of God Himself. It says in the Old Testament, “thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength” (Deut.6:5), and there are many other scriptures, such as “I command thee this day to love Jehovah thy God”, Deut.30:16. We need to begin there, and to test ourselves, I hope not about our love for God, but about whether or not we love God with our all, dear brethren. That is where we need to begin. We cannot rightly say that we love the truth or that we love the brethren if we do not love God. We prove the reality of our love for the truth and our love for the brethren in accordance with the strength of our love for God. Paul writes in one of the epistles that “the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God”, 2 Thess.3:5. It is a great and wonderful matter that the Lord will direct our hearts into the love of God. We cannot be lovers of the truth or lovers of the brethren without being lovers of God.
What follows on from that is that we have to be lovers of Christ; again it is a very foundational thought. I was thinking of John 21, because it brings in the importance of being lovers of Christ. The Lord really tested Peter as to that. We know the scripture so well that many of us could probably quote it from memory – it contains three tests. What patience the Lord showed with Peter. What came before me is that before we can speak of being lovers of the truth or lovers of the brethren, we have to be lovers of Christ. We have to test ourselves, because most if not all of us would say we are lovers of Christ, but we have to test ourselves as to the strength of our love for Christ. That is something that came out in these questions that the Lord asked of Peter. Alongside the strength of our love for Christ, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Do I display my love for Christ in my walk?’ It may seem difficult to understand, particularly as a younger person, that we can love Christ in our walk, but that is really the test in John 21. It is not so much ‘Did Peter love Christ?’ I do not think that was ever in question. I do not think the Lord questioned that, I do not think that Peter questioned that. But what came out is that the Lord was testing Peter. So when we speak of our love for Christ, we bring upon ourselves a challenge to show it. What comes out in John 21 is how the strength of our love for Christ is to be shown in our walk, dear friends. That is what comes out as we look into the scriptures we read, that we show our love for Christ in our love for the truth and our love for the brethren. If we are going to speak of our love for Christ, we are bringing upon ourselves that challenge to show it.
I began in 2 Thessalonians and this phrase “the love of the truth” is what I have before me. I was extremely challenged as to this verse. I would seek to be positive about it, but it says in a negative way that certain persons had not received the love of the truth. We first need to think about what the truth is. As I thought about it, I was getting a little overwhelmed by that question, and yet the truth in one way is very simple. The truth is the expression of God’s mind, God’s will. It links with the phrase in Ephesians, “as the truth is in Jesus”. We know that Jesus is the expression of God; “for in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, Col.2:9. Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life”, John 14:6. So we know what the truth is. That is part of the reason why I mentioned those first two thoughts, because we need to be strengthened as to our love for God, and our love for Christ, because that is where the truth is. The truth is in Jesus; that is what we have in Ephesians. It is not good enough simply to know the truth. God would have us to come into the knowledge of the truth; that is well known, but it does not stop there, because we have to be lovers of the truth. There are many who have more knowledge of the truth than I have, but it is as important if not more so to have the love of the truth. I was deeply challenged as to my love of the truth, and the need not to simply pay lip service to that. The knowledge of the truth and saying that we love the truth is good, but this is a deep heart matter. We have had that over the last couple of days; “being enlightened in the eyes of your heart”, Eph.1:18. I was thinking of that scripture from the beginning of these meetings, because light coming in, and our walking in the light, is a heart matter; loving the truth is a heart matter. We automatically think of love as a heart matter naturally, but we need to be strengthened in our love of the truth.
We have to begin by believing the truth (v.12). It speaks of those who have not believed the truth, but we have to begin by believing the truth as it is found in Jesus. Then belief of the truth is mentioned again in verse 13, then sanctification of the Spirit; “sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth”. Then I thought verse 15 was important, “So then, brethren, stand firm, and hold fast the instructions which ye have been taught, whether by word or by our letter”. There is great value in “the instructions”, and the note is helpful; it says ‘As ‘directions’’ (note ‘i’). There is something more to instructions and directions than the words themselves imply. These are the things that the Spirit of truth would bring to our minds. The Lord said that the Spirit of truth would bring to their remembrance “all the things which I have said to you”, John14:26. These are the words of the Lord. The Lord gave instructions. We have been reading in Mark’s gospel back home, and one of the things that is interesting to me is how many references there are in its early chapters to the Lord’s teaching and the Lord’s doctrine. That would be included in the instructions.
Then Paul says “by word or by our letter.” We need to value that; “our letter”. We might pass over it as simply meaning that we are reading a letter of Paul’s, but “our word and our letter” includes all of the instructions of Paul. The truth was and is displayed in Jesus, but then Paul instructed these various assemblies in that truth. So we need to value Paul’s instructions. The truth is something wonderful, something of great distinction. We need to value “the instructions” and “our letter”; we need to value what has come out by the Spirit of truth as to Paul’s ministry, dear brethren. It is generally not as appreciated as it should be, but I have been thankful to experience something of how it is valued, and I would challenge each one of us as to our love of the truth as it is seen in Paul’s ministry. The truth does not stop at the four gospels, it goes on to Paul’s ministry, “by word or by our letter”. It is something that we may take for granted, that we have it, but do we love the truth?
In Ephesians, what I wanted to dwell on is particularly that phrase, “as the truth is in Jesus”. We began in verse 15, because we hold the truth in love. We show our love for the brethren by holding the truth in love. Truth and love and grace are always seen in perfection in Jesus, “as the truth is in Jesus”. There are several references to the truth here. Closer to the end of where we read we have things that are very practical, “instructed in him according as the truth is in Jesus”. The apostle goes on to say some very important and foundational things, such as “being renewed in the spirit of your mind”. How important that is; the mind, the whole man, is involved. We thought of that in relation to our being lovers of God, but I wanted to dwell on verse 25, “speak truth every one with his neighbour”. That is one way that we show our love of the truth. Speaking truth is something more than sitting down as we did this afternoon and speaking about the Scriptures or about “as the truth is Jesus”. It is to be my whole occupation – we have that word “conversation” used in the New Testament several times with reference to our walk – and I think speaking truth would colour our whole walk and colour all that we say. It would be that I love the truth so much so that I cannot speak of anything else. That is the thought here. You might say that we are to “speak truth” at all times. I was challenged as to it. We hear the term, ‘paying lip service’ to something. Paying lip service to speaking the truth would be simply sitting here without the love of the truth being behind what we say. We need to challenge ourselves as to that. First of all, do I love the truth, but then do I love the truth so much that it colours my whole conversation, my manner of life, my walk? We talked earlier about walking in the light, and speaking truth would be included in that, always remembering that the truth is in Jesus.
I read from the third epistle of John because we have an example there of what we have been speaking of. John is showing his love of the truth as seen in Jesus by speaking of this brother, “Gaius, whom I love in truth”. Love of the truth would manifest itself in what we have here. There are so many references to the truth; I was interested to notice that there are seventeen or more references to the truth in the epistles of John. Think about that; it is something that we might just pass over and not think about, but these epistles comprise only seven chapters of Scripture. They convey the subjective side of the truth. To quote ministry for a moment, the gospel of John gives us the subjective side of the truth, and we have it there as seen in Jesus1. Then we have in John’s epistles the working out of that subjective side of the truth. It is interesting to me that there are so many references to the truth in these short epistles of John. It must show the importance of working out in our walk, being fully coloured by, our love of the truth. We have a brother referred to in this scripture who displayed the love of the truth himself, as did the gathering he was part of. He was “holding fast the truth”. We saw that in Ephesians. How important it is for us today to hold fast the truth. It is not simply to hold fast the instruction, but to hold fast the truth seen in Jesus. What struck me was “even as thou walkest in truth”. Again, Mr. Raven said that we do not simply hold to the truth, the truth is not simply manifested by a set of principles; it is seen in us becoming exponents of the truth2. It is seen in our walk, dear friends. It was seen in the walk of this brother, who really worked out “speaking truth” to his neighbours. He must have been a brother who showed love towards the brethren. We have it there at the end of verse 5, “thou mayest have wrought towards the brethren and that strangers”. It is the evidence of the love of the truth; that is how we see the love of the truth. It is not simply the knowledge of the truth – we need to go further than that and that is what we have here. It includes so much. We sometimes make these terms mean specific things, but “fellow-workers with the truth” is so wide; it is a display of our love of the truth.
So I would simply challenge us all to dwell on these things in our hearts. As we do so, it challenges us so much more. It is not as complex as we might first think, but as we challenge ourselves about it, it becomes something that is very real, dear brethren. Are we fellow-workers with the truth? I was thinking of that as we were speaking earlier about the lamp-stand and the pipes in Zechariah 4. Is there anything in me that might be a blockage to being a fellow-worker with the truth? That is what the lamp-stand teaches us. I enjoyed the thought that the pipes have to be kept clear, all forty-nine of them. It is not just that Gaius was a fellow-worker – obviously he was a good example of that – but he was a fellow-worker with the truth. All forty-nine pipes were working together to connect the lamps to the supply of oil. I really enjoyed that thought, because the test for each one of us then becomes, ‘Am I having my part in that as being a fellow-worker with the truth?’ We could say so much about how we practically are to be fellow-workers with the truth, but everything we do can work towards this, and that is really the test. Our whole lives should express our love of the truth as seen in Jesus, then we would be fellow-workers with the truth.
I want to move on to a thought which runs alongside this in the first epistle, and that is our love for the brethren. As I was thinking about the love of the truth, it kept coming before me that our love of the truth is expressed in our love for the brethren. It should not be difficult to understand that the challenge for us is to show our love of God and to show our love of Christ in our love for the brethren. So we have here that “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. It would be a challenge to each one of us, and that is what I would trust would be the result of our time together. Many things have been said in ministry as to this verse, and there are so many things that could be opened up as to this whole section, and it would be good to do so, but I simply wanted to test us as to our love for the brethren. Over the past two days, we have had many references in connection with love for the brethren. If we were to define them, they are “those who hear the word of God and do it”, Luke 8:21. That is what the Lord Himself said. So we have a clear definition, and I think the brethren are lovers of the truth. That is the connection; they are lovers of the truth seen in Jesus. That is what comes out in the gospels; those that hear the word and do it. Well, that is what comes out here.
I read the next verse, “let us not love with word, nor with tongue, but in deed and in truth”. The Lord displayed everything “in deed and in truth”, and I thought that we should love the brethren, those who hear the word and do it, “in deed and in truth”. The challenge is not just to say that we love the brethren, the challenge is not just to do things that display a love of the brethren. I think it is the same thought as loving the truth, dear friends, that my whole thought process, my whole conversation would show forth this thought, that we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. We have a great example; in verse 16 we have the standard set by the Lord Himself. It is a high standard. I have often been tested as to that, but He is not only a standard, but an Example, a Model. Peter speaks of the Lord leaving us a model that we should follow in His steps (1 Pet.2:21). Part of doing that is in our love of the brethren. He has displayed that love; “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. I would just challenge us all as to that, and challenge myself more than anyone here as to how this comes out in our lives. The Lord speaks of someone seeing “his brother having need”. The Spirit of God would point us to a brother in need, spiritually, physically, whatever it might be. It might be a little thing, it might be small in our minds, but we are to show forth this love in deed and in truth; that is the test. Peter speaks about “unfeigned brotherly love”, 1 Pet.1:22. That is sincere, genuine brotherly love; that is what unfeigned means – sincere and genuine. We can test ourselves as to the sincerity of our love displayed for the brethren, those who are lovers of the truth.
To connect all these thoughts together, we have the truth in Jesus. We spoke from Ephesians about our love for Christ, and how we have the truth in Him. But then we have those who are lovers of the truth. We should test ourselves as to the strength of our love for the truth and also the reality of it as displayed in our walk. If we love the truth, then we will love the brethren as those who are lovers of the truth. The truth is one of the most widely touched on and discussed subjects in the Scriptures and in ministry. There are so many ways we could think of this, but the impression I had and the challenge for me was that we need to be strengthened in our love of the truth; in doing so we would be strengthened in our love for the brethren and it would become fully manifest in our walk here.
May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address at Vancouver
8 August 2015
M. Holland