TRUTH
[p. 281] TRUTH
John 1: 17, 18; 8: 31, 32; 1 John 2: 18 - 25; 5: 6
The subject before me is Truth. And it is in the line of what I have taken up on previous occasions. It is of the greatest importance to get at the moral elements of Christianity. The tendency has always been to cast the truth in a kind of mould, and thus it becomes stereotyped, and is set forth too dogmatically. And when taken up in that way there is danger of losing the moral character of Christianity.
I have on previous occasions spoken of righteousness and peace. Perhaps truth is the most important element of all. If there is a revelation from God it is truth, and if there is not truth there is no revelation of God, and God is unknown.
The simplest person must see the necessity of every principle to which I have referred. Righteousness means that there is an orbit appointed for man in which he can travel according to God. It is in contrast to lawlessness. Lawlessness cannot be right. Such a thing does not exist in natural things, and how can it be right in moral things. No one can pretend that for a creature to be outside the law or rule of God is anything else but lawlessness. In this universe every planet is governed by natural laws or rule, and so in the moral universe, there must be rule. Grace has come in that man may be brought into the appointed path. Wisdom has brought us into the way of righteousness, and righteousness is what is morally right. God may allow evil things to go on for a time, but in the long run there can be but one result; there is nothing possible but righteousness, unless God is wicked or weak, and no one could believe that; but if God is good, in result righteousness must be brought in. The Christian is looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
[p. 282] Last time I spoke of peace. Peace is the consequence of righteousness. When righteousness is brought in there is an end to moral confusion, and peace subsists because the cause of disturbance has been removed from under the eye of God. It is the privilege of Christians to eat the peace-offering, that is, to be in communion with the death of Christ in which the cause of disturbance has been removed from before the eye of God.
Now I come to truth. There are many people in the world who echo the words of Pilate, “What is truth?” and some who would make you believe that, while disregarding revelation, they are searching after truth. And what competency has man to search after truth? It is a very long search, and without result, because it is not possible for man to find out God. Man cannot be certain that any conclusion of his mind in moral things can be absolutely right, and so no man can be absolutely certain that he has arrived at truth. Men may say plenty of true things, but that is not truth. The greatest philosopher cannot unveil to you what God is. God is hid behind a veil, and man cannot tear that veil away; and if he could come to certainty in regard to that which lies within the range of scientific knowledge he would not be a bit nearer knowing God. He would only be brought to more perplexity in regard of this.
Now in natural things there are certain laws in operation which are unvarying and there is no confusion; but in things moral I see confusion enough. The reconciliation of all this I must leave to others. Whatever insight I might have into the works of God in creation, and as to the operation of natural laws, could not possibly unveil to me the nature of God: and can never make known to me what the relations of man are to God. There is a good deal of pretension in the present day on the part of man to knowledge, but it is futile and not likely to lead to any good result.
[p. 283] Truth is not to be found by the searching of man. Man has lost God and got into lawlessness and sin, and hence all the searching in the universe can never find out God! It is impossible.
I can speak of truth in contrast to that. We read in John 1 that “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”, and “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. The declaration of God is truth. If I were to give a definition of truth, I should say that truth is the expression of right things as they are. If you want to get at truth you must get at things expressed as they are. In that light you can understand very simply that truth came by Jesus Christ, that He is the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. It is not simply that He is true; He is true, God is true, but Christ is the truth. He is the expression of things as they are, whether as to God or man.
One result of this definition is that in the presence of truth every falsehood is exposed. The antithesis of truth is falsehood. In his first epistle John says, “I have not written to you because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth”, and “Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is the antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son”. The liar and the antichrist are evidently bound up together. The liar shows the origin of the antichrist and opposes the revelation of God.
You can see these principles abroad today on every hand. There is the liar, denying Jesus to be the Christ, and there is the antichrist who denies the revelation of God — the Father and the Son. There are plenty of people in the world who own Jesus as Man, but the point in Scripture is that Jesus is “The Christ”. And again, men talk about the Fatherhood of God, but the point in Scripture is not the Fatherhood [p. 284] of God, but the Father revealed in the Son. The Unitarian would talk about the Fatherhood of God, and of Jesus as a Man, but neither is the truth. Apprehending that Jesus is “The Christ” is of God, and the man who denies it is a liar! He opposes Christ and seeks to invalidate and set aside the revelation of God.
Christ is the truth because that in Christ we have the expression of things as they are. People think that truth is the exposure of the wickedness of the world, but that is not truth. It is all a lie that is made manifest, but not by truth. True things may be said about man, and his departure from what is right may be described, but that is not truth: it is not the expression of right things, of things as they are; Christ is the way, the truth and the life.
There is another point, that truth to us means deliverance. That is what led me to read the verse in John 8, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. One object of our being in the truth and the truth being in us, is that we may be in the enjoyment of liberty. There is a verse in Ephesians which says, “After that ye heard the word of truth, the glad tidings of your salvation”. You can see in that passage how intimately salvation is bound up with the truth. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. All will, I am sure, apprehend the suitability of grace to man; when you take account of man’s sinfulness it is plain he needs grace, but then truth has come in too, that man may know it, and have the enjoyment of salvation. The Spirit is the truth in the believer, and in the truth we get liberty: we are set free from bondage by the knowledge of the truth, and the working of it is this: that in the presence of truth all falsehood is exposed. It is a wonderful thing to be here in a world of evil, with the ability to judge of the character of all that comes before us by knowing the truth. Everything is exposed, and you [p. 285] have the secret of everything. You have the Spirit, and have no need that anyone teach you. By the unction from the Holy One you know all things. The word ‘know’ really means that you are conscious of all things. “I have not written to you because you know not the truth, but because you know it”. It might read, “Because you are conscious of the truth”. They had the consciousness of truth by the Holy One, and thus knew the character of all things. And then we have, “No lie is of the truth”. The truth is the expression of right things as they are.
The first element of truth is that God is revealed, and that was not the case until Christ came. Every bit of light in regard to God in the Old Testament, whether as “Almighty” or as “Jehovah”, depended morally upon the truth of the Father and the Son. The name of “Almighty” refers to the power of God in resurrection, and “Jehovah” refers to the faithfulness of God in Christ in regard to the promises, but neither one nor the other could be known if God had not made Himself known in love. And how was that displayed? In the fact that all the liabilities of man, judgment, wrath, curse and death, all under which man lay here, was met by God. Man could not meet it, and who then was to meet it? The fact is that God came out in the Son in love to meet the liabilities of man; God came out in self-sacrificing love, He gave His only-begotten Son. The Son of man must be lifted up, and the Son of man is the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. God delivered up His own Son in self-sacrificing love to meet man’s liabilities, and thus to accomplish redemption. Every name of God depended upon that; the power of resurrection to life, and the faithfulness of God to the promises hang on the truth that God has come out in love to take up man’s liabilities. God alone could comprehend the extent of those liabilities and take them up, and this was done in order that every name of God might stand, whether “Almighty”, “Jehovah”, or “Most High”. Thus we have the revelation of God, and that is truth. The truth is comprehended in one expression, namely, “The Father and the Son”.
God could never lose His place as God in taking up man’s liabilities. He took them up in the Son. The Son came forth, and entered into man’s estate, and took up that which lay on man, so that God should be glorified, and that involves the truth of the Father and the Son. If the Father and the Son had not been, such an idea would have been impossible. There could not otherwise have been incarnation. It is impossible to entertain the idea of the meeting of man’s liabilities in any other way than by man. The Son comes forth, a divine Person, and He takes upon Himself man’s estate and condition, enters into man’s place and glorifies God in taking up man’s liabilities, and, in the doing of it, we have brought to light the Father and the Son, and it is the antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. The Son has declared the Father. God has commended his love toward us. The Son of man has been lifted up. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.
God is declared, He no longer dwells in the darkness. The veil is rent from the top to the bottom. God is declared, and Christ is the truth because He is the expression of things as they are.
Now there is another important point in connection with the truth, and that is what man is in the eye of God. You do not know what man is in the eye of God except in Christ. There you have Man according to the divine thought, Christ is the Man in whom the will and pleasure of God have their full place. There was a foreshadowing of this in the Old Testament, in Psalm 40, “I come to do thy will, O my God”. Also in the ark of the covenant. The tables of the law [p. 287] were in the ark. The Christ is the Man in whom the will and pleasure of God have their full place. “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. There is, on the one hand, in the truth the perfect expression of God in self-sacrificing love, and that is really the depth of it, and, on the other hand, there is man according to God’s will and pleasure. Christ here on earth was the Holy and the righteous One. He came to do the will of God, and in Him we have the true ark of the covenant. The Son of man is with God at His right hand, and we have now the perfect revelation of God, the Father and the Son, and, at the same time, man entirely according to God’s mind and pleasure, and that is the truth. The liar says that Jesus is not “the Christ”, and this is because he will not have anything beyond the idea of a mere man. The point of Scripture is that Christ is the anointed Man. The meaning of the word ‘Christ’ is anointed. We have not simply Jesus as a man, but the anointed Man who has accomplished God’s will and pleasure, and having done so and glorified God as Man upon earth has gone to the right hand of God. He could not be holden of death. There was a moral perfection about Christ which must needs find its place at God’s right hand. Those who accept the Unitarian idea have not got Man anointed with the Holy Spirit, in whom the will and pleasure of God have their full place; a Man who has died and risen, and in whose name repentance and remission of sins are preached. Those who accept antichristian ideas have not the Father and the Son. Error crept into the church in early days. John speaks of some who went out from them. They had been with them, but they went out from them because they were not of them; and these same errors have repeated themselves in later [p. 288] days. There are many things set forth today which test the saints, and alas! very many are taken in by them.
Now I turn for a moment to the word in John 8, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”, and “Ye have an unction from the Holy One and ye know all things ... And this is the promise which he hath promised us, even eternal life”. I want you to put that beside the verses in chapter 5, “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth”. We not only have the truth before us but in us. That is Christianity. The Spirit is the truth in the Christian. You will see how antichristian influence would come in between Christ and the Spirit in the believer. The unction is from the Holy One; it is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the truth. There is the truth objectively in Christ, and the truth within the believer. The Lord refers to this in John 16 in saying, “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth”. The Spirit is the unction from the Holy One, so that having the truth in yourself you may be conscious of all things, whether they are good or bad. You know the truth and are able to form a judgment of the character of everything down here.
Having the light of God and the knowledge of divine love, what can one think of man here in this world of lawlessness, pride and arrogance? If I have man according to what is set forth in the ark of the covenant, I get a means of judging of what man here is. The character of the world is simply evil, lust and pride; it is filled with lust; and divine love would have us to be conscious of its character and that no lie is of the truth. However specious the lie is, it is not truth.
But why does the liar deny that Jesus is the Christ?
[p. 289] Well, it is because he does not want the order of man that exists here on earth to be set aside. The liar and the antichrist cannot exist in the presence of the truth: they are put out of court altogether, and therefore it is, as is often seen, that opposers of the truth betray animus. They do not want the light of God, nor any witness of the man that is according to God, for they want to be in the place of leaders of public thought. They want to rule men’s minds; and therefore you can understand that they would put aside, if possible, the divine revelation, and the Man who is according to the mind and pleasure of God.
But to come to salvation, which is evidently the mind of God in regard to His people here. Christ has come in bringing righteousness in view of salvation. The thought of God for man was to rescue him from the power of evil and to bring him into the appointed path of God’s will, to bring him under rule, and that, the rule of righteousness. The operation of the grace of God was to set man free thus from bondage and from every influence of evil. But how do you get salvation? It is by the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is a very sweet thing. It means deliverance from bondage, and that is always sweet. It was so in the case of the children of Israel until they got into the wilderness; then flesh began to work, but deliverance from bondage was at first very sweet to them. No one cares to be consciously in bondage. People lay much store by patriotism and other sentiments in the world, but I covet freedom; and every Christian ought to desire to be free in being in the truth by the Spirit, the unction. He is the truth, and you can by Him stand here in liberty from every influence by which the mind of man is governed. There is no influence upon earth which is good enough to govern the mind of the person who has the knowledge of God. If you have the knowledge of God you will, in the light of truth, soon judge of the true character of [p. 290] things in the world, of the influences that hold the souls of men in bondage.
How many blessed things have come to us in Christ. Do you think, apart from Christ, that you would have known anything of righteousness, peace and truth? Do you think the scientific man or the philosopher could have told you of such things? They are known by the revelation of God, which has come forth with all the blessed moral elements in which perfection consists — righteousness, holiness, peace, love, faith and truth. All these go to make up moral perfection, and they have come to us as the fruit and consequence of the revelation of God in Christ.
I am afraid of the Christianity which consists in the assertion and acceptance of dogmas and statements. Light in the soul is not in itself Christianity fully according to God. There is that which is by the Spirit of life. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free, and ye have an unction from the Holy One and know all things. The unction is the Spirit.
May God grant to us to know the great reality and blessing of that light into which we are brought.