Praying to His heavenly Father on behalf of His disciples, He said this: “Sanctify them by Your truth. It does not merely contain nuggets of truth it is pure, unchangeable, and inviolable truth that (according to Jesus) “cannot be broken” ( John 10:35).
Jesus also said that the written Word of God is truth. He is truth incarnate-the perfect expression of God and therefore the absolute embodiment of all that is true. After all, Jesus is “the brightness of glory and the express image of His person” ( Hebrews 1:3). He was also making it clear that all truth must ultimately be defined in terms of God and His eternal glory.
When Jesus said of Himself, “I am…the truth” ( John 14:6, emphasis added), He was thereby making a profound claim about His own deity. The Old Testament refers to the Almighty as the “God of truth” ( Deuteronomy 32:4 Psalm 31:5 Isaiah 65:16). Therefore God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth. Reality is what it is because God declared it so and made it so. Truth is also ontological-which is a fancy way of saying it is the way things really are. Because the definition of truth flows from God, truth is theological. Even more to the point: Truth is the self-expression of God. Here’s a simple definition drawn from what the Bible teaches: Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Others believe truth is a collective judgment, the product of cultural consensus, and still others flatly deny the concept of truth altogether.
To some, truth is subjective, the individual world of preference and opinion. Some say truth is a power play, a metanarrative constructed by the elite for the purpose of controlling the ignorant masses. Two thousand years later, the whole world breathes Pilate’s cynicism. Pilate-the man who handed Jesus over to be crucified-turned to Jesus in His final hour, and asked, “What is truth?” It was a rhetorical question, a cynical response to what Jesus had just revealed: “I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.” One of the most profound and eternally significant questions in the Bible was posed by an unbeliever. So let’s go back to the starting point and answer the question: What is truth? The concept of truth has clearly fallen on hard times, and the consequences of rejecting it are ravaging human society. Try it on a university campus and you’re likely to receive laughter, scorn, and derision. Ask anyone today, "What is truth?" and you’re sure to start an interesting conversation.
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