Truth and Light

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Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

He who speaks truth tells what is right… (Proverbs 12:17)

I’m sure by now you have heard someone say, “You have your truth, and I have mine.” Or, “What’s true for you doesn’t have to be true for everyone else.”

Those statements are, of course, incoherent. Popular, but incoherent nonetheless. Truth is the same for everyone. The implications of a given truth may not be equal across the board, but the reality of the truth is the same for each person. Whether a person chooses to embrace the reality of truth is completely up to that person.

Take, for instance, the existential question of origin. Where did we come from? “My truth” is that God created man on the sixth day of creation (Genesis 1:26; 31). If it is true for me, then it must, of necessity, be true for everyone. If evolution is true, then I am wrong, and so is everyone else who believes in the biblical account of creation. If evolution is true, and I believe in biblical creation anyway, then I am embracing a falsehood. Calling creationism true when it is not doesn’t make it true (and the same thing goes if evolution is false). There is not a creationist’s truth and an evolutionist’s truth. Someone is right, and someone is wrong. There are consequences for both.

Perhaps it would help to distinguish between what the truth is and what it reveals. Truth is the revelation of what is. The Greek word for truth in John 18:38 is αληθεια (al-ay’-thi-a). It means unconcealed (manifest) reality. Truth is the unveiling of that which is real. That which is real is true, and its revelation is truth.

When Moses asked God what His name was, the response was “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14). God’s name is something like ‘Eternal Reality.’ Truth. In John 1:9, the apostle calls Jesus “the true Light.” “True” and “Light” are nearly synonyms. Light unveils, and truth reveals. It’s no wonder then that Jesus called the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26, & 16:13). James called God, “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17). God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the unveiled eternal truth who is changeless.

But if that is what God is (and it is), then why do so many people reject God’s unconcealed Light? Look what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:19-21,

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

People hide themselves from the Light because they don’t want the truth to reveal that they are living in a way that dishonors God and themselves. They wrap themselves in darkness and assuage their guilty consciences by declaring the darkness to be their truth.

There is something else in that passage that is vitally important. Did you notice that Jesus said that those who come to the Light do so by practicing the truth?

Truth (Light, God) requires a response. It is not enough to be just aware of the truth. It must be practiced. And the reason is so that your life practices are revealed to be founded and rooted in God.

Before the Apostle Paul slammed sexual immorality in Romans 1, he set the table with a discourse on truth. Look carefully at verses 18-22:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…

Of particular importance is the phrase, men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The truth can only be suppressed (or hidden, ‘held’ in the parlance of the King James) in the minds and wills of ungodly people. I can’t suppress what has been revealed to you. I can only hide from it in my own mind and claim to have a different truth. And that is why Paul concludes, “Professing to be wise, they became fools…”

There is no way to change or alter the truth. All that any of us can do is see it and then either accept or suppress it within ourselves. There is no such thing as ‘your truth’ or ‘my truth.’ There is only THE truth.

C.S. Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory,

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

It’s not hard to see the Light. It is, however, a futile and foolish decision to pretend it's not really there.

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