What Is the Truth?
Dearly beloved of God, in the judgment hall Jesus said to Pilate, “Every one that is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate responded, “What is truth?”
Earlier Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:6
Jesus Christ is the truth and he will make you free; free from the reign of sin and death, free from the adversary’s rule over you, and free from the adversary’s lies that blind people’s eyes to the truth. He will make you free indeed.
The night of His arrest, Jesus prayed to his Father and said, “Sanctify [to set apart] them by Thy truth. Thy word is truth.” John 17:17
In the prayer he said, “I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them…” He said, “I have given them Thy Word.” “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is Truth.”
Three times he says that he gave them God’s Word and that it is the truth. When you think of all he could have said that he had given them while he was on earth, this is a rather remarkable statement.
He could have mentioned the healings, how he cast out devil spirits out of people, that he walked on water, that he spoke to the wind and it obeyed, or that he raised three people from the dead; but he said, “I have given them Thy Word” and that “Thy Word is truth.”
Jesus gave them the words which God, His Father gave him. He taught his disciples the truth from the mouth of God; His Word is truth.
Every one that is of the truth will hear his voice; we don’t have to argue about it; we only need to study God’s Word and rightly divide it so that we have the Word of Truth.
The devil quoted God’s Word to Jesus, but he used God’s Word against God’s Son. He used it to deceive him, the same as did with Eve in the garden by adding a word, leaving out a word, changing the truth of God and replacing it with his word, which was a lie.
Unlike Eve, Jesus responded, “It is written…” He was not deceived.
The adversary is a skillful deceiver, and he deceives the whole world. One way he deceives people is by taking scripture which was addressed to one people and use it for another. There are three groups of people God addresses at various places in His Word: Judeans, Gentiles, and the Church of God.
The adversary will use scripture addressed to people in one administration of time to deceive people in another administration of time. For example, he uses the truth of the law administration to deceive those in the administration of the grace of God.
We must understand to whom God is speaking [the Judeans, the Gentiles, or the Church of God] when we study God’s Word, the time in which He spoke and the times of which He spoke.
God gave us His Word to reveal His Will, not to hide it from us. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to declare Him, to make Him known by his words and his works. God sent him to the lost sheep of the house of Israel with His Word, but that was not the end of it.
“Wherefore, He says: (Psalm 68:18) ‘When he [the Lord Jesus Christ] ascended on high, he took captive those who captivate, and he gave gifts to people,’” Ephesians 4:8
“And he gave the apostles and the prophets and the gospel messengers and the shepherds and teachers.
He gave them for the complete equipping of the holy [sanctified] ones, for the work of the ministry [service], for the edifying of the body of Christ until we all reach the unity of the [right way of] believing and of the [right] knowledge [acknowledgment] of the Son of God, that is, a mature man, the measure of the full-grown Christ.
This is so that we may no longer be infants, billow tossed and carried about by every wind of deceptive teaching of crafty men with their strategies of delusion.
In contrast, as we speak the truth in love, let us grow up in all ways in him who is the head, even Christ. From him, the entire body, which is framed together and united by every joint of supply, causes the growth of the body by the measurable working of each single part for the edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:11-16 A Journey through the Acts and Epistles, the Working Translation
What is the truth? The truth that God revealed to the Church of the Grace of God today is the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ our Lord, the revelation of the Mystery of God. Every one who is of the truth hears his voice; his word is truth, and it will make you free indeed, dearly beloved.