What is the truth?

Introduction

So what colour do you think this dress is? Show picture.

Well this is a picture that went viral on the internet about 10 years ago, and the reason it went viral is because it resulted in a huge online debate about what colour the dress is. Some people thought the dress was ‘blue and black’ while others thought the dress was ‘white and gold’. And this debate kind of exploded on the internet: it spread really quickly on Buzzfeed, became a huge internet meme over social media, everyone was talking about on Twitter. At one point, there was 11,000 tweets per minute about this dress. Kim Kardashain was on the ‘white and gold’ team, while Kanye west was on the ‘blue and black’ team. Lady Gaga said its “periwinkle and sand”. Even politicians and government agencies started posting about it. Within 24hrs, the dress gained 4.4million tweets. The Washington Post made a dramatic article titled ‘The inside story of the ‘white dress, blue dress’ drama that divided a planet.’ Now after all the crazy controversy, the shop that took the photo of the dress confirmed that it was indeed ‘black and blue’, and there are lots of different scientific explanations about why some people see blue and black, while others see white and gold.

And I guess what this little story shows is that truth is not always so obvious. Sometimes truth is quite elusive and hard to discern. Truth is not always black and white, and often there are shades of grey. Think about this statement: ‘water is good for you’. Is this categorically true? No, it is true in most cases, but it’s also true that too much water can kill you! If I say ‘Hungry Jacks is better than McDonalds’ is that an absolute yes/no truth? Probably not, because everyone is going to have different opinions. What about ‘rap is not real music’? I don’t think it’s real music, but most of you would disagree! What about ‘Samsung is better than Apple’? All these questions don’t always have an absolute answer, and there are often shades of grey to the truth.

But sometimes this can go to the extreme and can become unhealthy. It can go to the point where there is no longer any truth at all. And that’s so common these days where personal feelings and opinions are often more important than the objective truth. Take this phrase for example: ‘I’m living my truth’ -> what is that supposed to mean? What is your truth? Is ‘truth’ now something that you can make up for yourself?

But truth is not like this in the Bible. Truth in the Bible is stated very clearly, without any gray areas, and this truth is not dependent on our feelings. And the truth in the Bible is not just any truth, but the truth: the singular truth of this entire creation, the single truth that is the most important truth for all of us, the single truth that gives meaning to us, the single truth that explains this entire universe.

One of the famous verses in this passage is Pilate putting Jesus on trial, and he very famously asks tje question ‘what is truth?’. It sounds very philosophical and abstract, but the Bible is very simple. The truth is Jesus Christ himself.

So let’s read the passage to see what it shows us about Christ as truth.

Read passage.

We blind ourselves to the truth

So the first thing this passage tells us is that we blind ourselves to the truth. The Jews take Jesus to Pilate, who was the Roman leader over the area at the time, and the reason they take Jesus to Pilate is because the Jews didn’t have the authority to give the death penalty. Only the Roman government had that power. So they bring Jesus to Pilate so that they can get the Romans to give Jesus the death penalty. Read John 18:29–31 “29 So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered him, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.””

And why did they try and bring the death penalty upon Jesus? Because although Jesus said to them numerous times that ‘I am the Messiah’ ‘I am the Saviour’ ‘I am the true king that you have been waiting for’, they reject Jesus because this is not the kind of king they want. They wanted a powerful military king to overthrow the Romans, but Jesus was the humble, meek, and suffering king. So although the truth, the very king they had been waiting for, was standing right in front of them, they rejected him because this was not the kind of king they wanted. They blinded themselves to the truth, even though the truth was standing right in front of them, because they did not want to accept the truth, they had made their own standards of truth, in their own arrogance and pride they had already decided truth for themselves (cf. Matt 5:8; Rom 1:18-19; John 1:5).

And so often we do this ourselves. We have already made up our minds about what truth is, and often that truth comes from ourselves. Atheist have already made up in their mind that God doesn’t exist, so even though the truth is right in front of them, they cannot see the truth about Christianity. Even us as Christians, we have already made up our minds on so many things: what church should be like, what the Christian life should look like, how we should behave as Christians, how pastors should behave. And we are not willing to change our minds about these things when they are challenged. But do these standards and truths come from what God tells us and teaches us in the Bible, or have they just come from ourselves?

Truth is not something that we decide for ourselves. Truth doesn’t come from a posture of intelligence, and proud wisdom - it is not something that we can bring out from ourselves. Truth is something that we humbly receive. Read John 18:37 “...For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”” Truth is something that Christ himself tells us, not something we bring out from ourselves. And truth is something that we humbly hear and accept.

The moment that we think that we are smart enough, wise enough, life-experienced enough, to obtain truth for ourselves, that is the moment we become blind to the truth like the Pharisees. They had made their own standards for the Messiah and King by their own proud intelligence and wisdom, which blinded them to the truth standing right in front of them.

Truth is Christ Himself

Then what is the answer to Pilate’s question: ‘what is truth?’. We have already said the truth is Christ himself. We have already said that the truth, that is the most important truth in this entire universe, is Jesus Christ. But let me explain what I mean by Jesus Christ himself being the truth.

Let’s read: John 18:37 again. John 18:37 “37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.””

When we say Jesus Christ is the truth, this means that the biblical truth about Christ, the most important universal truth, is not a philosophical idea, it is not an abstract idea, but it is history.

Jesus says ‘For this purpose I was born…I have come into the world’. He actually came into the world as a baby.

The truth about Jesus Christ is a very simple historical reality. Jesus Christ was literally born, and he came into the world.

The vast majority of atheist historians actually acknowledge and believe that Jesus Christ existed - we have so many records even outside the Bible that talk about how Jesus existed 2000 years ago. So the historical reality of Jesus Christ is not really up for discussion.

So since Jesus really existed, we have to closely examined what he claimed about himself.

He claimed that he is a king - read John 18:36 “36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”” Jesus is a king that is not a political or military king that the Jews wanted, but a ‘kingdom that is not from the world’. Jesus’ kingdom is heavenly, great, eternal, even more powerful than a small earthly kingdom, and that mighty heavenly king came into the world for us.

And that heavenly, mighty king, what does he do? In John 18:37 it says ‘everyone who is of the truth...’ - Jesus came as the truth, and we become part of that truth. Remember from earlier in John, Jesus is the light, and we are the darkness - Jesus now comes as the light, and we are no longer of the darkness, but now we are of the light. Jesus comes to rescue us and make us part of his own heavenly kingdom, not the kingdom of this world that is passing away. (cf. John 10:27-28).

So this is why Jesus says ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ in John 14:6. Jesus is not only a historical fact, but he is the historical fact that changes all of history. He is the climax that history has been building up to. And this is because, Christ is the only truth, that leads us into the right way in life, he is the only one that that leads us to eternal life.

Conclusion

So as you live this life, people, sometimes very intelligent, respectable, wise, and powerful people, will present to you and tell you what life is about. They will tell you how you should live this life, how to make the most of it, how to be most happy and successful. They are offering to you, truths, which they believe from the bottom of their hearts, are the most important truths in this life. And so often, they make sense, and they are convincing. But so often, these are just standards, and ways, and methods, that they have made themselves. And to confuse them as the ultimate truth in this life will blind you to the real ultimate truth.

I always want you to remember, that life doesn’t always have to be complicated. And when it comes to the ultimate truth, it can’t get any simpler, because God has told us himself what that ultimate truth is, through his Word, and that is Jesus Christ himself: his own Son, who is king in heaven, came into the world, and made us his own, so that he can guide us into the right way in this life, that will lead to true life in God himself.

Ending song: 10,000 reasons

Small group discussion questions

In verses 28-32, the Jews obey all the ritual laws, while at the same time plotting the murder of Jesus. They are hypocrites! What does this show about the conseqeunces of spiritual blindness? What are some consequences of spiritual blindness in my life?

In verse 39-40, they exchange the innocent Jesus, king of the Jews, for the true criminal Barabbas. What does this show us about what Jesus does for us? What does this mean for how we should live our own lives? (see Philippians 2:1-11).