Jesus' Word Is Truth!

Good Friday
April 9, 2004
John 18:37-38a.

^18:37Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." ³⁸Pilate asked him, "What is truth?" (NRS).

Pilate was caught between a rock and a hard place. He was the Roman ruler of Palestine. He was expected to maintain peace and further the political and economic interests of the Roman Empire. But he had two superiors which conflicting demands. The emperor Tiberius was quite favourable to the Jews as had been Julius Caesar and Augustus before him. He gave the Jews special favours because of their religion. For example, they were exempt from displaying images of the emperor and couldn’t be drafted into the army. But Tiberius didn’t rule directly. Like Pharaoh had given day to day rule to Joseph, Tiberius left most things to a soldier named Sejanus, the head of the Praetorian Guard, the secret police if you will. This Sejanus didn’t think too much of the Jews. He was only interested in increasing Roman power. Pilate was directly under Sejanus and depended on him for promotion. So then, one superior was telling him to be nice to the Jews; the other to be very firm.

Pilate tried to straddle the fence, which, of course, didn’t work well. Early in his term in Palestine, he tried to show Roman might. He marched his troops into Jerusalem with the images of the emperor. The Jews flew into an uproar and besieged Pilate’s headquarters for five days. Pilate had to give in and remove the images. Later, he took money from the temple treasury to build an aqueduct. Again the Jews reacted but Pilate used force to complete the project.

The Jews protested to the emperor about these things. After that, Pilate was sort of on probation. Any more outrages of the sort and he would be removed from office. That probably meant a humiliating exile for the rest of his life. Yet, Pilate was still under pressure from Sejanus, who cared nothing for the Jews’ beliefs, to use force.

Now Pilate was faced with this mob that wanted to kill Jesus. It was bad enough that he believed that Jesus was innocent. But the real problem was that the Jewish leaders were trying to force him, the Roman governor, to do what they wanted. It was a question of political power. He couldn’t let the Jews exert that power over him, but at the same time, he couldn’t start a riot and offend the emperor. That’s the button the Jews were pushing by calling Jesus a king who opposed the emperor and who refused to pay taxes.

Thus Pilate’s question about truth. It wasn’t a question of truth about empirical data, scientific facts. Pilate wasn’t worried about which breed of horse made a better chariot horse, or which kind of metal made a stronger sword. His question of truth had to do with political and moral truth. Was it not wrong to condemn an innocent man? And was it not wrong to compromise Roman rule? How could he maintain justice and please both Sejanus and Tiberius? What was the truth there, the right thing to do? What was the truth?

I sympathise greatly with Pilate because I find our so-called “post-modern” society in the same dilemma. We don’t know what truth is. Again, the issue is not empirical data, scientific truths like how photosynthesis works or the speed of light. The issue is theological, metaphysical and moral truth. What’s the truth about God, about questions like the origin of the universe, questions that go beyond physical, experimental science? What’s the truth with respect to morals, right and wrong behaviour? We don’t really know anymore! Why? Because we have rejected the category of absolute truth. Oh, we still believe scientific data and rely on things like DNA testing and love shows like CSI, but we largely reject the notion of truth beyond such data. We reject claims to absolute theological and moral truth. We hold truth to be relative, dependent on the circumstances.

That leaves us, like Pilate, in a dilemma, even in the Church. On the one hand we have the Bible which claims to be God’s word and thus absolute truth. On the other hand we have the new rule of our culture which rejects the possibility of such truth. So we’re torn between two masters so to speak. The Bible seems outdated on issues like deterrence, capital punishment, men and women, sexual orientation, pre-marital sex, marriage, and personal choice issues like abortion and euthanasia. We’re not sure how to think anymore, what to believe. Like Pilate, we’re confused. What is the truth?

What is the truth? The question goes back to creation, when Satan came on the scene to contest the truth. "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1b-5).

Do you understand what he did? He made a false accusation against God which Eve believed! She and Adam quickly learned that they had been deceived. But it didn’t matter. Like Pandora’s Box, the door of doubt was open. Are there other things we don’t know about God? What else is he hiding from us? The result is that we become sceptical, doubtful that it is even possible to know the truth about anything outside of our own experience.

Doubt is now characteristic of the world in which we live. We have given up ever knowing theological and moral truth. The more we learn the more we think everything is relative. In fact, we’re tired of trying to determine truth and simply settle for the best we can. If it feels right, do it. Live and let live. Who cares if it’s not really true?

Well, we all should care, for the consequences are devastating. Remember that prayer by the minister in Kansas that went around by email? “We confess,” he said, “that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbour's possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.” That’s what happens when we give up truth!

And there’s one more problem. The fact that we have no answer to the question, “What is truth?” is unsatisfying. Deep down we want to know the truth! Don’t we really believe that if we could know absolute truth about God and morals, that this would be much better that our relative truth?

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Think about it, if there is a God who made all things, then he is our only source of truth about things we cannot observe for ourselves. He is the only one who can tell us for sure how we got here, how we should live, and where we’re going. And so Jesus came into the world to testify to that truth. Satan lied and hid the truth; he hid God from us and plunged us into doubt, fear and despair. Jesus came to reveal the hidden truth, to reveal the hidden God and so take away the doubt, fear and despair.

Satan did nothing to prove his claim. He simply told a big lie for which Eve fell. I can just hear Satan afterward mocking Eve, “Sucker!” Jesus on the other hand backed up his claim with demonstrations of God’s power. He worked signs: changed water to wine; healed a dying boy, a cripple and a blind man; fed the 5000; walked on water; and raised Lazarus from the dead. And the crowning sign of all, he died and rose.

Amazing isn’t it? Satan tells one whopper and makes us forever doubt God. Jesus does all these signs and we find it difficult to trust him! Satan maligns the truth and we all die. Jesus dies so that we can know the truth! What truth? That Satan is a liar and that we came under God’s judgment because of him. That God will judge all people, the living and the dead. That our Creator has revealed the truth about our origin, about how we should live, about what is right and wrong, about where we’re going and how to get there.

Truth of that nature is difficult to accept because it accuses and condemns us. Truth demands obedience that we don’t want to give. It leaves no room for our excuses. It calls our theory of relativism a satanic lie! Like Jesus said to Nicodemus, This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. (John 3:19-20). That truth made and still makes Jesus intolerable. His people crucified him because of that truth! And every time we doubt his Word we make him a liar and in our heart we crucify him anew.

Yet he wants us to be born anew. This is why he died on the cross. Not because Pilate and the Jews out manoeuvred him, but so that you and I could know the truth and be set free from our bondage to Satan’s lie. He died to pay for the fact that we believed that lie, have called God a liar and have trampled truth into the dirt. He died to prove that he was speaking the truth. You don’t die for a lie!

Here then is our salvation: Jesus’ death! For by his death he proved that he is the way, the truth, and the life! What then is truth? Jesus’ word! For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice. God grant that we belong to the truth!