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What Is Truth ?

by Mark Heatherly  
6/03/2008 / Christian Living

These are the words of Pilate to Jesus in response to Jesus' declaration, "for this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice".

To Christians, these words are very precious because they involve salvation. To unbelievers these words speak condemnation because they refuse & reject the truth concerning God's love & means of salvation. We know that unbelievers cannot know of the truth & that they remain & abide under the cloak of darkness. We know this of certainty through the miracle of our own personal conversion from darkness to the light.

All who have repented & turned to the Lord have experienced at least a measure of the enlightenment of the truth. It is an astonishing occurrence in which we know that, where once we were blind, but now we see. We have a new sense for knowing something that we could not previously have ever come to know. It is as if the veil before our eyes has been lifted & now we see. In reality, this is the experience of our newly enlivened spirit through which we are made aware of the spiritual realm.

This is an obvious experience which all Christians should have encountered at one specific point in their life however, I wish to point out here something that is not quite so obvious. It is something of tremendous consequence which effects the very state of our spiritual maturity.

You see, there is a very great & terrible misconception in today's Christianity. There is the assumption that once we have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord, having had our "eyes" opened, as it were, that from here on out, the veil has been permanently removed, but it in fact has not. Until we are saved completely in body, soul, & spirit we still remain in a compromised position. By that I mean, we not only have the divine nature but also the old nature, not only the new man but also the old man. I know this may be unsettling to some, but we not only have God in us but also Satan for we are still in the world & it's system, & we still contend with the flesh & the sin nature. Because of this, at best, we may only walk in spirit in a measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. There are many things which we must overcome or else we find ourselves on the wrong side of the veil, at least as it pertains to seeing, knowing & experiencing the truth.

Another word for truth you see, is reality. This reality is all that is of God & His kingdom. To know & experience the truth is to know & experience this reality. This reality, you might say, is the person of Jesus Christ. No man can come to the Father but by Jesus. Our initial salvation is but the initial stage for we must go on with Christ for the progress of our salvation. By this I do not mean that we "earn" it, for it is an established fact that it is only through faith by the grace of God. It is written however, that we are to "grow" in respect to our salvation, to press on towards the mark, & to work out our salvation with fear & trembling. These are not idle words, but rather quite active & sobering.

If we do not walk in this way & live for this purpose we shall suffer loss & find ourselves in a degree of darkness. I do not say utter darkness, for we cannot lose our salvation, but we can certainly regress to varying degrees of worldliness & selfishness.

It is written, "In Him was life, and the life was the Light of man. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it." and also "There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him." It is also written in the old Testament that "in His light, we see light". Just as in the physical realm, we must have light in order to see. It is only in Him, in the glory of His light that we may then see light. This light is a revealing of the truth, it is also a revealing of the way & also of the life, for these are contained in Christ. These, it is written, ARE Christ for He has been made the sum of all things. If therefore, we are to know any THING, we must first have known Christ. Having summed up all things in Christ, there remains nothing of truth & reality which is outside of Him. This means that Christ has become the source & the substance of all things spiritual & otherwise.

This leads me back to the subject of this writing, which is the truth & what it is. It can be said that the truth is the reality & subtotal of all that is Christ, for He is the sum of all things by God's decree. He is both the source & the substance of life & all things living. In that sense then, there is no truth nor reality outside of Him, for all that is otherwise will be brought to naught in the day of judgment. All that remains after judgment unto eternity is therefore truth & reality.

Having said that, I may say that to know truth is to know Christ. To know Christ is to experience Christ. To experience Christ is to experience God. To experience God is to abide also in the light. This light both reveals & slays. It slays what is not holy & what is not of truth & reality, that is, what is not of Christ, while it reveals what is.

Today there is more knowledge about the bible then ever before in history. There are more bibles, there are more commentaries, more books written about the bible, more teachers & more preachers, yet there are also more divisions in the church & more opinions concerning the interpretation of the scriptures. It appears the prophecy has come to pass, that they are "ever learning & never able to come to a knowledge of the truth". Why is this & how can his be ? Can it be, that the truth might also be hidden from Christians ? Indeed !

To answer this however, we need look no further than to the truth, Jesus Christ. Jesus said that He is the truth, but that also, He is the life & also the way. To posses the truth, we must posses Christ. To posses Christ however, He must first posses (or own) us. He cannot posses that which is not consecrated unto Him. Our consecration is the loosing of all that we have & all that we are outside of Him. This qualifies and enables us to live now by His life. This life then brings us the truth or reality, the reality becomes for us, the way.

With Christ then as our life, our reality & our way , we may thus live & walk in the spirit without the constraints of the flesh, the selfish soul-life, and the old, worldly man. Only then may we have eyes to see & ears to hear. Then, may we know all things spiritual and the power of His resurrection. Then, shall we thus know and experience the truth for it shall be our very life & living.

"The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays."

I make my writings available to all, but I would very much like to hear from those who have questions or comments or are built up & enriched & also from those who wish to use my writings for reprint.

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