Truth,
Liars & God
Truth
I
found an interesting section on 'Truth' in Leon Morris's commentary
on John's Gospel. Here is the gist of what he said:
In
Greek writings the basic idea of truth is the mathematical one (ie
“1+1=2” is true) plus the idea of reality as opposed to mere
appearance. The Old Testament concept is similar but richer. It
includes faithfulness, reliability, trustworthiness, sureness and the
like.
This
enriched concept comes from OT descriptions of God. So truth is
characteristic of God e.g. Ps.31;5 and Isaiah.65:16 “the God of
truth”. Truth includes the complete reliability and complete
integrity of God, so he will act in accordance with the highest
conceivable morality. So the psalmist can offer a prayer in Ps.54:5
which older translations render “destroy (my enemies) in your
truth” which newer translations render “in your
faithfulness”.
The
New Testament, Morris continues, blends the Greek and enriched OT
meanings of “truth”. So in Romans 1:25 truth is seen as close to
God's essential nature: idolatry is characterised as exchanging the
truth of God for a lie. Elsewhere the NT speaks of truth frequently,
such as Eph.4:21 where Morris insists the correct translation is “as
truth is in Jesus”. “The truth of the Gospel” (Gal.2:5) and the
requirement for truth to be exemplified in believers in many
passages, e.g. 1 Cor.5.8 believers must keep a real festival “with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”
John's
Gospel excels in depicting Jesus as truth. According to Bultman for
John 'truth = God's reality', which since God is the creator is the
only true reality.
John
uses “truth some some 25 times in his gospel. He describes Jesus as
“full of grace and truth” (1:14) and Jesus says “I am the
truth” (14:6) to pick two. Bultman concludes: “So
truth is not the teaching about God transmitted by Jesus but is God's
very reality revealing itself – occurring! - in Jesus.”
Pilate
famously asked Jesus “What is truth?”. Jesus gave no answer in
words. The narrative of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection gave
the answer in actions. Truth as Jesus thus portrayed it was a very
costly affair.
So
when Jesus said “the truth will set you free” (8:31) he did not
mean mean mere intellectual freedom. He meant the liberating
experience of being his person – freedom from sin and guilt,
adoption as sons and daughters of God and a future and a hope that
liberates from the fear of death.
Morris
concludes: “The connection with Jesus is essential to the idea of
truth as we see it in this gospel. It starts from the essential
nature of God, it finds its expression in the gospel whereby God
saves humans and it issues in lives founded on truth and showing
forth truth.”
Lies
Jesus
set out the Dichotomy neatly when he said “(the devil) was a
murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is
not truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he
is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell you the truth
you do not believe me!”
So
as truth is part if God's moral character, so lies are of the
devil's. We can take this a step further with a working hypothesis
that truth and truth telling are an integral part of a whole
behaviour set we call “virtue” whilst lies and lying ring
together with evil character traits.
We
might also abstract from Jesus' experience with his contemporaries
that there is some fault in human nature that makes lies seem
attractive, believable almost while the truth seems unattractive and
so truth tellers are not believed and even branded as “liars”.
Going
on from Jesus' comments, the Genesis narrative is instructive. God
says basically: “eat the forbidden fruit and you die”. The
serpent says: “you won't die”. Then sweetens it with “you will
become like God knowing good and evil”.
The
genealogy in Gen.5 says over and over “… lived so many years and
he died” hammering home the point that God told the truth
but the serpent lied.
The
serpent's sweetener was a more devious species of lie: it was true
except at the vital point. Our progenitors did get to know good and
evil. They did in an empty way become like God. But in all that
mattered they had become totally unlike and separated from God. God
knew what evil was, but remained totally good: they had actually done
evil and had thereby been irreversibly tainted by it.
I
have just been doing a bit of a word search (the site:
www.biblegateway.com is helpful for this) on truth and lies. One gets
the strong message that truth and truth telling are integral to God's
moral character, and essential in people who wish to live to please
him. The idea of lies and lying seems to have two particular
emphases: the perversion of justice in the law courts and people who
claim to speak for God misrepresenting him – to the ruin of their
listeners.
The
perversion of justice appears as something God hates with a passion.
It is instructive that God is really in favour of the “secular”
law courts and gets very angry when they become corrupt.
Isaiah
59 is a beautiful and poetic example: “…
because of your sins God has hidden his face from you … No one
calls for justice, no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on
empty arguments, they utter lies. … So justice is driven back and
righteousness stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the
streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found and
whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.”
The
other focus is on people who claim to speak for God telling lies.
This seems to be in the Bible almost the constant state of the
religious establishment – a sad fact that should make us critically
examine our current churches.
One
example is Jeremiah where this theme runs right through the book. The
overview is that God is warning the nation that it will be destroyed
if it maintains its current moral, religious and geopolitical stance.
The religious establishment refute this message and claim that God is
pleased with the nation and will protect it. The king and people
follow the (lying) advice of the “church”. The nation is
destroyed, the temple burned, and the populace deported in chains by
the enraged Babylonians.
So
God's warnings depicted reality. The “church”'s lies did not
correspond to reality. Finally reality bit with a vengeance!
Just
one quote, Jeremiah 27.14ff “Do not listen to
the words of the prophets who say to you, 'You will not serve the
king of Babylon' for
they are prophesying lies to you. 'I have not sent them' declares
Jehovah. 'They are prophesying lies in my name ...”
To
sum up: Truth is what corresponds to reality, including God's
reality: lies are denying reality. The truth may be unpalatable or
even inconvenient. Lies may sound sweet – but following them leads
to harm or even ruin. Telling lies may seem to offer an easy way out
– but it is morally wrong. People who want to take God's moral
character as a guide must learn to be truth tellers.
Next
week we will debunk the “hard cases” sceptics use to try to make
us doubt the general rule of truth telling.
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