The word "truth" is commonly
understood to refer to statements that are true.
However, dictionaries also define truth as the
substantiation of a true assertion. For example, "I
have a computer" is a true statement, and my
computer is the substantiation of that assertion.
Thus the statement is truth, and my computer is the
reality of the truth.
The world is full of true statements and
their substantiating realities, but many of these
are temporal. "I have a computer" cannot be true
forever. One day I will not have one; hence, this
statement is not an eternal truth.
There is another type of truth - scientific
and mathematical laws and principles. These are
sought after by scientists and mathematicians. This
type of truth is quite useful and helpful in the
physical world. Yet it still deals with something
temporal.
There are many people who work to verify or
disprove supposedly true statements. There are
untrue assertions and lies in every walk of life,
including politics, law courts, families, etc. Thus
these people try to verify assertions in order to
confirm the truths or to correct mistakes and expose
lies. This is necessary for the benefit of society,
but the truths they seek are also temporal, not
eternal.
What we want to seek after are the eternal truths
and the experience of these truths until our lives
are affected by them now and forever. We should not
seek merely for temporal truths, but find the
statements of eternal truth with the substantiating
realities and endeavor to possess them now. What is
the truth and the substantiating realities?
The Bible Reveals the Truth
The Bible, the Word of God, the book
of truth, the guiding light to mankind for 3,500
years, the most translated book (over 1,900
languages), the best seller of all time (more than
500,000,000 copies printed each year), tells us that
God the Father is the truth, Christ the Son is the
truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and
the Word of God is the truth. We are seeking these
eternal truths.
God the Father Is the Source of Truth
First, the Bible says that God the
Father is the truth. Only God is the reality of all.
All things are out from Him, through Him, and to
Him. God is the source of all created things. God is
love, light, holiness, and righteousness. These
divine attributes are the realities and source of
the corresponding human virtues, which are merely
shadows. Man without God is devoid of reality and
apart from His life. Whatever truth man has in
himself is not truth before God. Whatever man thinks
of as truth is either temporal or self-deceiving -
this is not to mention all the lies man has told and
lived in. God is the only eternal reality. He is the
truth and the substantiation thereof.
Christ is the Embodiment of the Truth
Second, the Bible tells us that
Christ the Son is the truth. He is the only One who
is qualified to say, and did say, "I am the truth"
(John 14:6). He is the truth because He is the
embodiment of God. All that God is, has, and has
accomplished is included in Christ the Son. God the
Father is in Him, and He is in God the Father. The
two are distinct yet never separated. He is as
eternal as the Father because He is God. That is why
He is even called the Father of eternity. When man
sees Christ the Son, he sees God the Father. One of
Christ's names is Jesus, which means Jehovah (God)
our Savior. Another name is Emmanuel, which means
God with us.
Christ loves man to the uttermost with an
eternal love because the loving God is in Him as the
reality of love. He not only fed and healed His
unrighteous and ungodly enemies, He even died for
their sins. He was still praying for man while He
was being crucified by man and for man.
He was the guiding light shining on man in
bondage that man might be led from Satan's kingdom
of darkness to the freedom in God's kingdom of
light. This is because the shining God was in Him as
the reality of light.
He was holy and undefiled though living in
the defiled and defiling world. This is because the
holy God was in Him to be the reality of His
holiness. Though He was tempted by everyone and
everything around Him, He was without sin and
remained absolutely pure for God.
He was righteous in every sense because the
righteous God was the reality of His righteousness.
He was right with God, His family, the people, the
government, and even Satan and the demons.
There has never been a man as loving, shining, holy,
and righteous as this One who had God in Him as His
reality. Therefore Christ the Son is the reality.
Pontius Pilate, the governor of the Roman Empire who
executed Him, asked Him, "What is truth?" not
knowing that Christ was the truth. Christ the Son
not only lived a life to express God as His reality,
He also died for man who is trapped in unreality. He
resurrected to be the life-giving Spirit to give
life and reality to all who would believe.
The Spirit of Reality Makes God Real to Man
Third, the Bible calls the Holy
Spirit the Spirit of reality. The Spirit is not a
separate Being from God the Father and Christ the
Son. God is Spirit and Christ became the Spirit. God
the Father is embodied in Christ the Son. All that
Christ the Son has accomplished is included in the
Spirit. The Spirit comes from the Father and the
Son. When you call the name of Christ the Son, "Lord
Jesus Christ," you get the Spirit of reality. When
He comes to you, He brings to you all the divine
realities of the Father and the Son.
We seek to know the truth concerning all
that God is, all that Christ has accomplished, and
all that the Spirit can be to us. We also seek to
experience all the divine realities so that we may
be men not living according to temporal truths or,
worse, in lies and falsehood. Then we would not be
distracted and bound by temporal satisfaction and
physical enjoyment but full of eternal truth and
divine realities.
The Word Reveals and Conveys the Truth
The Word of God contained in the
Bible is also reality because it not only reveals to
us God in Christ as the Spirit being the eternal
truth and divine reality, but also conveys God, the
divine reality, into all those who believe. Jesus
said, "The words which I have spoken to you are
spirit and are life." (John 6:63). When we hear the
word and pray according to it, we receive the
spiritual realities that the word reveals. This way,
we receive the dispensing of God the reality into us
to transform our being to be like Him. For example,
when He demands that you should "love your neighbor
as yourself" (Matt. 22:39), the same word of demand
supplies to you the God who is love and who has
loved His neighbor as Himself. The only way you can
experience this supply is by praying with the word,
"Lord Jesus, I do not and cannot love anybody as
myself, but You can. Lord, I need You. Come into me.
Fill me up with Your loving self and love my
neighbor in me. Thank You, Lord Jesus." You can pray
with God's word this way to receive God as your
reality.
The Way to Receive
the Truth as Reality
All you need to do is
to pray, "Lord Jesus, I am tired of living in sinful
unreality. I want to come to know You as the one
eternal reality. Thank You for dying for my sins and
rising to bring me life. Be real to me right now."
Then He as the Spirit can come into you to be your
life and dispense into you all the divine realities
of God. Then God may live in you and you may live in
God to express all God's divine realities in all
genuineness in your daily human living on earth.
Bible Verses for Your Reading:
John 17:17 Your word is truth.
Psalms 119:130 The entrance of thy words gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh,... full of grace and reality.
1 John 4:16 God is love.
1 John 1:5 God is light and in Him is no darkness.
1 Peter 1:16 You shall be holy because I am holy.
2 Pet. 1:1 The righteousness of our God and Savior.
John 14:10 I am in the Father... the Father is in Me.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.
Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Isaiah 9:6 His name shall be called... The mighty God, The Father of eternity, the Prince of Peace.
John 14:9 He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
Matthew 1:21 And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.
Matthew 1:23 "They shall call His name Emmanuel'' (which is translated, God with us).
John 13:1 He loved them to the uttermost.
Luke 23:34 And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
Matthew 4:16 To those sitting in the region and shadow of death, to them light has risen.
Acts 26:18 To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.
Hebrews 7:26 Such a High Priest..., holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners.
Hebrews 4:15 One who has been tempted in all respects like us, yet without sin.
1 John 2:1 Jesus Christ the Righteous.
Rom. 8:20 The creation was made subject to vanity.
Ephesians 2:12 You were at that time apart from Christ..., having no hope and without God.
Ephesians 4:18 Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God.
1 Corinthians 15:45 The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
John 15:26 But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of reality, who proceeds from the Father.
John 14:26 The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name.
John 16:13 But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.
John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life,... the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
Ephesians 6:17-18 Receive... the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit.