John chapter 18 tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal by Judas and arrest. After being interrogated by a few high priests, he was handed over to Pilate, the Roman Governor. He asked what charges were being brought against Jesus, but they didn’t have an answer. They basically responded by saying, “Just trust us. He’s dirty or we wouldn’t have brought Him to you.” They knew they didn’t have anything on Jesus that could make a conviction stick.
Let’s pick up the story in John 18:33: 33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
Jesus engaged Pilate to help Pilate have a revelation about who Jesus really was. Pilate’s only understanding of a king would make Jesus a political rival. If Jesus was an earthly king, that could prove a problem for Rome. Jesus was going to clarify what His kingship entailed.
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
Jesus didn’t answer to any of the charges against Him. Instead, He talked about His Kingdom and authority and how it didn’t originate in an earthly realm.
36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
This announcement of His kingdom being from another place is an important fact as it relates to answering the question, “What is truth?” If truth originated with this world, truth could not be trusted. We are born with selfish, sinful desires. Therefore, we cannot be the originators of truth. We cannot be the source of truth. Because of our flaws, frailties, and failures, we could never look to an earthly person to reveal truth to us. The establishing of truth had to be an outside job. It had to come from some place beyond this world.
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. In just a few back and forth exchanges, Pilate learned that Jesus was a King, but His kingship supersedes simply being the King of the Jews. He wasn’t simply a “king,” but He was and it THE King over all.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to THE TRUTH. Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.” John 18:37
Jesus makes two stunning declarations here. First, Jesus said He came into the world to testify to THE truth. He didn’t say His life would speak to a truth or some truth but THE truth. In other words, there is no truth other than the truth that Jesus’ life, death, burial and resurrection testify to.
That makes truth absolute. The truth is absolute. The truth isn’t the result of perspective or opinion. It isn’t “the way you see it.” The truth isn’t consensus. It isn’t relative or situational. The Truth is what God says is Truth, and Jesus said, “If you want to know The Truth, look at Me and listen to Me.”
Jesus took it a step further and said, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me.” What side did Pilate want to be on? What side do you want to be on?
The Truth is authoritative. It has the last word. Jesus is the “Word” made flesh. Jesus is the Truth made flesh. (John 1:14) If you want to be on the side of truth, you need to be on the side of Jesus. His Word holds ultimate power and authority because it didn’t originate with man. It didn’t begin somewhere on the earth. It wasn’t developed over time. The Truth pre-dates everything that exists. The Truth has never been a work in progress. It has never been in a state of development. The Truth has always existed in the Godhead and was demonstrated in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
When Jesus said, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to Me,” He was saying, “The truth isn’t up for debate.” You can question the truth. You can disagree with the truth, but your questions don’t undo the reality that truth is ultimate and is fixed. You can disagree with the truth, but your rejection of the truth won’t make it untrue.
We don’t get to define what is true because Truth has been fixed by the One with absolute authority. If we want to live according to reality, we will live according to the absolute authority of Jesus because He came to testify to what reality, to what Truth, really is. He didn’t just testify about it. He died to prove He knew what He was talking about.
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
Pilate downplayed the necessity to deal with what Jesus had revealed to Him, and yet, I believe Pilate knew in his heart that what Jesus was saying was true.
Even though he felt the pressure from the crowd that was calling for Jesus’ crucifixion, Pilate continued to look for a way out of handing Jesus over. Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.
What Jesus was saying in that moment was, “Pilate, this isn’t even up to you. You don’t have power over Me. You are not in control of Me or this situation. What is going to happen is going to be the exclamation point to My testimony about the Truth.” What God was going to allow, the death of the Son of God, the death of Jesus on the cross, was going to be His final demonstration and declaration regarding the definition of Truth.
So, not only is the Truth absolute and authoritative, but the truth has power!
What is truth? I submit to you that Truth is a Person. Jesus is the One who is real, dependable, reliable, trustworthy and unchanging. What does Scripture say about Him? Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, Hebrews 13:8. Doesn’t that sound like Truth?
Why is it important that we know and cling to the Truth? Isn’t that restrictive? To claim that there are standards, created by God, to which we must ascribe, doesn’t that diminish my quality of life? Doesn’t that fence me in? Doesn’t that keep me from enjoying life? Doesn’t that restrict my freedom?
It’s actually exactly the opposite! The Truth brings freedom. Look at John 8:31-36: 31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Do you see the correlation between knowing Jesus and knowing the truth? If you hear what Jesus says, if you listen to Him as He told Pilate was imperative, if you listen to Jesus and hold to His teachings, you will know the truth and because of the power inherent in the Truth, you will be set free. Freedom comes from walking in Truth.
The people Jesus was talking to didn’t get it. 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus wasn’t talking about being an earthly slave to an earthly person, but He was talking about being a slave to our flesh, a slave to the desires that we are born with, a slave to our cravings and unrighteous living. Left to ourselves, we instinctively want the wrong things. Just look at the track record of humanity. You know that is a true statement. The world is in trouble largely because it has rejected the Truth.
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
You can’t know Truth apart from a relationship with Jesus. He is the Great Emancipator. Truth has the power to liberate you because Truth is a Person. Jesus said of Himself in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
The way to God is the way of Truth. It’s the way of Jesus. Anything else is a lie.
There’s been a lot of fact checking going on in our country lately. People are on a quest for truth while political parties are working hard to suppress the truth. I wish people were as eager to know the Truth about Jesus as they were a political candidate. His record is clear. No one has ever disproved His existence or His miracles. The evidence for His life, death, burial, and resurrection is overwhelming. Investigate it for yourself. Just look at the Truth that He shared while He was on the cross. He proved God’s love for each of us when He took the punishment we deserved because of our sin. He who was sinless, paid our penalty, so that we could know the Truth about how much God loves each of us.
I love I John 5:20: “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” I John 5:20
What is Truth? Truth is a Person. You can know Him. You can be freed by Him, and you can possess the eternal life that comes when you ask Him to forgive and change you by the power that comes from receiving and live in the Truth.
