Dear friends in Christ,
Someone once observed, “One child can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer.” That’s not a bad thing, of course. They want to know the answers. Curiosity is their middle name, and asking questions is how they learn.
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, was no child. Yet as a man of his culture and of his age in history, he had his questions too. We remember one of them particularly. His question to our Savior Jesus, “What is truth?” The governor’s problem was not that he asked the wrong question. Pilate’s problem was he did not accept the right answer. Instead of listening to Jesus’ answer, Pilate turned on his heel and walked away.
Earlier on Maundy Thursday evening, Jesus had said to the disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (Jn 14:6). Notice Jesus had not said, “I am truthful.” Of course, he is. The sinless Son of God cannot lie. Jesus had not said, “I’ll tell you the truth.” The prophets and apostles did that. They were only mouthpieces proclaiming truths that God had revealed to them.
Jesus is so much more. He is truth itself. He had said to the disciples, “I am the truth.” What did our Savior mean? As we listen to the dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate that first Good Friday, we’ll find the answer in our next Name of Wondrous Love—THE TRUTH. Pilate mistakenly believed there was no truth. Jesus answered Pilate’s question so he could know the truth.
Late Thursday evening the Sanhedrin had passed the death sentence upon Jesus. As a subject nation they could not carry out the death penalty. So, early Friday morning, they took their prisoner to Pilate. What accusation could they bring that would stick? The religious charge of blasphemy they had trumped up against Jesus would not even get a hearing in Pilate’s venue. New charges were in order. Their sin-darkened hearts rose to the challenge. “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king,” they charged (Lk 23:2).
This charge was also a lie. Yet the Jews cleverly knew that Pilate had to investigate it. No official of Rome could ignore such a threat to the emperor. When Pilate rightfully inquired of Jesus, “Are you a king, then?” Jesus gave a right and true answer: “I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” In response, all Pilate could muster was the jaded question “What is truth?”
This is about the answer we would expect from a man of his culture and place in history. Pilate seemed to imply that there was no absolute truth. The Roman culture in which he was steeped had abandoned absolute true including in religion and morality. Pilate would have thought Jesus pretty narrow minded to believe that he, Jesus, and he alone testified to the truth. If anything, Pilate was a skeptic and an agnostic. Pilate’s only truth was simple; there is no truth.
The unbelieving world still asks the question “What is truth?” They insist that absolute truth even in matters of morality and religion simply do not exist. They say that what was true for one generation may change for the next. Or, what is the truth for one person is not necessarily the truth for another someone else.
We know the questions about truth. Did an almighty God create the universe in six days, or did a big bang bring it all into being? Did God make man the crown of his creation, or did man claw his way to the top of the evolutionary ladder? Are human beings merely more advanced animals who can satisfy their sexual desires any which way, or does God have specific roles for sex and marriage? Is there an absolute moral standard to which we are held accountable? Is salvation by faith in Christ, or by my own works? All beliefs, postmodern man says, are equally valid. Or, to put it another way, “There is no truth.”
We know the right answer to Pilate’s question. Jesus is the truth. He came to testify about himself as the Savior of lost sinners, our Savior.
By God’s grace, most of us from little on have known the truths of salvation found only in Christ Jesus. Perhaps for us the question is not “What is truth?” but “What is the truth worth?” This holy season is a time to examine our response to that important question. What does my hearing the truth, my reading the truth, my studying the truth, my sharing the truth show about its importance to me?
Jesus answered Pilate’s question even before Pilate asked it, “I came into the world, to testify to the truth,” Jesus answered so Pilate would know the truth. Truth was standing before Pilate that day in the person of the Son of God. The name of wondrous love, truth, always confronts us in Jesus. He shows us that we are sinful and condemned when he preaches the law. He shows us that we are forgiven and righteous in his blood. When it comes to salvation, there is no need for speculation or searching for some other truth. There is no other truth but Christ.
Jesus Christ is truth in action. He stepped from eternity into time, clothed divinity in humanity, slept in a cradle, shed his blood in suffering on a cross. We can live without many of the so-called truths the world puts forward, but we cannot be saved without Christ.
Pilate had the opportunity but he wouldn’t listen. Today Jesus the Truth stands before us again in his Word. “From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” he reminds us through his apostle Paul (2 Ti 3:15). Would we know the glorious truth of how sinners become saints, how enemies of God become his precious children, how slaves of sin become servants of the Savior? Then we need to listen to Jesus. We need to drink in his Word. We need to “diligently study the Scriptures . . . that testify about [Jesus],” the Truth (Jn 5:39).
Children have a way of asking questions. They also listen to the answers. God, help us listen with believing hearts to Jesus’ answer to that all-important question “What is truth?” Enable us to treasure Jesus’ answer, “I am the Truth,” because it shows his name of wondrous love for sinners like us. Amen. <SDG>