November 19

Truth came by Jesus Christ. - John 1:17.

WHAT is truth? This is a question Pilate once asked, but did not wait for an answer. And it is a question which many still ask, and with regard to the result they betray equal carelessness. The shortest and easiest way of answering the question according to some would be for each religious party to exhibit its own creed, and censure and exclude the claimants of every other. But candour would lead a man to conclude that all parties have it partially, and that none have it wholly. Thus it is with philosophers with regard to nature; metaphysicians with regard to mind; and historians with regard to facts.

The gospel is a system too vast for a finite mind to take in at once, and people have used it as children use a large mirror: unable to carry the whole, they break it in pieces, all of them going away with a fraction: one calls out, “I have the glass;” a second says, “I have the glass;” and a third says, “No, but I have the glass.” The fact is, the glass consisted of all these parts. But let us now (though no one has a large portion) reunite all these, that we may possess the mirror undefiled and uninjured. And we need not feel any kind of embarrassment with regard to truth. It is not the creed of any party church, or council. It is what all who are Christians profess to receive. It is the gospel itself, and this truth came by Jesus Christ.

Let us glance at four articles. First, There is the truth of performance in distinction from engagement. The promise made to the fathers is everywhere to be met with in the Old Testament. Yet there is a difference between the existence of the promise and its fulfilment. Therefore our Saviour, addressing his disciples, comparing their state not with the heathen but with the Jews, says, “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; but blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.”

Secondly, There is the truth of reality in distinction from prefiguration. This truth came by Jesus Christ. The Jews were children; God treated them as infants are treated who have pictures placed over their lessons in order to allure, to impress, and to explain. Their senses were addressed as well as their understanding. The Jews had various types and ceremonies, which the Apostle called “a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things,” not the reality. A shadow depends upon the body, derives its form from the body, but it has no power in itself, and is an obscure and imperfect representation of the substance. This was precisely the case with the law, its carnal ordinances and observances had no efficiency to save or to sanctify; the value of the services were derived entirely from their relation to the Messiah, but for whom they would never have been established, but for whom they would have had no use, therefore in themselves would have been unprofitable, and vain, and absurd. But by the aid of these, however, the Spiritual among the Jews were enabled to hold communion with God, though in what degree it is impossible to decide. As to ourselves, they are full of pleasing and interesting instruction.

Having the clue we can explain them; having the reference we can perceive the resemblance. We are in possession of the truth of all these, the truth of the paschal Lamb; “it is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world;” the truth of the manna is the true bread which came down from heaven; the truth of the rock that followed the Jews in the wilderness, for that rock was Christ;” the truth of the altar and mercy-seat of the Tabernacle and of the Temple, for “Christ is all and in all.”

Thirdly, There is the truth of certainty in distinction from error and falsehood. This came by Jesus Christ. What was heathenism? an assemblage of falsehoods-false gods, false temples, false sacrifices, false hopes, and false fears. A great deal of them was indeed originally derived from revelation, but it was obscured so that the Apostle tells us it was “turning the truth of God into a lie.”

Lastly, There is the truth of importance in distinction from all other truths. This truth came by Jesus Christ. If many things were as true as they are perfectly false they would be unworthy our principal earnestness, for what good have they done, or can they do, compared with “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ?” This is truth;-truth emphatically, as our Saviour says, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”