This is not some exhaustive treatise on all that could be said about truth. I’m sure there is much that could (and probably needs to) be expounded upon with each idea expressed. Understand my intention in writing this: we should use all truth to point to the whole truth, the ultimate truth, the authoritative truth.
Truth, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality.” God is the ultimate fact and reality (truth); therefore, all truth is God’s truth. If there be anything true, whether philosophically, theologically, scientifically, historically, or in any other way, it is true because God has made it true: because he owns all truth.
In Acts 17, Paul the Apostle uses the truths the Athenian’s believed to point to the greater truth of God. Quoting some of their own poets and philosophers, Paul says, “For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Paul uses the partial truths they believe to point to ultimate truth.
We, as Christians, need to take the beliefs that people hold, affirm what is true in them, and point those truths to the ultimate truth, which we find in Scripture. This does not mean affirming the sin they have by nature or the lies they believe. Having a part of the truth isn’t enough. If a person believes people are evil, but doesn’t believe Jesus lived perfectly in our place, they don’t have the whole truth. If another person believes Jesus loves everybody and therefore all people are accepted into salvation, but doesn’t believe people are by nature evil and deserving of God’s wrath, they don’t have the whole truth.
We can affirm in these things that yes, people are evil, and yes, Jesus loves everybody, but we need to point people to the whole truth, the big picture. Ultimate and authoritative truth is found in Scripture alone; all truth should be tested by and held accountable to Scripture.
Jonathan Edwards, in The Freedom of the Will, writes, “This great truth, that Jesus is the Son of God, was not spoiled because it was once and again proclaimed with a loud voice by the devil. If truth is so defiled because it is spoken by the mouth, or written by the pen of some ill-minded mischievous man, that it must never be received, we shall never know when we hold any of the most precious and evident truths by a sure tenure.”
The truth is the truth, regardless of who says it. Even demons and the worst of men can know the truth, but knowing isn’t enough. Faith is required. May we who have become new creations by faith through grace always be pointing people to ultimate truth so they too can become new creations. We are not only inviting people to know the truths of Jesus (even Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus, knew him), but to have a saving faith in him. We most certainly need to know the truth, for belief requires knowledge. But knowledge does not require belief. We are not saved by knowing the truth, but by believing it.
(I received help from Adam Smith in editing this post)
