The Sanctity of Truth

John 8:31-32
Richard Spencer | Sunday, July 19, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Richard Spencer

The title of my sermon this morning is The Sanctity of Truth, which means that truth is sacred and inviolable. It is of first importance and although it can be denied, it cannot be changed. In Psalm 51 Verse 9 David tells us that God desires truth in the inner parts.

We are living at a time when truth, if it is acknowledged at all, is not considered very important. The major news outlets talk more about how people feel than about what they think. There isn’t even any pretense of presenting a balanced view of the facts anymore, every story and every detail is chosen to support a particular narrative and information that doesn’t fit the narrative is simply ignored. People know what they believe is true and they consider it offensive if someone even attempts to present evidence to the contrary. The twitter mob has become the thought police and the loss of your job a common punishment of this new fascism.

Our universities, which pretend to be citadels of reason and tolerance, routinely silence any voice that challenges the current manifesto of the politically-correct purveyors of the elitist ideology. Rather than teaching our young people to listen to both sides of an argument, logically evaluate the evidence and make rational decisions about what is true, they have hate speech codes and limit free speech to certain “free speech zones” so as to keep the rest of the campus free from troubling dissension to their elitist ideology. Instead of teaching students to examine their own presuppositions and to consider how they color all of their thinking, they assure them that the current materialist worldview is unassailable. This material universe is all that exists, when you die you simply cease to exist, and the purpose of life is confined to whatever man considers to be important.

Science is no longer a search for truth, but a search for the best possible natural explanation for everything in the physical world, in other words, a search for the best possible story that fits within the given elitist, materialist narrative. Even history is not thought of as a fixed set of events that truly happened but an infinitely malleable set of impressions and feelings about the past that has to be manipulated to support this unimpeachable narrative. Any evidence that fails to support it is either dismissed as not reliable, re-interpreted without warrant, or ignored altogether. Even our gender has now been ruled by the Supreme Court of this country to have nothing at all to do with our biological sex.[1]

Organizations and movements perversely give themselves names that are the exact opposite of what is true. And so an openly fascist organization calls itself antifa, for anti-fascist. An organization created and maintained almost entirely for the purpose of preventing people from becoming parents by murdering unborn children calls itself planned parenthood. Procedures whose sole purpose is the destruction of life, male and female, go under the rubric of women’s health or reproductive rights. Movements that claim to be anti-racist make no pretense that anything other than race affects how they judge every event and individual. People have lost their jobs for having the audacity to say that all lives matter. The list goes on and on.

But, friends, I’m here to tell you that truth matters. In fact, there is nothing more important than truth. Truth does not change. Truth is not subject to your feelings. Truth is not determined by a public-opinion poll or the pronouncements of professors, scientists or politicians. Truth is eternal and your relationship to the truth determines your eternal destiny. God is truth.

And the truth is that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1)

The truth is that Adam sinned and therefore, “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned”. (Rom 5:12)

The truth is that “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.” (Rom 1:18-19)

The truth is that people “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.” (Rom 1:25)

The truth is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23)

The truth is that “‘The virgin [was] with child and [gave] birth to a son, and they [called] him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’” (Matt 1:23)

The truth is “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time” (1 Cor 15:4-6)

The truth is that “because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Eph 2:4-5)

The truth is that “Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” (Rom 8:34)

The truth is that “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thess 4:16-17)

The truth is that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” (2 Peter 3:10)

The truth is that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, the Holy City of God. And Jesus himself has told us that “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Rev 21:1-2, 22:14-15)

The truth is that the wicked “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matt 25:46)

Oh, brothers and sisters, truth matters eternally! May none of you be found to be one who practices falsehood and is outside on that day. Truth matters because God is truth as we are told in Psalm 31:5 and Isaiah 65:16. And in John 7:28 we read that Jesus Christ said “he who sent me is true.” Christ also said that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” in John 14:6. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth in John 14:17 and elsewhere. In Daniel 10:21 the Bible as it then existed is called the Book of Truth. In Zechariah 8:3 Jerusalem is called the “City of Truth.” And in 1 Timothy 3:15 the church is called the “pillar and foundation of the truth.” And, because God is Spirit and God is Truth, Jesus told us in John 4:24 that “his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Truth matters. We are to glorify God in everything that we do and that means that we must be truthful in everything that we think, say and do.

There are three different senses in which the word truth is used in the Bible. The first use is the metaphysical use, which refers to the nature of being. For example, we read in Jeremiah 10:10 that “the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King.” Jesus uses the same expression, the “true God” in John 17:3 where he said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

God is the “true” God in all three senses of the term, but here it is primarily referring to the metaphysical sense. God is the authentic or genuine God as opposed to all false notions of god. In Isaiah 41:22-23, God mocks the idols of the people saying, “Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods.” God himself is telling us here that the only real God knows all things. He can tell us about the former things and he can tell us about the future. He is the only true God.

Secondly, the word truth also gets used in a logical or epistemological sense, where it is a property of a statement. In other words, a statement can be true – meaning that it corresponds to reality – or it can be false. We are told in Numbers 23:19 that “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” And we read in Hebrews 6:18 that “it is impossible for God to lie”. So, God is true in this second sense as well. Everything he tells us in his Word is true, which is why the Bible is called the Book of Truth as I mentioned earlier.

Finally, the word truth also gets used in an ethical sense. In this sense, to be true is to be morally upright. To say and do what is right in God’s sight. And we read in Deuteronomy 32:4 that God, “is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”

Friends, God is truth. And if we are his children, we must also be true. The Scripture for my sermon this morning is John 8:31-32, which reads, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” In the original Greek the root word true actually shows up three times in what Jesus said, the ESV renders it more literally, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And we must all ask ourselves, am I truly Jesus’ disciple? Do I know the truth?

I have three points to make this morning. The first point is “True Faith”, the second is “True Knowledge” and the third is “True Salvation”. I will then close with some applications. So, let’s first take a look at true faith.

I.        True Faith

You can’t know if a man’s faith is true based solely on what he says, you must look at how he lives his life. Notice that John 8:31 tells us that Jesus was speaking to “the Jews who had believed him”. He was not speaking to those who openly rejected him, but to people who professed faith in him. And he is speaking to us today also, all of us who are gathered in his name.

And notice what he said. He said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples”. In other words, it isn’t what you profess or how you begin that matters most, you must finish the race. You must abide in Christ’s word, or hold to his teaching as the NIV puts it. You must walk in obedience and remain in Christ to the end. If you don’t, you don’t have true faith, you are not truly Christ’s disciple.

We read in John 15:4 that Jesus told his disciples, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” And then in Verses 6 he said, “If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” And then, in Verse 10 he said, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

Let me tell you that true faith is a penitent faith. We see our own unworthiness and we turn from ourselves to Christ. True faith is also an obedient faith. It is a faith that produces good works. As James wrote in James 2:17, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” But no man can produce good works without being born again first. In John 15:5 Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Apart from Christ we can do nothing good. Nothing that is consistent with truth. Nothing that will please God. So, the first step to having true faith is to be born again. As Christ told Nicodemus in John 3:3 and 5, no one can see or enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

And, just as God himself is truth in all three senses of the term, so must we be if we are truly his disciples. We must be true in the metaphysical sense. In other words, our being must be true; that is the “truth in the inner parts” about which David spoke. God hates hypocrisy as we read this morning (in Matthew 23). And, if our being is true, our actions will follow. We will walk in the truth as given to us in the Word of truth.

The apostle Paul told the church in Thessalonica, as we read in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, that “we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”

For our faith to be a true faith, we must believe in the truth. We cannot believe in lies. In other words, we must have true knowledge, which brings us to my second point.

II.      True Knowledge

True knowledge is not based on how you feel, it is based on what actually exists and what has actually happened. Let me give you one obvious example. Do you know that you are going to die some day? Of course you do. We all know that as well as we know anything in this world. But do you feel like you are going to die? Of course not, no one normally does. Truth is not determined by feelings.

True knowledge must be based on the Word of God, the Word of Truth, understood by the aid of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth. God created all things and God sustains and directs all things; he is truth in the ultimate sense.

In order to have true knowledge, we must have three things: first, a right worldview, in other words a right heart; second, a right methodology, which is to be under authority; and third, we must be under the right authority, which must be the Word of God. Only then can we truly know the truth that will set us free.

We are all born enemies of God. People naturally suppress the truth and need to be born again in order to know the truth because it must be spiritually discerned. We need a new heart as God promised his people in Ezekiel 36:26, where he said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And then we need to obey God’s Word, we need to hold to Jesus’ teaching as our verse says, so praise God that in the next verse, Ezekiel 26:27, God says, “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

We are told in 1 Corinthians 2:14 that “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” And so, the first step to true knowledge is the same as the first step to true faith, it is to be born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Men can diligently and carefully look forever with all the collective brilliance the human race can muster, and they will never arrive at truth if they deny the existence of the living and true God. You cannot deny the truth, and then expect to find truth.

And so, brothers and sisters in Christ, we must hold to Jesus’ teaching and know the truth in order to experience true salvation, which is my third point.

III.     True Salvation

What is true salvation? Jesus tells us in our verses: it is freedom! Freedom from sin. Full and complete freedom. Freedom from the guilt of sin, freedom from the power of sin and, ultimately, freedom from the presence of sin.

Listen to what God the Father says to the Son in Isaiah 42:6-7, “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Friends, we were in prison, held captive by sin, and we sat in darkness unable to see or enjoy the light. God sets us free in Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! And Jesus himself told us in John 8:36 that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And Paul tells us in Romans 6:22 that now that we “have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit [we] reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” And he wrote in Romans 8:1-2 that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

We are free from the control of sin and the condemnation due us because of our sin. In Galatians 5:1 Paul tells us that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” We must live holy lives. We must live according to the truth and not return to the kingdom of darkness, ruled by the father of lies. Paul also tells us in Galatians 5:13, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”

This is a glorious freedom! It is not the specious freedom of antinomianism. In Colossians 1:21-22 Paul wrote that “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation”. Hallelujah!

We are free from accusation because our sins have been covered. But in order to be truly saved, we must have a true faith – that is an obedient faith – founded on true knowledge, knowledge from the Word of God. Paul goes on to say in the very next verse, Colossians 1:23, that we are free from accusation “if [we] continue in [our] faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.”

We also read in Hebrews 9:15 that “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” And in 1 Peter 2:16 we are commanded to “Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.”

Oh, praise God! A true salvation frees us from sin and we no longer live as slaves to sin. We love truth. We speak truth. We live our lives according to the truth found in God’s Word.

Let me tell you, sin is the defining problem of man and, indeed, the defining problem of creation. And how did sin start? With rebellion by Satan and his demons. Satan turned away from God, away from the truth, and then led other angels in his wickedness. And he didn’t stop there, he then led Eve into sin with his lie. God had told Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. But, in Genesis 3:4-5 we read that Satan told Eve, “You will not surely die, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

John Murray points out that Satan did not primarily attack God’s knowledge or power, he didn’t say that God didn’t know what would happen or that he couldn’t carry out his threat, no, he attacked God’s truthfulness.[2] He accused God of jealously wanting to guard his privileged knowledge of good and evil. This is why Jesus said, in John 8:44, that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Christ calls him a murderer because his lie led to death itself. Death for Adam and Eve and all of their natural descendants. Think about that the next time you are tempted to lie! The fall was not the result of Cain killing Abel. It was not the result murder, rape, adultery, robbery or any of the things we may think of as the greatest of sins. It was the result of a lie, a denial of the God of truth. Eve believed the lie and rebelled against God.

The ultimate importance of truth is revealed in the final act of the universe. Everyone will either go to heaven or to hell. And God, who is truth, is in heaven. If we want to be with him, we must hold the truth dear to our hearts. We must seek to think it, speak it and live it. All who do not do that will go to eternal hell. We are told in Revelation 21:8 that “the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” All liars will go to be with the father of lies. We read in Romans 2:8 that for “those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

And so we see that because God is truth, his children will be true. Therefore, let’s now examine some practical applications of this principle.

IV.     Application

Jesus said in our verses that if we hold to his teaching, we will know the truth, and it will set us free. In other words, our knowledge of the truth must be experiential, not theoretical, true knowledge depends on obeying Jesus’ teaching. Satan, his demons and wicked people in some sense all know the truth, but they will not submit to God and live the truth, they will not obey.

I have five points of application based on what I have presented.

• As I’ve already stated, you must be born again. Cry out to God and make your calling and election sure. It is the one thing needful.
• You must have true knowledge, founded on the Word of God and guided by his Spirit. Pray for the Spirit to guide you and study the Word of God daily or you cannot know the truth.

The final three points of application are based on the fact that God is true in all three senses of the term, so as his children we must be also. Therefore, the third point of application is that …

• You must be true in your being. You must be a true husband or wife, a true father or mother, a true son or daughter, a true employer or employee, a true friend, a true brother or sister in Christ, a true member of God’s church. And all of these require that you pray for the Spirit, study and obey the Word of God, and hate hypocrisy of all kinds. God defines what a true husband or wife looks like, not our society and not our feelings. You can’t reject God’s Word and be a true man or woman.
• You must be true in your speech, which requires that you be true in your being and thinking. Out of the heart the mouth speaks.And note that truth is not just the opposite of lies. Truth is the opposite of falsehood. Therefore, even when our saying something untrue isn’t deliberate it is still wrong. John Murray points out that “we think very superficially and naively if we suppose that no wrong is entailed in purveying misrepresentation of fact”.[3]Therefore, we have an obligation to guard the truth very carefully. We need to seek truth, not validation of our own ideas and beliefs. We all have a tendency to readily agree with information or arguments that agree with our position on an issue and to readily dismiss information or arguments that disagree with us. But we should be very careful! We should pay attention to rational arguments made against our positions – maybe we are wrong! And we shouldn’t be too quick to accept arguments and information that agree with us, they may be wrong!

  And we need to be humble in seeking the truth. Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.” And Proverbs 18:17 says, “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” We should avoid jumping to hasty conclusions. And everything should be tested by the Word of God, which must be our ultimate standard for truth.

  So, we must seek truth and we must think truth. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 the apostle Paul wrote that “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” And we are told in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Our minds used to dwell in darkness, suppressing the truth. They need to be renewed in order for our lives to be fully transformed.

  And when Paul says that we will then be able to “test and approve what God’s will is”, he certainly doesn’t mean that we are to stand in judgment over God’s will, he means that we will know how to discern God’s will and that we then accept it as good and do it! And where do we find God’s will? In his Word, the Word of Truth.

  We must study God’s Word carefully to be sure that we understand it. We don’t want to be like the ignorant and unstable people written about in 2 Peter 3:16, who distort the Scriptures to their own destruction. Rather, we want to properly divide the Word of truth and store it in our heart that we might not sin against God.

• We must also be true in the ethical, or moral, sense of the word. In 1 John 2:4 we are told that “The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”In his high priestly prayer Jesus asked the Father, in John17:17, to “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Friends, we need to continually be being transformed by the Word of God to be true disciples of Christ. We must hold to Jesus’ teaching to the very end.Just knowing the Word of God does not make you a true disciple. As I said, Satan knows God’s Word. We must put it into practice. Paul wrote in Titus 1:1 that the knowledge of the truth leads to godliness, but this assumes that you put that knowledge into practice. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24 that “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

Friends, God is true, and his Word is true. He will complete the work he has begun in us. If we are his true disciples, we will demonstrate that we know the truth by living it, and that truth will set us free.

[1] See The Abolition of Man and Woman (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-abolition-of-man-and-woman-11593017500?mod=opinion_lead_pos7)

[2] J. Murray, The Principles of Conduct, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957, pg. 126

[3] Murray, op. cit., pg. 133