We live in a world where truth has become a rare commodity. Sadly, in many situations, we no longer even expect to find the truth.
However, Jesus was an uncompromising speaker of truth. He is truth personified (Jn. 14:6). He knows the value of truth to the human soul and spirit (Jn. 8:32). He stood for the truth of His Father, without exception. When Pontius Pilate, a coldly practical Roman governor, was examining Jesus before the crucifixion, he cynically asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus had just finished describing His purpose and the reason for His coming, to Pilate:
"...To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice." Jn. 18:37
The word used here for the expression "bear witness", is the Greek word martyreo, from which we get the word "martyr", meaning those who will declare the truth even unto their own death.
Pilate, though he was a worldly man, knew he was hearing the truth from Jesus, because he went out to the crowd and said to them, "I find in Him no fault at all." (Jn. 18:38). Ultimately, even knowing this, Pilate still delivered The Truth to the mob to be crucified (Jn. 19:16).
Jesus, as Truth, died, and was raised again. Shouldn't we, the Church, also bear this same legacy of truth? Sadly, this is not always the case. In fact, the early Church was structured, in part, on the rejection of truth. Early in Church history, doctrines were established, still existing to this day, that purposefully denied truth. Both the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D., and the Council of Laodicea in 364 A.D., denied the Jewish Sabbath, and the observances of Jewish Feasts ordained by God, which were a prophetic picture of the Messiah, Jesus. They referred to these things and more, as "Jewish superstitions". Their goal was to separate the Christian faith from any connection to its Jewish origins and foundational truths found in the Word of God. The Church summarily discarded the truth that Jesus was the Passover Lamb of God, Who came to take away the sins of the world (Jn. 1:29, 36), and the First Fruit of the resurrection of the dead (Rev. 1:5).
The Apostle Paul would have disagreed with those early Church decisions. He compared those of the Christian faith to wild branches that had been grafted into the olive tree, which is the Jewish faith (Rom. 11:17, 24). Those branches, by established Church doctrine, later decided to separate themselves from the very root that sustained them. How could those branches now thrive and live, having been separated from their root? Certainly not in truth.
Scripture describes the calling of believers as being one of "kings and priests" and a "royal priesthood" (Rev. 1:6, 5:10, 1 Pet. 2:9), called out of darkness and into His marvelous light. What is that light? It is the light of truth:
"O send out Thy light and Thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles." Ps. 43:3
"But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light..." Jn. 3:21
The prophet Hosea warned that the priesthood, to which we also have been called, can be lost to us, and rejected by God. The priesthood is rejected because truth, and the knowledge of God, is rejected (Hos. 4:1, 6, 9):
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, and thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children." Hos. 4:6
In the same manner, as His kings, we are called to walk in God's kabode glory. We do this by searching the Word of His truth (Prov. 25:1). We are to search the Word so diligently, that we discover even the hidden things in the Word. If it seems shocking to read that we are to share the glory of God, scripture very much connects truth and the glory where we are concerned (Jer. 4:2, Jn. 1:14, Jn. 17:17-22).
In addition, scripture teaches that kings are preserved (guarded, protected, watched over, kept, maintained) by their association with truth (Prov. 20:28). This is the Word of God regarding kings.
As Jesus powerfully described His purpose to bear witness to the truth, it was in answer to Pilate's question, "Art Thou a king then?" (Jn. 18:37).
Like priests, kings are not to separate themselves from truth.
As the Church continues to reject the knowledge of the truth of its Jewish foundations and roots, as well as other truths of the Word of God, will God in turn reject the Church as kings and priests in His kingdom?
The Church needs to begin asking, "What is truth?", and to begin to search it out in the Word.
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