Tag Archives: Absolute Truth

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

06 Monday May 2024

Posted by in Studies, Whole Armor of God

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“Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth…”

“Pilate said to Him, ‘what is truth?’”

What is truth?  We can go to dictionaries and find truth’s definition.  The world will tell us truth is art or something of the like.  We will hear others speak of “your truth” and “my truth” which makes truth subjective.  But then, if it is based on feelings, opinions, or emotions which are variable from day to day and even moment to moment, it cannot possibly be truth.  There has to be an absolute.  We may have different experiences of this absolute therefore our understanding and perspective may differ but there must be that thing that is unchangeable underpinning it all: truth.

Hello Readers and welcome back to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I return to my study on the Whole Armor of God as described in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians with my specific focus on girding our waists with truth and/or the belt of truth.  And, what is this truth with which we gird our waists?  Standing before Pontius Pilate, Jesus says, “For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  Pilate then asks, “What is truth?”  The band Acapella answers this question in their song Standing Right in Front of You: “Pilate asks, ‘what is truth?’ Truth was standing right in front of Him.”  Jesus Himself is the truth: the absolute that underpins as well as fills and defines all that is.

What I have just written is the absolute truth.  But then, there are many Jesuses taught, just as Jesus Himself warned (See Matthew 24:24).  It seems every denomination has their own version of Jesus so how can we know the One we follow and worship is indeed truth?  How can we know for certain there even is a real live Jesus Christ and we haven’t merely chosen to follow a truth we have created for ourselves in attempt to make sense of all the chaos?  The passage from 1 John 2:27 (which I’ve quoted in previous posts) resonates the answer in my heart: “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”  We know Jesus Christ who is truth by the Holy Spirit.

In my post Knowledge, Superimposed I shared Bible Hub’s definition of gnosis (knowing).  The definition includes the words “Gnosis (applied-knowledge) is only as accurate (reliable) as the relationship it derives from.”  That has stuck with me: knowledge, in this case of the Truth that is Jesus Christ, is only as accurate and reliable as the relationship it derives from.

As I meditated on this, I had to concede there is some validity to the idea of the subjective “your truth” verses “my truth”.  The Sophist philosopher Protagoras would have said personal experience defines truth.  The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology cites Protagoras’ dictum of “man is the measure of all things” and relates his illustration of a wind seeming warm to one person and cool to another.  “It is not necessary to say that one view is true and the other false.  Each may be true for the person concerned” (Vol 3, pg. 876) which is a statement with which I can wholeheartedly agree.  Just because someone else’s experience differs from mine does not make me right and them wrong.

Plato disagreed with Protagoras on the nature of truth and asserted that truth could not be relative to the individual thinker.  He came down on the side of the philosopher Parmenides in his belief that what has the ability to change cannot be the truth.  There is the way of truth and the way of seeming or appearance.  Change belongs to the material realm-that of mere appearance-and there can be no change in what really exists.  Therefore, truth stands in contrast to appearance and to change.  This is a Biblical concept: “I am the Lord,” our God says in Malachi 3:6, “I change not.”

The Greeks loved a good debate.  I don’t think I would be a good debater because I don’t come down on either side of this argument.  I believe both are true and that any seeming dichotomy is reconciled within relationship.  There is an absolute truth: Jesus Himself.  I, along with every other individual, only understand and express the truth which He is in proportion to the extent, depth, and richness of my/our relationship with Him.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology describes the place truth held in the Qumran community.  “Entrance into the Qumran community is a conversion to truth and the initiates bind themselves to the precepts of truth by oath.  They are now within the sphere of influence of the spirit of truth…’This is the crucial point, for it is in proportion as a man is dominated by this spirit that he loves truth’” (Vol 3, pg. 882).

I considered whether or not to share the above quote because I don’t wish to infer I am in agreement with ones “entrance” into any community.  I don’t agree with the idea that any community or denomination or tradition understands truth better than another.  And, perhaps “dominated” is a bit harsh.  “Relationship” is a better word.  It is in proportion as a man or woman has been taught of the Holy Spirit, submitted to His guidance, and entered into relationship with Jesus Christ in and by this same Spirit that he or she loves truth.  This is the inheritance of every individual believer and does not belong to any one community or denomination.

I was fascinated to learn that the argument being hashed over in my day-that of truth being relative to the individual-is one that has been hashed over for over 2,000 years now.  My Mom quoted Ecclesiastes 1:9 when I was telling her this and I agree: “…there is nothing new under the sun.”  The world has nothing new.  All of its ways are reiterations of what has come before.  We only experience new when we realize we are new creations in Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Truth.  And, while our knowing Him does grow, it doesn’t change how much of Him, and In Him the Father, we possess.  We are filled with the fullness of God.  He does not parcel Himself out to us a bit at a time.  We do not earn more of Him by long prayer times and lengthy scripture readings.  It is our understanding, experience, and knowledge of Him that grows but His fullness is present to us each moment. 

The Truth with which we gird our waists is whole and complete.  I hope to look at this in more depth in the upcoming weeks but this the reality I will cling to in the upcoming days.  Everything Jesus is and has is mine because of His Spirit dwelling within me.  The same is true for each one of you. 

May the Spirit of Truth open our eyes for us all to see this is so! 

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Strong’s Greek: 1108. γνῶσις (gnósis) — a knowing, knowledge (biblehub.com)

ARGUABLY GREAT BEGUN IN ANCIENT GREECE, THE RICH TRADITION OF DEBATE THRIVES IN TODAY’S SCHOOLS AND THE REALM OF POLITICS – The Morning Call (mcall.com)

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 3, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1978, 1986, Pages 876, 882

The Nature of Light

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Studies

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I’m not sure how I took this-my hands might have been shaking-but I thought it was cool.

I am continuing in my study of Isaiah 45:7, specifically the study of light.  The Hebrew word for light in my passage is owr (H216) and has a fairly basic definition: illumination, luminary (in every sense including lightening, happiness, etc.), bright, clear, day + light (ening), morning, sun.  The Hebrew word translated light in my passage is the same word translated light in Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light’”.  I was curious to see if I could learn anything from this but, as I went through other scriptures where owr is used, I wasn’t getting any light on the matter (ha ha).

In the Genesis Account, plants are created before the sun, moon, and stars.  The Word of God declares, “…let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night: and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth” (Genesis 1:14-15).  The light of Genesis 1:3 cannot be sunlight and I was curious what my science books had to say on the subject.

In John Wiester’s book The Genesis Connection, he writes, “The Universe began at a sharply defined instant in time in a fiery explosion of intense brilliance.  In the beginning, pure energy was transforming itself into matter.  One of the greatest contributions of nineteenth-century physics was the statement of the law of conservation of energy.  In essence this law says that energy can change form, but it is never destroyed.  Thus in the Big Bang, pure energy would alter itself into forms of matter about which we can only theorize.  The first particles to emerge were photons (particles of light) and neutrinos (subatomic particles that travel through solid bodies at the speed of light).  These were almost instantaneously followed by electrons, positrons, protons, and neutrons.  Initial temperatures were beyond comprehension, such as one hundred thousand million degrees.  The Universe was filled with light.” 

I found a similar quote in Mind Maps: Physics by Dr. Ben Still: “It is thought our universe started with a Big Bang.  Before this event, there was nothing, including no space for things to move in, or time to grow old by.  At some point, some quantum fluctuation triggered energy, space, and time to be unleashed.  In the first moments, the universe expanded outward into the nothing faster than the speed of light, a tiny period of time known as inflation.  Space and time unfurled like a carpet as the universe doubled in size many times over until it reached about the size of a golf ball.  This young universe, much less than one second old, was very hot, as huge amounts of energy were confined to a very small space.  In the moments that followed, energy was converted into different forms, including the mass of many fundamental particles.  Strong interactions almost immediately bound quarks into baryons and mesons, while electrons and other leptons stood by as spectators.  At just minutes old, the universe was a plasma of electrically charged particles, each sharing energy through the exchange of light.”

Both of these quotes paint fascinating mental pictures for me.  That beginning must have been glorious and beautiful beyond explanation.  I am awed at the thought but don’t feel I am gaining any insight into what light actually is.  I continued to peruse both books and in Dr. Ben Still’s book, found a section titled “The Strange Behavior of Light.”  In Mr. Wiester’s book, I found: “Light is the key to all life in this world.  It is the form of energy that is necessary for all life on Earth.  It is an imperfectly understood gift that behaves as both a wave and a particle to provide the energy upon which all life ultimately depends.”

In reading both books, I got the sense that scientists don’t fully understand light and my attention was captured by Mr. Wiester’s words, “imperfectly understood.”  I was reminded of 1 John 1:5 which says, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”  Like the created light that, while studied and knowledge is growing all the time remains imperfectly understood, so does the God who is light remain imperfectly understood.  Or, He would if He had not chosen to reveal Himself to us.  All through the Old Testament we have God revealing Himself but this revelation is piecemeal.  No one person had a complete picture.  There are promises like this one in Isaiah: “The Sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you; But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory” (60:19).  And then, in the fullness if time, every promise was fulfilled.

The Word became flesh and, in Jesus, we see the final, full, and complete revelation of God.  John’s Gospel says,”No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).  Light can now be perfectly understood. 

My study has only touched on the darkness mentioned in Isaiah 45:7 as I have looked up scriptures and seen darkness and light mentioned together.  I have not looked at all at the word “evil” in the passage and I am interested to see where the study goes as I look at the words that carry a negative connotation.  What I can say for certain at this point is that I have often quoted scriptures like, “…that in all things He might have preeminence” (Colossians 1:18) and “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9) without fully understanding what they mean.  As I study, I am convinced that Jesus is everything.

Jesus Christ is Lord.  Jesus Christ is my Salvation, my Peace, my Rest, my Inheritance, my Promised Land, my Health, my Mind, my Source, my Very Life.  In Jesus is Life.  That life was, is now, and always shall be the light of all mankind.  In Him all the promises of God are Yes!  This day we declare; “Arise!  Shine!  For our light has come!  And the glory of the Lord is risen upon us!” (Isaiah 60:1).

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Still, Dr. Ben, Mind Maps Physics: How to Navigate the World of Science, 1st Edition, Unipress Books Limited, 2020

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Wiester, John, The Genesis Connection, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1983