Pentecost 24 What the Spirit of Truth Reveals

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Pentecost 24 What the Spirit of Truth Reveals

Matt.8:22 “Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead,” is one of a number of sayings Jesus gives as He passes along. They are brief and, if not seen in context, appear obscure, left to the reader’s personal interpretation. But they are not just random sayings to be pondered without connection. Jesus is not a guru who relishes ambiguity as a means of getting us to look within as though we are the source of our own personal truth. Jesus doesn’t drop pithy disconnected sayings like seeds as though, by doing so, truth will sprout apart from Him. All of Jesus’ sayings have a context. He is the context, a context of inner perfection. Truth comes from within Jesus. When He speaks it is truth coming from within. One event in Jesus’ life shows this, His Transfiguration. Unlike Moses who received the Ten Commandments from above, Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount from within. Also, the light that appeared about Moses came from above him. The light at Jesus’ Transfiguration came from within and lighted up His garments.

Human imperfection exposes the reality that truth cannot be found within us. The common imperfection we all share, sin, makes us prone to error and self-centered to begin with, which is the major block to experiencing truth. The very fact that we would even consider finding truth within is the height of self-deceit and self-conceit and evidence of our condition apart from a perfect God. If we were to really face reality we would have to say honestly, ‘I am imperfect. I make mistakes. I have to search for answers. I need to deal with my imperfection. I need a truthful person to reveal my condition and its solution. Where do I go and to whom can I turn to find the truth?’ Pontius Pilate asked the critical question of Jesus, “What is truth?” Is truth accessible?

Jesus’ declaration that He is the way, the truth and the life is a claim that calls us to only three possible conclusions. He was either delusional, lying or He is what He claimed. Consider the threefold context of Jesus. First, conceived by the perfect Holy Spirit, being born of a virgin conceived by the Holy Spirit illustrates He was born perfect. Second, His attitude, demeanor, self-confidence and teaching were perfect fitting and fulfilling centuries of prophecy before and about Him. Third, His willingness to embrace death (death is the final judgment of imperfection) and His Resurrection from the dead (proving His perfection) shows that, unlike any other religious leader in history, He was who He claimed to be, God the Son (You may want to revisit Pentecost 20.).

Jesus never pointed to the truth; He was and is the truth. He has to enter the mind and the heart to be accessible. That is where faith comes in. Faith is how we step outside of ourselves and into perfection. Faith is personal. Faith is spiritual. Faith is a choice. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.” Faith is the door to truth. By faith we admit our imperfection and ask the One who is perfection to be at one with our mind and heart. So when Jesus prayed to His Father to sanctify future believers with the truth and that Scripture was truth it meant that He was what Scripture was all about and that He could and would be experienced as Scripture was read. Most importantly Jesus established that the Spirit would do the work of bringing Him into the hearts and minds of believers through the Word.

Having said all of the above we will return in the next column to visit the Scripture that introduced today’s column. So stay tuned…….