Truth – John 8:32

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

The central and most important claim of the Christian Scriptures is that they are true. Not man’s ever-changing, continually nuanced versions of truth. God’s truth. Revealed truth. Eternal as the God who is the ultimate standard of truth. Truth anchored in the person and nature of the one who made the heavens and the earth, who created all things visible and invisible. Truth above and beyond any other claim of truth possible.

There are three words in the Greek language that can help us understand Jesus’ words better. Alethes, alethinos,  and alethic.
* Alethes is usually translated “unconcealed, manifest, actual,” or “true to fact.” For example, we can look to the sun in the sky and say that it is daytime. This is a truth, or true statement derived from a visible fact.
* Alethinos describes a thing that Is true in the sense of real, ideal, or genuine. This chapel is a genuine Lutheran Church built in the 1950’s (1920’s). It has never been a grocery store or any other kind of church. This is truth of utility, origination, or identity.
* Alethia is the word used most in John’s gospel. It signifies the objective reality found at the foundation of an external appearance. While visible, it also flows from the innermost essence of what is seen. It is a deeper kind of truth, one that is inseparable from its innermost reality. It is used three times our verse today. Once as an adverb and twice as a noun.

The three types of truth can be represented in a somewhat humorous event in my younger days. While backpacking in a mountainous, wilderness area in New Mexico, I had to get my water from natural sources along the way. The cold, clear streams were enticing. Yet, to avoid dangerous parasites and bacteria, it was important to treat all water before drinking. With virtually empty canteens, I arrived at a lovely stream. It was clear, cool, deep, and inviting. After drinking what little water remained in my canteen, I filled both and added iodine tablets. In about 20 minutes, I could take a drink. I continued my walk. About a mile upstream I arrived in a big, full cow pasture. That stream I filled my canteens in looked great to drink, but it wasn’t. Its outer appearance was not true to its essential quality. The treated water would be safe to drink, but I decided to go on to the next water source and refill. Just seemed a better option that day.

The stream was alethes. You could look at it, see was clear, touch and find it cold. By all appearances, it was a fresh, safe, mountain stream. John does not use this word in our verse. The stream was also alethinos. It was not a ditch or waterway dug by people. It had always been a mountain stream and still was. This is not the word in our verse today either.

There were other springs in the mountains that were regularly tested and safe to drink without treating the water first. They  were clear and cold like the cow stream. But their appearance was true to their inmost, essential reality. They not only looked good and were cold; they were pure and safe to drink. These were alethia. This is the word Jesus uses to describe his truth, his salvation, and all his faithful disciples. Truly His, knowing His truth, receiving his true life, and being truly set free from sin and death. It is the same word Jesus uses when telling Thomas that “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And this is one of many things Jesus said that would be evil or insane for any mere human to speak. I am the way, the truth, and the life. To say in essence: I am the only way to the Father, the only way to heaven, the only way to be saved from sin, death, judgment, and everlasting punishment. No sane human could say these things. Perhaps someone very evil and mentally damaged might, but no good teacher could. Only the one true God in human flesh could say this and be correct, be holy, and be alethia, truth in essence made manifest in word and deed.

Ultimately, this is the heart of the Lutheran Reformation. It is also the heart of the biblical, apostolic Christian faith. Jesus is truth because he is God. Jesus is truth because all things were created by him and for him. The apostle John began his gospel with this very proclamation of divine, unchanging, absolute truth. John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Yes. The words of Jesus are alethia truth. The life of Jesus is alethia truth made flesh. The life he gives his disciples by the new birth of the Holy Spirit is alhqia life because all that comes to us from Jesus comes to us from the Triune, eternal, life-giving God. The faithful disciple doesn’t simply claim to know the truth. If that’s all we did, we’d be far less despised by much of the world. The Christian faith proclaims that we know the one who IS truth, whose word is God’s word, the life he offers is God’s life, and we dare to confess that by God’s grace we have this word and life in us.

Sinful, spiritually dead people like their truth from other sources. They like religion to be like a cafeteria line. Choose what you want, but it remains your choice. You are the power that determines your truth. Yet Jesus choses us. The bible never calls us the choosers or deciders, but always the chosen. Many people love to create their own truth. After all, since we evolved, who is to say what is right or wrong. We are simply products of our own evolution and life that evolved without God sure doesn’t need any truth from people who imagine one exists. And people who simply love their sins strongly resist anything that threatens to restrict their full expression of sin. For these and other reasons, the world, and religions, even some that claim to honor Jesus are quite happy to openly deny God’s truth, resist God’s offer of life, and ignore, seek to silence, oppress, or even kill the disciple whom Jesus truly makes his own. They hate and distort God’s word because God is always present and working in his word.

The great battle cry of the Lutheran Reformation was, and still embodies a phrase from 1 Peter 1:25 “…the word of the Lord endures forever.” This motto, or the four-letter abbreviation of it with a cross imposed between was placed on Lutheran soldier’s shields and engraved on weapons they used to defend themselves and their faith during the 30 year’s war when religious and governmental powers sought to destroy the fledgling Lutheran church and regain control of their lands. The words were also placed on castle walls, stables, other buildings, and the armor of men and horses. Most of all, they were engraved in the hearts of those who stood firm against biblical error and sought to destroy the full joy of God’s Word and free salvation to all people. The rest of the verse from Peter emphasizes this goal that remains for us today. (1 Peter 1:22-25) “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

This true word, from the one true God, who give truth and life to us by and through Jesus, the eternal Son, is the good news preached to us. It is the good news we share with other. And it remains the central purpose and mission of the faithful Christian faith everywhere. Just as it is the heart of the ongoing work of the Lutheran Reformation.

Our day exhibits a major shift in opposition to the Word of God and its divine, everlasting truth. In earlier centuries, most religions, philosophies, and cultures at least agreed there was an ultimate truth that one could learn. So, most differences were about what was true and what was not, with reasonably intelligent positions on each side, although not equally biblically correct. In our day, we frequently encounter feelings that take the place of facts. Emotions and individual desires determine what one believes. While this has always been a part of human unbelief and resistance to the Bible, it is far more common in Western European and American cultures today than ever before.

Historically, the faithful church affirmed that the act and reality of our salvation came to us from the outside. Extra nosin Latin. The Bible continually teaches this. For instance, the Apostle Peter, in his 1st letter says so in 1:3-5: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Or more simply in Hebrews 12:2, Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, or his own words in Luke 19:10 – For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Examples abound. The main point is that our salvation is the work of Jesus on the cross and by God’s activity alone, all accomplished outside of any human action or decision. Latin = Extra nos. But in the 1800’s, a liberal theologian named Schleiermacher devised a theological system that validated the idea that saving faith was primarily something that happened inside us and was validated by what occurred in a person’s mind and emotions. Intra nos. From his day onward, like a snowball rolling down a hill, more and more believers looked inside to find evidence of their salvation. Emotions became more important, and in many places eclipsed the clear teachings of the Bible. In more recent years, churches across the spectrum of denominations have allowed what they feel is right to change what God says is right or wrong. Abandonment of the Apostle and Nicene Creeds has accompanied a general drift from solid biblical truths to various degree of errors. Music that caters to human emotions and sentiment often cements falsehoods in religious belief.

Jesus will work and save many who have damaged their understanding of the bible, but their souls and lives will be affected by the loss of God’s alethia truth. They think the stream they drink from is clear, cool, and safe. But it is only the appearance of clarity and outward claims to Christian faith that often convince them not to seek a truly pure source of living water. Jesus. His Word. His life given us in faith, through the means of grace, and kept by his divine power. Jesus, the alethia of God’s Word made flesh.

John 8:32 If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Charles Swindoll, a well-known pastor, and author of past years told a story that reminds us of the facts of our extra nos, freely given salvation. A pastor he knew brough an old, dilapidated, and rusty birdcage to his pulpit one Sunday sermon. He held up the cage and said, “You might be wondering why this is here.” He said, “Let me tell you its story. Several days ago, I saw a little boy in tattered and torn blue jeans and a dirty T-shirt cap off to the side, whistling, walking down an alley, swinging this birdcage. Clinging to the bottom of the cage were little field sparrows he had caught. I stopped him and asked, ‘What do you have there?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’ve got some birds.’ ‘What are you gonna do with ’em?’ I asked. ‘Oh, mess around with them, tease ’em, something like that.’ ‘Well,’ I asked, ‘when you get tired of ’em, what are you gonna do?’ He thought a moment and said, ‘Well, I got a couple of cats at home and they like birds. I think I’ll just let them have them.'” The pastor’s heart went out to the little birds so he made the little lad an offer. “How much do you want for the birds?” Surprised, the boy, said, “mister, these birds ain’t no good.” “Well,” Dr. Gordon said, “regardless, how much would you like for ’em?” The little fellow said, “How about two bucks?” He said, “Sold.” So, he reached in his pocket and peeled off two-dollar bills. The little boy shoved the birdcage forward pleased with his stroke of good fortune. When the boy left, the minister walked a good distance away, lifted open the little cage door and said, “Shoo, shoo.” And he shoved them out of the door, and they flew free.

Our salvation. God didn’t have to do it. In his love he does. And he accomplished our spiritual renewal in Christ, outside of us, yet forever given to us by faith. This living gospel, that the angel of Revelation preaches, is the heart of the Reformation Lutheran faith. To God alone be glory forever. Amen.