by Dan Daase, Clearwater New Life Assembly
Jesus, the night before he was crucified, stood before Pilate. It was there that Pilate asked the question that is still being asked by many, even today: “What is truth?”
We ask our children, after we see crumbs all around the cookie jar, did you take a cookie? Tell the truth now!
In a court of law a person standing before the judge is asked: “do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
We find it difficult to have a good relationship with someone who is a habitual liar, because we like people to be truthful with us.
Every religion in the world claims to have truth, or even more, to be the truth. So … what is truth?
Jesus, in a conversation with a city leader who was also looking for truth said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
I can already hear someone saying, here we go again, another religion, or religious leader, claiming to be the truth. What makes you think Jesus, and Christianity, is the truth?
Good question! I am glad you asked it.
Jesus made a lot of big claims, when he was here on earth. Claims like the one above, of being the way, the truth, and the life. He claimed to have authority over Satan, and authority over sicknesses and diseases. Though he proved these claims by casting out demons, and healing people who were sick, and even raised people from the dead. Another even greater claim, one that the religious leader of that time found blasphemous, was Jesus claiming to be the Son of God.
I could go into a long theological treatise here about how Jesus claims were true, because they were proven through prophecy in the Old Testament, and proven through the actions of Jesus Himself while here on earth, etc. But the greatest “proof” of Jesus’ claims was simply this: he was crucified, died and laid into a tomb. Three days later he rose from the dead. This was witnessed by many people (at least 500) and not all at once, where it could have been claimed to be “mass hysteria.” The fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead forever validated all of Jesus’ claims, that He indeed is the way, the truth and the life, and that He is the Son of God.
Author C S Lewis (author of Narnia, among other books) wrote this: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” – Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis.
The truth of the risen Christ is validation of all of His claims, including to be The Truth. Why not stop, in your search for truth, and come to Jesus and the Truth found in Him. To search anywhere else is fruitless and will only lead you further from the truth. Come to Jesus, The Way, The Truth and the Life.
