Knowing the Truth by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1906

Knowing the Truth

By L. A. S.

THE truths of Christianity center about Jesus Christ. They are all related to him, because they all proceed from him. No truth of Christianity is fully grasped, therefore, unless its relation to Christ is perceived. The recipient of truth does not really know the truth until that truth has led him to Christ.

Knowing the truth, therefore, in a Christian sense, is something more than knowing historical facts or believing doctrines. It is being led to Christ, led to accept and to exalt him as the Saviour of the soul. All Christian truth exalts Christ as the Saviour of a lost race, and this is a good test of any doctrine claiming to be of divine origin. We need not be afraid of any doctrine that lifts up Jesus Christ as the world's Redeemer, that leads one to put all trust in him for salvation, and no trust in the arm of flesh. The devil is not warring against himself. He is not foisting upon the world doctrines that undermine his own kingdom and advance the kingdom of Christ. On the other hand, we may well beware of any doctrine or teaching that tends to cast any obscurity over the person of Christ lifted up as the one only and all-sufficient Saviour.

To know that the dead are sleeping unconscious in their graves, instead of existing as conscious spirits in another realm, is to know a fact, but this alone is not knowing the truth. The truth of which this fact is a part, is that which exalts Christ as the only avenue to immortality. So also of other important doctrines. We may know them as facts, as true, without knowing the truth. We may know that the seventh day is the Sabbath, but unless we know the Sabbath-truth in its relation to Christ as Creator and Redeemer, we come short of knowing the truth. We should study every truth to discover its relation to Christ as man's Redeemer, and how through it we may honor him.

The charge has often been brought by opponents of the truth for these times, that those who preach it preach doctrines, but do not preach Christ. When the truths of this message are understood and proclaimed in their relation to Christ, this charge will be effectually refuted.

Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life.” To know the truth is to become acquainted with him. And the only safety from error is to know him. We may know many things which are true, and yet be led into error. Logic will not save us from this fate. A half truth is often the foundation of a whole lie, and the deceptions of Satan are based upon much that is true. Our safety is in receiving the love of the truth, which is not the love of science or of logic or of mere intellectual discovery, but the love of that which exalts Christ and humbles self. The truth which is unto salvation, is known not by the intellect merely, but by experience of the heart. Let us not rest satisfied with a knowledge of facts and of argument, but follow on to know the truth.

L. A. S.