The Truth in Jesus

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 30, 1902

The Truth in Jesus

MUCH is said in these days about loving the truth, and seeking after the truth, and teaching the truth. This is well. There is certainly nothing more important; for we are chosen “to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” But much of that which is approved by worldly wisdom as wonderful truth is mere human speculation, the product of that research and that reasoning which leave God and his Word out of the account altogether. This is truth falsely so-called, and it is utterly lacking in the power necessary to change character. That truth which saves is the truth which is a personality, revealed in Jesus, who said, “I am . . . the truth,” and is taught to us by the Holy Spirit, promised to guide us “into all the truth.” The truth which comes to us in this way leads to an utter renunciation of the world and self, and a new life in the power of the God of truth. This will wholly separate us from those “who hinder the truth in unrighteousness,” and who consequently “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature [created things] rather than the Creator.” There is no power in a lie to save one from sin. On the contrary, belief in a lie opens the way for the very excesses of sin. The test of truth is that it saves from sin. “Ye shall know the truth,” said Jesus, “and the truth shall make you free.” This is the truth as it is in Jesus, and the power of this truth revealed in the life marks the difference between heathenism, which is a lie in concrete form, and genuine Christianity, the incarnation of the truth. This difference is clearly set forth in the following scripture: “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye no longer walk as the Gentiles [nations, heathen] also walk, in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart; who being past feeling gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye did not so learn Christ; if so be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” To know the truth as it is in Jesus means a complete change of life, the putting away of the old man and the putting on of the new man. This is the truth which is to be given to the world in this closing message by teaching the pure word of God, the unchangeable law of God, and the unchanged commandments of God. For “thy word is truth,” and “thy law is the truth,” and “all thy commandments are truth.” This message is a message of the truth as it is in Jesus. “O send out thy light and thy truth.”