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When Yeshua Hanotzri was dragged before Pilate he said to Pilate. "....That I should bear witness to the truth and those who are of the truth shall hear my voice".
Pilate replied with words that have echoed down through the ages, "what is truth"? This question is more pertinent than ever today because there are many who would agree that truth matters, but they cannot agree on what is truth. There is a simple and important explanation of this situation, and that is, we live in what has been described as a post-Christian world, where God is supposedly dead, relativism reigns supreme. The concept of intellectual honesty is unknown to those who would offer a different interpretation of modern day spirituality and where Yeshua is understood only by the interpretation determined by ancient councils, creeds of dubious authenticity and ecclesiastic gobbledegook. What needs to be understood by those who reject the dictates of the established creedal churches and lump Yeshua Hanotzri with the creators of their fatuous mire, is that he in no way is representative of their values or that they in some way have omnipotent ownership of him.
That is not to say that Western society was once made up only of Christians, but rather that Christianity was the norm on which society was supposedly based. Even those who did not profess Christianity were aware of this bias. A belief in God, and in particular in a God who has revealed himself to us through the patriarchs and prophets, and who presented to us appropriate ways to live, means that there are established standards to live by and that we can know absolute though not exhaustive truth.
In our present society, God is no longer seen as relevant. Apparently he is dead - if he ever existed at all, apart from being an illusion, or a psychological prop, according to this theory. This has very far-reaching implications. If our universe was not fashioned by a supernatural being (God if you like) in some way then we are nothing more than products of chance and therefore of no more significance than the animals or inanimate objects. We therefore have no value, but this seems to contradict the proposition that somehow our life has meaning. To accept the proposition that we exist only as a result of chance, our only meaning or purpose in life is to survive and to make our survival as pleasant and painless as can be.
If we exist as a matter of chance, it is not possible to have absolute values. There is nothing from which to derive them. Everything becomes relative and this includes truth. Without an authority outside ourselves, how can we measure such a value? It simply becomes "your truth" or "my truth". This is not necessarily a new idea formed to reflect the mood of our age; it's just that it has become the overriding viewpoint in contemporary society.
A number of years ago a piece of writing was found on the walls of old St Paul's Church in Baltimore, USA, which dates back to the seventeenth century. It is rather a nice piece of writing. It starts off, "Go placidly amidst the noise and haste" and is now popularly known as the Desiderata. It has been released on records with several different musical backing, framed and hung on countless walls throughout the world, and continues, "Speak your truth quietly and clearly". I shall quote from this piece later on to show that this is a relative statement, but it is suffice to say at this juncture that one of the reasons Desiderata is particularly popular in our society is that it is "religious" in some vague sense while at the same time, paradoxically, actually undermines the essential basis of Christianity.
So "What is Truth" is answered in our society by saying "whatever you make it". Once society had very definite values, even if it could not keep them. This led to an illusion of permanence. Now we are in a world where values shift and change all the time.
The late John Lennon sang "Gimme some truth", later he was singing "Whatever gets you through the night". Whatever you can find to get you through your life: "that's all right". It doesn't matter what it is, or whether it is right or wrong, or even obnoxious to the finer sensitivities of human existence. That, strangely enough, is the underlying theme of one of the recent manifestations of "spiritual" apologia - "Conversations with God". According to this reasoning "whatever gets you through the night", helps you make the most of survival.
So the concepts of right and wrong, truth and falsehood are shifting and changing in our society because there is no belief in a creating and absolute God. And so it becomes whatever turns you on, whatever keeps you happy. This is the new religion!
This is the new spirituality! And the ultimate blasphemy is to tell someone that you know the answer, and that they are wrong. This is absolute, amazing arrogance! After all, it is only your truth, as opposed to their truth.
Now back to the Desiderata: "therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be". This statement is so popular in our society but for those who profess to follow Yeshua that the concept of truth as enunciated by him is more important than ever before. Most importantly he has shown that he accepts truth in a very different way from that expressed above. If one viewpoint contradicts another, one is true the other must be false. But Yeshua has also shown that his concept of truth can be traced back to the existence of a living and loving God who has been revealed through him. He bears witness to the truth, and indeed, declares himself to be the embodiment of truth and is the voice of God to humanity, the voice of wisdom.
If this is to have some semblance of meaning to our present generation we have to show in what sense Yeshua was using the word "truth". In his view, it is not a relative, shifting, all-embracing concept, but it is a narrow well-defined concept because it comes from God who is the creator, and whom we can know. It is not enough for those who profess to be followers of "Yeshua Christ" to say to someone, "Become a Christian because it will make you happy," for that puts Christianity on the level of another kind of escapism. It is not enough to say, "Become a Christian because Christianity works". It's important that it does work, but again lots of things - work. If you accept a philosophical viewpoint, no matter how unreasonable, it will quite probably help you to be happy and things will work for you.
But the most important point for those committed to following Yeshua Hanotzri and not following the dictates of the hierarchical creedal Church and its myriad dogmas and doctrines, is to communicate today, even in the face of overwhelming odds of profound and epidemic ignorance regarding Yeshua and what he actually stood for and what he in fact represented, is that there is such a thing as truth, and that people should believe him because what he spoke was true. It follows from this, that honesty must be an integral part of a "Christian" lifestyle, and this includes intellectual honesty, no matter how unpopular this may be, if we are committed to the truth. Therefore we can have great confidence in the power of God's word and its ability to speak to each situation when we recognise this. This alone reveals the truth about our world, our Creator and us.
The late John Lennon sang "Gimme some truth", later he was singing "Whatever gets you through the night". Whatever you can find to get you through your life: "that's all right". It doesn't matter what it is, or whether it is right or wrong, or even obnoxious to the finer sensitivities of human existence.
Discovery of the truth that there is a God and that we can know him is a liberating experience. Yeshua said: "If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my disciples; you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free". This particular verse brings us to the heart of his concept of truth and to the heart of his concept of freedom as well. "Truth will set you free", it liberates us principally from a slavery that is so habitual that for much of the time we are unconscious of it. The extent of its hold on the entire personality is glimpsed only when the word of truth of which Yeshua speaks begins its liberating work in a person's life. Then he or she realises just how limited they have been. Freedom is seen as nothing less than salvation. The truth sets us free and Yeshua, whose life embodied the truth, then becomes the true liberator of others.
It follows however, that those who have been set free must, like him, do only those things that are in harmony with God's will and pleasure, not in harmony to some authoritarian structure or tendentious dogma or doctrine. Looked at in terms of human understanding of truth and freedom, this qualification of these concepts may be unacceptable to the modern age; but this is the meaning of freedom as enunciated by Yeshua. Only when a person has been set free in this way does he begin to live as God intended he should, knowing in his experience the "glorious liberty of the children of God".
Unquestionably, there are limits on a follower of Yeshua's liberty. One is free to do good, to be generous of heart, to be forgiving, thoughtful towards others, forgetful of self-interest: in short, to be loving. One is not free, however, to indulge in the corresponding vices: but then as a follower of God's anointed, one no longer wants to indulge in them. In other words one has become a new person, truly happy when fulfilling ones new nature and more than likely miserable when not. The limitations imposed on a follower of Yeshua's freedom by God's demands, are therefore more apparent than real. In a glad acceptance of these demands one finds true liberty.
This of course absolutely destroys the lie that man is of no significance. Firstly mankind is of enormous value because it is made in God's image. It helps us to understand our own value as individuals as well of that of our neighbour.
Secondly, it explains the problems and confusions of our world because we see that mankind is separated from God: so it helps us to understand our world, and our position in it.
Thirdly, it gives us a new way of life that is truly liberating. Liberating us from the forces of domination, be they church or state. We can thus live within the context and in the knowledge of our Creator, discovering from him and his truth revealed in scripture, how to find fulfilment and freedom. This concept of truth is totally at odds against the whole mood of western society. It asserts absolute and permanent values, and the confident statement that there is a God and that he is clearly revealed in the life of Yeshua Hanotzri not in the accretions of Church created doctrines of virgin birth, original sin and trinitarian formulations. To many this will appear as arrogance; but how can it not appear so, if any assertion that one thing is right and another is wrong is not acceptable?
As for me, "I meditate on all that thou hast done; I muse on what thy hands have wrought".