The Purpose of Clarification

I wrote a few weeks ago that I strongly sense this is a time when God is clarifying all things.  Clarifying our minds, too, about all things.

"All things" kinda resonates for me with "Alpha and Omega," Who Jesus IS.  And it makes theological sense to me that Jesus is God's clarity to us, in all things.

Jesus said "I AM...The Truth."  That's been the most clarifying realization of my life.  So I'm always super-aware of anything about Truth...and anything against Truth   How could I not be, when Jesus said that IS His very IDENTITY ?

Jesus' statement is not abstruse "head-polish" theology.   Truth exists.  Truth exists as part of the ordinary reality of our world.  (Which is, of course, what today's holiday supposedly celebrates about Jesus.)

We think and act, every day, in ordinary dependence on the existence and operation of truth in our world.  Juries are charged to sort out the facts of a case they hear, and witnesses to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."  We expect journalists (real journalists, at least) to report what really happens: even the weatherman.  The professions of scientists and historians is to look for truth, and report it truthfully.

So it's particularly significant that "post-truth" is the Word of the Year, describing people who ignore "objective facts" in making their decisions.  It's particularly significant that this year we needed that new word, for the new idea that Truth doesn't really matter.  Significant, too, that that new word and new idea came out of politics.

In that political attitude toward Truth, I think God's spoken some simple clarity: especially to Christians.

If your politics makes you unable to distinguish between righteousness and unrighteousness, your politics are not of God.

If your politics tells you Truth doesn't matter, your politics are not of God.

If your politics leads you to believe lies and follow deceivers, your politics are of "the father of lies" (john 8:44).

Christians who've let politics confuse them about Truth need to repent their politics.

Repent immediately and deeply.  This is a time God is clarifying all things, including who is really His.  He knows His own by their love of Truth: because that's who actually loves Jesus.

"Post-Truth"

Looking back over my recent blog-posts, I notice I somehow deleted one of the most important.

Earlier this month, brother Tim called my attention to the fact that the prestigious Oxford Dictionary of the English Language had picked "post-truth" as its 2016 "Word of the Year."

Several of my recent blogs talk about the issues of a "post-truth" world.  Lacking the initial blog about the meaning of that term my comments may lack the necessary context: so I post it here again.

The Oxford folks define "post-truth" as

"relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."

They note that the word is virtually always used in a political context: and that its sudden prominence in 2016 was a result of the U.K.'s Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election.

 The Oxford Dictionary website has additional information and reflection on "post-truth," and on any other question you can possibly think of about the English language .

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016

If Jesus Were Truth

"Jesus said . . . “I AM . . . The Truth . . ."  (John 14:6, my emphasis)

 
But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would love Truth.

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would surrender their lives to Truth.

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would know they're saved by Truth (II Thessalonians 2:10). 

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would say "Truth is Lord !"

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would heed Truth.

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would follow Truth.

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would HATE lies.

But if Jesus were "The Truth," Christians would turn away from liars


But 

"Jesus said . . . “I AM . . . The Truth . . ."

Slavery, Lies...and FREEDOM

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father . . .

Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."     (John 8:31-38, 43-44)

I have been hearing from God for some months that He will be setting free many of His people.  I came to this scripture-passage to look at what He says about slavery.  It's necessary to understand with God's understanding what slavery truly is, to know what God rescues us from . . . and how we got ourselves into that situation..

Jesus tells it, both sides.  Sin makes you a slave.  Truth will set you free.  That simple.

The Jews listening to Him..."Jews who had believed Him"...are greatly offended.  They say slavery and freedom are existential: a matter of who they are because of their patrimony.

Yes, says Jesus: your spiritual patrimony.  I speak My Father's words.  If you cannot hear His Truth, it's because your spiritual family-heritage is directly from "the father of lies."

This is very bad news for today's "post-truth" Christians.  Some are no doubt sincere in saying they believe in Jesus: they just don't want to believe "The Truth"...and that's Who He said He IS.  Their spiritual patrimony is manifest, that they "want to do the desires of [their] father" (my emphasis).  They show who they really believe, and who they really are, by their violent hatred, and their lies.

Lies are sin: an especially definitive sin, since Jesus says that is the very nature of satan, who is the source of all lies.  Lies are also very much the definitive political sin.  American Christians are, and have long been, enslaved by that political sin.  Christians are, have long been, persuaded by lies to unthinkingly do the (political) will of others: and that is the definition of slavery.

Jesus says knowing Truth will set us free.  God is now promising us "FREEDOM !!"  I believe Him; and I understand Him to mean He will set many free from their political slavery, to political lies.  I'm confident He will open the eyes of all whose hearts are truly set on Him above all else.  I'm rejoicing that He will open the eyes of many to know The Truth, and The Truth will set them free.



I don't think it coincidental that God led me in this meditation today, as people prepare for the supposed "holiday" of Christ's birth upon earth.  He Who identified Himself as "The Truth" still lives among us, and still sets free any who will receive Him.  But in this "post-truth" year and world, He is less welcomed than ever before...even by those celebrating that He formerly came among us.

But He is still here.  And He is still coming.  And He will still come.  And in every time and place and heart He comes, He sets free all who welcome Him.
 

HALLELUJAH !!  Come, Lord Jesus !!

The Spirit of Reality

The blog-post by our Australian brother Tim about "post-truth" Christianity, which I re-posted a couple weeks ago, included a particularly striking insight

"It’s sad fact that many (even professing Christians) really have no love of the truth, preferring to mould a more appealing (to them) version of 'reality' to live by."

His linkage of "truth" and "reality" is spot-on.

We know there's a profound sense in which "truth" and "reality" are somehow the same kind of thing: though we can't easily say how that's so.  "Reality is the manifestation of truth" is the working definition I've come to: though I'm certain there's a lot more to that equation than my formulation takes into account (or that limited human understanding can take into account).

Another way of putting it might be that "reality" and "truth" are both what really and truly IS.  And that makes both, to my understanding, theological quantities, since God IS "I AM THAT I AM."  Theologians who have opined that God is "Ultimate Reality" are probably close to the mark.

Jesus' Own Person seems to bear out that equation.  He used God's Own Name when He revealed His Being is exactly Truth: "I AM...The Truth" (John 14:6).  Jesus is the Word (Logos) of God through Whom "...all things were made," and without Whom "...nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3).  "Truth" and "reality," including the physical reality of creation, are joined in Who Jesus IS.

The confirmatory "flip-side" is that the enemy, rebel against All that God IS and does, is, in Jesus' words, "the father of lies" (John 8:44).  From the first time we meet him in scripture, he is working to deceive human beings by questioning God's Truth ("Has God really said . . .?", my emphasis) and denying the reality God made ("You surely will not die . . .", my emphasis).

The enemy has not changed his tactics.  They still work.  Even though, as Tim notes, refusal to love truth necessarily means relinquishing reality as well...and forces people to invent their own.

I find it interesting that the political faction Christians have followed for 40 years is the premier anti-Truth and anti-reality voice in America.

Like all political factions, it's always "spun" truth to achieve electoral success (the only "good" political factions serve): though rather more outrageously than other factions.  But the surprising election of its "post-truth" candidate this year has hugely confirmed that faction in the "wisdom" of post-truth politics: that truth doesn't really matter for electoral success.

It's no accident that the same faction also champions various kinds of reality-denial.  One major example is that "climate-change denial" is a virtual litmus-test for members of that faction, a legacy of their demi-god founder, Ronald Reagan.  Other varieties of reality-denial, including some very "fringe" ones (white-supremacy, for example), also make that faction their ideological home.

Tim's observation that "truth" and "reality" are linked seems sound theological insight: both are established by God, in His Own Being.

It should tell us something that American Christians have followed factionalists whose spirit is contempt for truth, and denial of reality: the same sins Adam and Eve fell for.  To those with spiritual eyes to see, that faction...and the Christians who do its will...abundantly show their spiritual patrimony.

May deceived Christians repent !  May God destroy those who deceive His people !!

Amen.
 

Clarification

I am increasingly certain that this time in which we live is a time God has appointed for clarification.

The sudden appearance of the word, and the concept, "post-truth" is doubtless part of that clarification.  In Christ, no distinction could be greater, and so more clarifying, than the one between "The Truth" He IS, and all that is not of Him.

God also seems to be clarifying to us righteousness, and its opposite.  Again, He's made that distinction clearer by letting unrighteousness grow increasingly manifest.  Particularly, increasingly manifest in our politics.

The brightness of greater light seems to have blinded some, who write off lies and unrighteousness as "just politics."  So in this time of backward and upside-down moral thinking, particularly in the Church, it's probably necessary to re-affirm the obvious: "politics" is man's device, and Truth and righteousness, God's.  The lesser is measured by the greater: man's ways by God's.

Our ways are measured by God's, and the clarity He is giving us at this time must be understood in that context.  He is giving us more light so our walk will more surely and closely follow The One Who IS "The Way."

So be it, Father !

More Truth

"The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love...God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."  (John 4:8, 16)

 I'm thinking again about what it means when Jesus says "I AM...The Truth..." (John 14:6)  That's been the core of my Christology for some years: as it SHOULD be for everyone's Christology (along with His Self-identification as "The Way" and "The Life").

I'm thinking even more about what it means that Jesus IS "The Truth," as the contrast between Himself and the "post-truth" world grows wider and more stark.

I am fully convinced (including experientially) that Jesus is God, powerful and able to do whatever He will: able even to BE an abstract noun.  But it seemed one of His "hard sayings" (John 6:60, KJV); such as when He identified Himself as the "Bread" from heaven, which we must eat to "abide" in Him.

"I AM...The Truth" seems a "difficult statement" (in the NASB's translation).  Most difficult of all, to understand how we can functionally identify with Him...the essence of faith.

It helped, as I studied, to see that in Greek there is a verb "to truth," used in Galatians 4:16 (translated, "tell the truth"), and Ephesians 4:15 (translated, "speak the truth").  In both cases, "truth" is an action we are exhorted to do.

 But the greater understanding came in testing Jesus' words.  If Jesus IS "Truth," every scriptural mention of "truth" should still make sense when His name was substituted for "truth."

It was a convincing test: and one that gave further light.  "You will know Jesus, and Jesus will make you free" (John 8:32) particularly stood out.  As it did that God's Spirit is repeatedly called "the Spirit of Jesus" (John 14:17, 15:26, 16:13).  The clincher was that He asked the Father to sanctify us in Truth/Jesus, because "Your word is Jesus" (John 17:17).

Jesus gave us a hard saying to understand, when He told us Who He IS.  But He also gave us operational understanding in which to act in identity with Who He IS.

That understanding is obvious, and simple.  Those who love Jesus love truth.  Those who follow Jesus, follow truth.

It's exactly analogous to what the opening scripture (above) tells us: God's identifies Himself as Love...and all who are His, love in identity with Who He IS.

By this we "test [ourselves], to see if [we] are in the faith" (II Corinthians 13:5).  We can know that we "...[have] both the Father and Son" (II John 1:9) when we are "truthing in love" (Ephesians 4:15).

And by that same measure with which we measure ourselves, we can unmistakably know the "many deceivers...and the antichrist" abroad in this world (II John 1:7).  They are those not merely devoid of truth and love: they actively embrace and walk in the spirit of their "father, the devil;" and Jesus said he is a murderer and a liar (John 8:44).

The deceived of today's "post-truth" world (including many "Christians") are unabashed in their desire to be ruled by unrighteousness, by love for violence and lies.  But in this world of darkness, God is making His light even brighter.

To all with Spiritual eyes to see, He is today giving increasing clarity of vision...to know Him more clearly, and more fully, as "The Truth."  To those who receive Him as "The Truth" He IS, He gives the power to become "sons of God"...as He IS (John 1:9).