What Is Truth?

 God's Word, it is truth. Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate, He is truth. 

That which is essentially, foundationally in accord with what is actual, which is. 

The world shirks and suppresses truth. We all do, apart from God's interventions, and are thus given over to delusions: we cannot forsake that which is actual without actively embracing that which is not. To forsake truth is to embrace a lie. 

And so, what would would have, then? What would we prefer? 

Except that God intervenes, we divest ourselves of reality. Having forsaken Him, we have fundamentally forsaken reality, regardless. And even the dividing line is become indistinct to us, for so doing. 

Yet, even as mentally and spiritually dull as we have become, we no less are constrained to inhabit reality--the same physical realm which He created prevails, and we are impacted by the same spiritual principles regardless of deference. Sin reaps disease and death in all spheres, and ultimately spiritual judgment as we enter the presence of the Ancient of Days. 

So, here and now, what is it to walk in truth? What is it to submit to the Holy One of Israel? Even as through His Son? The Blessed Redeemer, Messiah--He shelters and guides. 

And delivers into truth, knowledge, understanding, wisdom--the desire and the ability to know and act upon truth, obeying Him. 

Apart from which, there are certainly exalted structures which parallel His own--counterfeits, rather. We counterfeit what we have rejected, each and every time we reject His truth, because innately dwells the knowledge that He is good and what He has created is good (in as much as left unsullied by our sin's decimating influence). We want to reject the Giver but retain the gifts, moreover. Yet, the gifts are unavoidably dependent upon right reception for appropriate and beneficial use and experience and undertaking. Otherwise, the gifts themselves become our agents of self-destruction. 

Does this make sense to you? Do you understand how this works? 

All good gifts do come from the Father of Light in whom is no shadow of turning. Yet, we cannot rightfully enjoy His good gifts apart from right relationship with Him, or we make use of them wrongly and unto our own harm: right and beneficial use is absolutely intertwined with giving appropriate glory to the Giver, or otherwise any use becomes misuse.  

Even so goes wisdom. All the vain philosophies of man are rot and harm, to the extent that the glory of the Creator is abjectly denied. There may remain echoes of His truth, still, or even what seem to be mirrored reflections of the righteous goodness which He ordains is required of all His creatures--if so, the extent to which the heart and intent deviate from His holy purity, there is a dire and extensive corruption of all (except that He restrains).

See this epitomized at times, when the rulers or most highly esteemed fashion for themselves a manner of righteousness which does not absolutely depend upon a sincere love of God and His Word, centrally (which we all are guilty of to varying degrees, at various times): 

The Pharisees were known and revered as the religious leaders of their day. They were esteemed for being more righteous than the common man, for long study of the Word of God, for seeking to honor their understanding of the Word, and for being set apart unto God, in an overt sense. 

Yet they defied God. To the extent that when He came, in the flesh, they resented, envied, and despised Him so vehemently as to have Him slaughtered. Rather than submitting to Him. Rather than embracing Him. They had a form of godliness but denied all God's sovereign power and right. 

Jesus did not argue with them, in a sense. But He was not swayed by their attempts to argue with Him, rather responded with truth and grace and increasingly severe clarity, calling to repentance. He responded according to truth and grace. As the Father gave. 

Their "truth" was not His truth. His truth was real and absolute, being fundamentally sourced in and upon all the consistency of reality which arose from and rested upon His own essential Being and Nature. Theirs went so far along the same lines, but then subverted love and justice and mercy and the like, exalting self as arbiter...exalting self as God's equal, in so doing. We are not ever as God, though He allows us in our delusions of grandeur to believe we are--this, this is essentially what it is to worship (ie, to give worth and weight to) self as doing so is always and intrinsically instead of God. 

The lines are drawn, but can only be seen in walking in submission to God. Truth can only be discerned as embraced upon knowing it, having become accustomed to loving it, for having come to love and exalt the source of all. 

And knowing truth, will we not stand firm? Even as humbly doing so, which is the appropriate and only apt means of responding to the truth of God's preeminence and majesty in all things: We submit to the Truth-giver. Submitting to His sovereign rule and power, then to walk in submission, for having come to know that we only know as we are known, to the extent which He has drawn back that veil from our eyes. By His Spirit's work in and through us, applying the Word of Truth. Even His Gospel, which is power unto salvation. 

We are always to grow in discerning, by practice of doing so (hinging upon knowing Him, which is to submit to Him and be led of Him). Testing all to know what is of truth. Do not be deceived: Trust in Him who can deliver. He is Truth. And He is true, though all men be liars.