Ah, ’tis the season of politics, fake news, fact checking, falsehoods, and fabrications. We, like Pontius Pilate, might ask rhetorically, “What is Truth?”
You probably know the saying which is shown in the photo above which is inscribed on the Liberal Arts building at the University of Texas in Austin.
“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
You may guess it is from the Bible. You may even presume that the truth is really The Truth, that is, Jesus, and not merely intellectual knowledge. Jesus had said to Pilate, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Earlier that evening, He privately told His disciples that He was “The Truth”.
But do you see something missing in the picture above? Yes, the reference missing from where this phrase comes (John 8:32 by the way). But something else is missing from the verse.
It is a little three letter word at the beginning of the verse but not found in this inscription nor in the oft-used quote.
“AND”
Little words are important in the Bible, and this word in this verse that is omitted here is a very important word. It connects John 8:32 to what?
See, you are pretty quick, aren’t you? It connects verse 32 to verse 31.
So, let’s look at verse 31.
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 AND you shall know the truth...”
(Don’t let the word “Jews” distract you. Jesus was Jewish. I know, I know, He doesn’t look Jewish, at least not in our paintings and many of our movies on the life of Christ. But He was, and all who believed Him in John 8 were Jewish. According to John 8:2, He was teaching in the Jewish Temple.)
There is another important little word in verse 31, and that is the word “If”. It, too, is a small but equally paramount word.
If you abide in the word of Jesus, meaning:
- if you do what He says,
- if you live it out in your everyday life,
- if His word makes a home in your actions, your heart, your mindset,
As a result of making Jesus’s word real in your life, you will prove yourself to be His disciples, “in truth” or “indeed”. The Greek word for “indeed” is “alethos”, which is very similar to the word for truth: “aletheia”.
As I studied this, there is also a little letter that is not there in verse 31: Jesus does not say, as He does elsewhere, abide in “My words” (plural), but rather abide in “My word” (singular).
Jesus speaks about his “singular word” in John 5:24, speaking of saving faith, “he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me, has everlasting life”. There is a singular word of salvation faith in John 8:51, “anyone who keeps my word shall not see death” (repeated again in verse 52). There is a singular word of sanctification in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
There are many words (plural) Jesus spoke in which we should abide (loving God, loving others, forgiving others, etc.), but there is a singular word in which we must abide. It is a word full of truth, a word full of faith, a word full of liberation and sanctification.
What singular word saves? What singular word sanctifies? What solitary word cleanses, as Jesus said in John 15:3, “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.”
Martin Luther wrote of a singular word in the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, which he described as a “little word” which, by itself, could “fell” the Prince of Darkness. The final verse begins “That word above all earthly powers, No thanks to them, abideth”.
So what is that “little word”? What is the singular “word” of Jesus which we should abide in and in so doing we prove to be disciples in truth?
That singular “little word” is the Logos, that which was in the beginning (John 1:1) and from the beginning (1 John 1:1). “My Word” is The Word, Jesus Himself, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Our Lord told us in John 15:4 to “Abide in Me”. John 14:23 says in King James English that the Father and Son will “make our abode” with us when we abide in Him.
If you need The Truth to set you free this political season, begin and end each day not only with Christ and not just reading His word, but be and abide in Christ.
The beloved apostle John wrote the following in 1 John 2:
