Article of Faith: Are you a child of the truth or the lie?, By Femi Aribisala

 “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.”     

Truth in the Bible is not abstract.  Truth in the Bible is real and tangible.  Truth in the bible is a person with a personality.  Truth in the Bible is Jesus Christ. (John 14:6).

Jesus Christ is truth personified.  Only Jesus who came down from heaven truly expresses God and presents the true ideal of man. Hence, he is the Truth.  He is the logos, the true expression of God.  Similarly, the Holy Spirit (the spirit of Jesus Christ) is the Spirit of truth because His function is to guide into all truth.

You can do nothing against the truth but for the truth. (2 Corinthians 13:8).  No matter what you do, the truth remains true. Truth is absolute. It refuses to go away.  It cannot be silenced.  It does not change.  The only thing that it can do is to change you. Jesus said: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32). It is the lie that shackles; and the truth that makes free.

God is a God of truth, making truth a basic element of his person. Because God is truth, he is constant and unchanging. Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever. He is the rock and his truth endures unto all generations. God is a God in whom there is no variableness and shadow of turning.  This means that God does not change like shifting shadows.

Problematic Jesus

For a long time, Jesus was a big problem in my life.  I simply could not handle the truth of God revealed by Jesus.  Before I met Jesus, I was convinced that I was the most righteous man on earth.  I had never met a man who was as righteous and as truthful as me.  I lived my life under a strict code of principles and precepts, which I believed, set me apart from a lot of people, including and especially some so-called Christians. 

But the truth, which I discovered or accepted much later, was that those principles were self-serving.  The problem with Jesus was that his righteousness was diametrically opposite to mine.

When I met Jesus, his message was unambiguous. There could only be one conclusion from his teachings: Femi Aribisala is unrighteous.  I was confronted with a choice. I would either have to choose the righteousness of Christ, or conclude that he was talking a load of rubbish. I could not come outright to say that Jesus was talking rubbish because I came from a Christian home and was raised as a Christian.

But at the same time, I sought refuge in the misguided conviction that his righteousness was simply impossible to fulfil.  I was convinced, for example, that there was no way that a man could get to the point where he never again looked at a woman lustfully. There was no way someone would slap a grown man on the one cheek and he would willingly turn the other cheek. There was no way that a man would forcefully take your coat and you would give him your cloak as well. Unless, of course, if you were stupid. There was no way that a human being could be expected to love his enemies and to pray for those who despitefully use him. There was no way to be the kind of man that Jesus preached about. And I surely had yet to meet any Christian like that.

 Avoiding Jesus

So what did I do about the truth of God’s word? I decided that it was better for me to stop reading the Bible. I reached a conclusion, which in retrospect I now realise was an incredible piece of deception. I concluded that if I continued reading the bible, I would end up as an atheist. 

Sooner or later, the illogical nature and the irrationalities of Jesus’ teachings would get to me, and I would conclude that Jesus was a load of rubbish. Since I did not want to reach that conclusion, I decided to keep away from Jesus as much as possible. This was one way I could deal with the truth of Jesus, and I now realise it is completely idiotic.

And so today, you have so many people who believe that Jesus is a prophet, but don’t believe in him.  Nicodemus recognised that Jesus was a teacher sent from God and yet, he did not believe in him. Even Moslems believe that Jesus is a prophet of God. 

But please what kind of prophet would call himself God? Only a false prophet would do that. So if Jesus is a prophet of God then Jesus is God. If Jesus is not God then he is not a prophet. There is no middle passage. He has not left us with any fudged view of himself.

Responding to the Truth

Beloved, how do we respond to the truth? Do we fight against the truth? It is a losing battle because the truth is impregnable. To fight against the truth is to fight against God. We cannot win.

John the Baptist spoke the truth to Herodias, you should not marry your husband’s brother. Herodias had a problem dealing with this truth of God’s law. What is the solution to her predicament? She decides to fight against the truth. John the Baptist must be killed. Truth must be silenced. But would the death of John the Baptist change the truth of her adultery? Would the death of John the Baptist make adultery righteous? Certainly not!

Jesus came to provide a way of escape from the sin problem. The wisdom of God in this regard was to simplify the problem of sin.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (John 3:19-21).

Sin is no longer the doing of evil.  Sin is now the rejection of salvation from sin.

Evil people are not just people who do bad things; they are those who hate the light. They are people who love darkness rather than light. They prefer to be ignorant because to be knowledgeable will put a great demand on them. Knowledge means coming out of the darkness. But they would rather be ignorant than come out of the darkness. The man fears that if he comes to the light his deeds would be seen as worthless, and he would need to turn from them.

Dealing With the Person of Truth

How do you deal with the truth? Remember that you can no longer deal with truth in the abstract because truth now has a personality? How do you deal with truth in the form of a person? Jesus said to this end was he born, and for this end he came into the world, that he should bear witness to the truth.   

Can you honestly live with such a person as this? Or would he or she become insufferable? Can you have a friend who always tells you the truth? Would you only visit him sometimes, or would you like him to abide with you forever?

In both the Old and the New Testaments, prophets of God were killed because they dared to tell the truth.  They told people what they did not want to hear. They convinced people of their sin. Rather than deal with their sin, people decided to deal with the prophet. Jesus prophesied that this propensity would be heightened in the last days. (Luke 21:16-17; John 16:2-3).

Hating the Truth 

Most people don’t like the truth. Some people like the truth sometimes. Most people don’t like the truth at most times. There are times when we want to be lied to. There are times when we seek solace and comfort in lies. 

Sometimes we define friendship as the ability of a companion to know when to tell us the truth and when to comfort us with lies. Sometimes we regard a friend as someone oblivious to our faults. A good friend becomes someone who not only ignores our faults but also dutifully convinces us that our faults are non-existent. 

The question then is this: can Jesus be our friend?  Can we walk with him? CONTINUED.

Faribisala@yahoo.com; www.femiaribisala.com