What is Truth? # 4

Oughtness of Truth

Truth invokes response.[1] Since truth can be known it demands a response of those who come to know it.[2] Knowledge of God produces an obligation to obedience. In other words orthodoxy invokes orthopraxy. John’s Gospel highlights three particular elements of this response to truth.

First, a Christian is to live by the truth. Jesus told Nicodemus that “whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out by God.”[3] Christians therefore must do what is true; they must live by the truth. “Genuinely knowing divine reality will inevitably be reflected in the way disciples live; they will obey everything that Jesus has taught them.”[4] In other words, “God’s truth and faithfulness are to be reflected in his people’s lives.”[5]

A Christian must also worship in spirit and truth. The woman at the well was discussing worship locales with Jesus when he declared to her:

Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.[6]

What then does it mean to worship in spirit and truth? D. A. Carson offers some helpful thoughts on this difficult passage, which is worth quoting in length. Worship,

…must be in spirit and truth, i.e. essentially God-centered, made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in personal knowledge of and conformity to God’s Word-made-flesh, the one who is God’s truth, the faithful exposition and fulfillment of God and his saving purposes. The worshippers whom God seeks worship him out of the fullness of the supernatural life they enjoy (‘in spirit’), and on the basis of God’s incarnate Self-Expression, Christ Jesus himself, through whom God’s person and will are finally and ultimately disclosed (‘in truth’); and these two characteristics form one matrix, indivisible.[7]

Christian worship is based on the truth of the gospel and worked out by the supernatural indwelling of the Spirit. Worship is thus an event based on the truth of God and the work of grace in the believer’s life. Grace and truth, which Christ is full of, is central to our worshipping in spirit and truth. Only those who trust in the God who is true and who have had that God revealed to them through his Word are able to worship in spirit and truth. It must be noted that worship is not just an event but encompasses all of life. There is both a broad way of worship, which is all of life and a narrow or corporate gathering of worship.[8]

Lastly, the Christian must be continually sanctified by the truth. Christ prayed to the Father on behalf of his people, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”[9] This high priestly pray of Jesus was for both his immediate disciples and for those who will believe in him through their word (vs. 20). Believers are to be sanctified through the true Word of God.

This sanctification by the Word of God is achieved through the working of the Spirit. Sproul writes, “The Spirit is not divorced from the Word in such a way as to reduce revelation to an exercise in subjectivism. The Spirit works with the Word (cum verbo) and through the Word (per verbum), not without or apart from the Word (sine verbo).”[10] Beeke and Lanning also argue that God transforms believers through a combination of these two great powers, namely the word and the Spirit. “Each indispensable to the other, and both inseparably joined together, so as to accomplish all God’s will upon his people.”[11]

Beeke and Lanning show by what methods the Spirit works through the Word to transform and sanctify the believer. First, there is the fusion of Spirit and Word in the reading of Scripture. Daily reading of the Word of God helps bring about a renewal of the mind. Secondly, the preaching of God’s Word helps convict of sin and bring comfort to the downtrodden. Thirdly, the hearing of God’s Word is often a healing balm to the soul. Lastly, the singing of God’s Word is a returning to God the praise due his name.[12]

God’s truth requires a response. The very foundation of all truth, God, has made himself known and he has granted this knowledge of the truth to those who hear his voice, his sheep. Being confronted with the truth causes an obligation on the part of the hearer to respond to that truth. Biblically the believer is to respond to the truth of God through living his truth, worshipping God in spirit and truth, and lastly by being sanctified or transformed by the truth.

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[1] See Frame, DKG, 43, 108-109

[2] Nicole has written, “The ethical is never far remote, and the distinction between dogmatics and ethics, while useful in the theological curriculum, is not to be pressed into a separation of doctrine and practice, which should always remain united.” In The Biblical Concept of Truth, 295.

[3] John 3:21

[4] Crump, “Truth.”

[5] Woodbridge, “Truth.” He continues, “Truth is an indispensable part of both Christian faith and Christian living, leading disciples to obey all that Jesus has taught them…Profession and practice must cohere, otherwise we do not live according to the truth.”

[6] John 4:21-24

[7] D. A. Carson. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991. pp. 225-226

[8] See John M. Frame. Worship in Spirit and Truth: A Refreshing Study of the Principles and Practice of Biblical Worship. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1996 for a helpful fleshing out of these thoughts on worship.

[9] John 17:17

[10] Sproul, R. C. “The Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit.” in Inerrancy. Norman L. Geisler. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980. 337-384. p. 338

[11] Beeke, Joel R. and Ray Lanning. “The Transforming Power of Scripture.” in Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible. Don Kistler. ed. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1995. 221-276. p. 225

[12] Ibid, 234-262