When it comes to discussing the truth about something people react in several different ways. Some deny the truth outright. Others misinterpret truth. Still others know that something is true but choose to suppress it. And some fortunately acknowledge the truth even if it is unpopular and offensive to them. But the funny thing about truth is that regardless of how you choose to look at it, truth remains truth and is independent of our reaction to it.
Sadly, in our American society today the concept of absolute truth has all but been jettisoned and replaced with the mantra that all truth is relative. In other words what may be true for you isn’t true for me and vice versa. And as Christians when we share with people that the Bible is a book of many absolute truths we often are attacked as being narrow minded, bigoted, and downright offensive to the relative truth scenarios that many people embrace.
And nowhere is this truth controversy more prominent than when the issue of who is Jesus comes up. The Bible is quite clear that Jesus’ claim to be God is absolute and non-negotiable truth. In fact, Jesus claimed quite boldly to be truth incarnate when He stated: “…I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6).
To many this truth is offensive and outrageous. For those who don’t believe in God this truth is vehemently denied. And it’s not because there isn’t enough evidence for God’s existence. Abraham Lincoln said it well when he stated: “I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say that there is no God.”1 In addition, Charles Spurgeon adds another reason why people deny the truth about God when he shared: “I am persuaded that men think there is no God because they wish there were none. They find it hard to believe in God, and to go on in sin, so they try to get an easy conscience by denying his existence.”2
And for those who believe that there is a God, based on the religion they follow, but it just isn’t Jesus, they are forced to conclude that all religions lead to some concept of heaven. The problem with this is that Christianity claims that Jesus is the only true God and that as I shared in (John 14:6) above, He is the only truth, and the only way to the Father and heaven. The exclusivity of Jesus being the one and only true God again, like the atheist, leads many to be extremely offended. On this point I like what Pastor John MacArthur once said: “If the truth offends, then let it offend. People have been living their whole lives in offense to God; let them be offended for a while.”3
My friends knowing and living the truth is more than important, it has eternal implications. J. C. Ryle stated the case for the truthfulness of the Bible as follows: “If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion; half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.”4
I don’t know about you but as ambassadors for Christ we need to also be stalwart defenders of the truth of Jesus and the Scriptures. And if the truth hurts someone’s feelings then so be it for the stakes are just too high to play around with the truth!
1 Charlie H. Campbell, Apologetics Quotes (Carlsbad, California: The Always Be Ready Apologetics Ministry, 2020), p. 9.
2 Charlie H. Campbell, Apologetics Quotes (Carlsbad, California: The Always Be Ready Apologetics Ministry, 2020), p. 8.
3 The Gospel Is Offensive, But You Shouldn’t Be (churchleaders.com)
4 Charlie H. Campbell, Apologetics Quotes (Carlsbad, California: The Always Be Ready Apologetics Ministry, 2020), pp. 11-12.