John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me. We do not wonder to find "Truth" made the centre bit of the arch. For "truth," wherever it is, holds everything together. It is the integrity of a man which gathers up the man, and gives a unity to his character. Take away truth. fulness, and all his virtues, if he have any, fall to the ground. In like manner, "the Truth" of Christ is the cardinal point of all the strength of Scripture. Therefore, Christ placed it in the middle. For the same reason, in the figurative dress, both of Christ (Isaiah 11), and of the Christian (Ephesians 6), "Truth" is the girdle — that which binds up and knits the power of the man. Consider — I. TRUTH WAS AN ATTRIBUTE ABOVE ALL OTHERS, ESSENTIAL TO THE OFFICES WHICH CHRIST UNDERTOOK TO FULFIL. 1. As Witness. In this character, He came from heaven to reveal and testify to men the invisible things of another world. But what is a witness without truth? 2. As the Substance of that of which the whole of the Old Testament was the shadow. But the substance of anything is "the truth" of anything. Therefore Christ is "Truth." 3. As the Founder of a faith very different from all others which ever appeared upon this earth, Its precepts are the strictest — its doctrines are the loftiest — its consolations are the strongest. Now what intense veracity did all that require in Him who propounded such a thing! If one iota or any word of His should ever fail, what would become of the whole gospel, of which He was the Author? 4. As His people's Righteousness. Truth had died out of the earth, when Christ came to re-make "truth," to be "Truth." But what must be the "truth" of Him who was to be "the Truth" of all the whole world? 5. As Judge. II. HOW DOES CHRIST BECOME "TRUTH?" 1. He is nature's "truth." The earliest record that we have of Him is, that He was that "Wisdom" which dwelt with God when He made the worlds — that Word by which all things were made. Therefore, all things which are now in the world were first ideas in the mind of Christ. And there they lay, until His willing it gave those ideas their form, and they took the material substances with which we are conversant. That is the only idea we can form of creation. 2. He is "the Truth" of God. God is a Being of perfect love. And yet, God has announced, that "every soul that sins shall perish." Can you reconcile it? And yet, if two attributes of God cannot be reconciled, where is God's "truth?" In Christ the justice is satisfied that the love may be free. 3. He is man's "Truth." There are three empires of "truth."(1) The intellectual. I doubt whether any mind ever attains the highest order of intellect without an acquaintance with Jesus Christ. For if everything took its rise, as we have seen, in the mind of Christ, then the true science of every subject must revert to Christ. (2) Moral. It is very certain that in proportion as nations have departed from Christ, they have wandered out of the orbit of "truth." And every man — as he dwells more with Christ — grows in rectitude of conduct and integrity of practice. (3) Spiritual. Every undertaking of God to His people owes its strength to Christ, when it says that "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen." (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. |
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