Responding to Inconvenient Truth

There’s a curious exchange on truth that takes place in the book of John…

Jesus, standing before Pilate, is asked, “Are you a king?” “Yes,” Jesus replies, “and I have come into this world to bear witness of the truth. Everyone who is a friend of truth hears My voice.” In response to this inconvenient reply, Pilate asks his famous question, “What is truth?”

Two things stand out about Pilate’s reaction:

1. According to Vincent’s Word Studies in the N.T., the construction of the Greek shows that Jesus and Pilate were talking about two different kinds of truth. Jesus was talking about THE truth – absolute truth. Truth that is real, non-negotiable, not dependent on anything else. But Pilate was talking about “truth” as defined by situations. Relative truth. His response shows that he wasn’t an ardent seeker of truth; Godet calls Pilate a man of “frivolous skepticism.”
2. Pilate doesn’t stick around to hear any reply from Jesus – “and when he had said this he went out to the crowd…”

Assuming that none of us want to identify with Pilate during the upcoming sermon series entitled “An Inconvenient Truth,” I would challenge each of us to be very un-Pilate-like in our response. That means no hiding behind nonsensical questions when we get uncomfortable. No splitting hairs and wheedling around the promptings of the Holy Spirit. No, it’s not like that any of us will storm out of the sanctuary when things get uncomfortable. But we may be inclined to inwardly turn on our heel and go out to poll the opinion of the crowd, as Pilate did. To evade and rationalize rather than stick around to face the hard truth and adjust accordingly.

When you think about it, no one was more inconvenienced by the truth than Jesus Christ was. The reality of God’s love and purpose meant the incarnation and the cross and the grave. It meant becoming man and becoming sin and becoming (even after the ascension) Intercessor for us, the transgressors. If He could face and embrace the truth in the face of those kinds of consequences, by God’s grace so can we.

Besides, there’s something wonderful about sincerely welcoming truth and then sticking around to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He works it into your life. I think it has something to do with Jesus’ statement: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32 NIV).

May freedom come to many of us over the next weeks at FAC.