What Can I Make The Bible Say? "God's Truth"

I would like to address the concept of truth. There is a saying that has been bandied around for a long time and it goes like this: “All truth is God’s truth.” Perhaps upon first blush that saying sounds right, but is it? What is it actually implying? And how are some well-meaning Christians falling victim into thinking that there is any veracity behind it?

Where does the Bible fit in? It fits when the concept and definition of truth is questioned or made to be defined by human standards, and then the Bible is forced to conform to those standards. The Bible mentions the word truth 235 times in the KJV. That is to say nothing of correlating terms. But before we get to these instances, we must first delve into what the saying implies about truth, and how it pertains to God. There are unspoken assertions attached to this saying, which one tends to tacitly or unwittingly agree to, if proper thought isn’t given to the nature of the statement. Anything found to be “true,” outside of Scripture's confined revelatory passages is zealously construed as God’s truth, a divine truth conveyed through a medium outside of Scripture. Granted, even Scripture itself does concede that there is a real aspect to natural revelation. Creation and human conscience both witness to God’s existence and power in human experience, Romans 1:20, Psalm 19:1.

That being said these witnesses point toward the truth. And what may be known of God or His purpose for humanity may not be discerned from natural science or human contemplation. So then, this saying speaks to the deficiencies of the Bible insofar as we claim that religious institutes, secular psychology, Darwinian Evolution, et al. may contribute in bringing what is true to mankind through mediums outside of and contrary to God’s revealed word. Not all truth is God’s truth. And more importantly, the Bible is specific about its purpose and definition of what we ought to understand when it uses the term. It isn’t talking about mathematics, mechanics, or architecture; it is sixty-six books, written by the Holy Spirit, to reveal to mankind our lost estate, God’s merciful, loving, omnipotent existence, and His plan to redeem humanity through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, the truth the Bible so often speaks of–especially in correlation to the Lord–is spiritual truth.

We find the first use of the term in Genesis 24. We read, “Then the man bowed down his head and worshiped the Lord. And he said, “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His mercy and His truth toward my master,” Genesis 24:26, 27. The Psalmist adds, “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed,” Psalm 85:10. In the first instance, Abraham’s servant rejoices in God’s fidelity; he prayed to the Lord for an answer for Isaac and the future of God’s promise to Abraham and his seed, and God fulfilled it. The Psalmist waited for God to speak and knew His words would be peace and salvation to those who obey Him. The truth in Scripture seems to be bound to what leads to the spiritual good of humanity; this of course also delves into the ethical and moral nature of mankind. Who we are, the choices we make, the actions we take, the words we speak and how they influence those around us, these are moral issues to which the Bible says much. It involves man’s character: the invisible qualities of the human soul that do not have a physical, material counterpart and therefore fall into a realm of governance that surpasses psychiatry and religion (physically mired self-improvement programs) or Evolutionary theory (an amoral system that utterly lacks explanatory power) which does not and cannot provide answers to human thought, emotion, and the immaterial aspects that comprise a clearly spiritual creature.

Again, when the Bible attaches the term truth to God, it is a revelation of His nature and the life He designed and desires His believing children to adhere to when we turn from sin and the world to Him. Paul records a very important passage that clarifies Biblical truth from anything else we want to label as “God’s truth.” “These things we speak, not in words which human wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Corinthians 2:13, 14. The Holy Spirit, protecting His word from willful abuse, sets up a litmus test about the acquisition of genuine truth versus human wisdom. First we must possess the Holy Spirit, who leads us into what the Lord Jesus described as, “all truth,” John 16:13. The Holy Spirit, who is God, may only be received upon believing the gospel of truth, Ephesians 1:13. This is why the natural man (i.e. the unsaved man) cannot know the things of God. Only God may reveal them, and He only imparts this knowledge to those who are His children through faith in Christ. This immediately excludes any source of “truth” that violates this clear definition, meant to safeguard the believer from error.

Jesus our Lord told Thomas, “I am…the truth,” John 14:6. In this same statement, He added, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” He emphasized this to Pilate when He said, “I have come into this world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice,” John 18:37. Christ is the ultimate authority on what is true in matters of eternity, Heaven, the human soul, and salvation. He is the truth. He is the world’s Savior and the only way to God. This is what Scripture addresses when it speaks of truth in regard to God. It is not rudimentary fact (ex. 1+1=2). It is not godless pseudo-science like modern psychology and Darwinian Evolution, the founders–and thus foundations–rejecting and some even hating God and the Bible. These theories actively compete with the Bible to usurp or undermine its claims and credibility; and to their devious and Satanic credit, have done much to harm Christian confidence in Scripture and mislead generations into error. 

Psychology treats the human condition like a stimulus response machine that can be reprogrammed and/or repaired; Evolution treats us like an amoral animal whose brain chemistry became a little more robust than lesser life forms. Thoughts are the collisions of atoms in the brain, giving the illusion of free-will, abstract thoughts, and the fantasy of life outside of universal entropic extinction. Both speak to the spiritual condition of humankind, either directly or indirectly.

The Hebrew word for truth is, “emeth.” It simply means stability or certainty and can be translated as, “right.”

When the Biblical writers employ the term, they are speaking about sure and certain things that are construed as right. As in objectively and universally true or correct, regardless of the era, intelligence or background of the individual. The Bible sheds the light of truth on anyone exposed to it, and it becomes our burden to contend with it when we have been so exposed. Jesus said of the Father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth,” John 17:17. The Psalmist writes, “I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name,” Psalm 138:2. God magnifies His word, as we have it in Scripture, above His own name. The apostles inform us that, in the Bible we have all that we need for life and godliness, that we as Christians may be thoroughly equipped by it, 2 Peter 1:3, 2 Timothy 3:16, 17. Jesus our Lord testified that the only revelation of truth that can transform humanity and make them right with God (and therefore right with one another) is the Bible. This is God’s truth. By it we are sanctified, and it is magnified by God Himself, an endorsement that any conscientious Christian would do well to heed.

In summary, the saying that all truth is God’s truth is, ironically, a lie. It is a brazen and thinly veiled effort to not-so-subtly sanctify human wisdom so that it is endorsed by the world and sadly the church to supplement or even supplant Scripture as the authority on what is right in the daily lives of mankind. Such “truth” is actually the, “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” Romans 1:18. It is a toxic medicine, a misdiagnosis from a charlatan physician that is not trained or equipped to administer an actual remedy because they refuse to enter the school where the lessons are freely given. Truth is precious and it is worth contending for, Jude 3. It is the instrument that liberates men from sin and spiritual death, John 8:31, 32. Christians are to gird our waist with truth as we contend with the spiritual evil that vies for the souls of men, Ephesians 6:12, 14. But if we, professing Christians, do not believe that God’s word is entirely true, or that it needs to be propped up with modern truth, of that modern truth has revealed falsehoods that crept into Scripture, we are useless to God and men, and undoubtedly are a laughingstock to Satan and his angels. They have divested us of our armor because we chose to believe that human knowledge equates into spiritual truth, or worse yet, we have capitulated to the enemy and simply handed it over in our efforts to be academically admired, socially acceptable, or theologically broadminded. And that, my brethren, is a painful truth.