truth – Simply True

Life forever. What does it look like?

There are some things in life we can live without—lots of them really. But there’s one thing we can’t do without—eternal life. John writes a letter in our New Testament, especially so we can be sure we have eternal life (1 John 5:13-21).

This life forever is not just living after we die. It’s personally knowing the God who made everything—and knowing him as our Father (John 17:3). And this is what Jesus promises to those who believe he is God’s Son (John 10:28).

We need this sense of permanence and of knowing our Maker, not just when our time comes to die, but for everyday living. We need it so we can be who we really are. Those who don’t know God as their Father, and who expect to be simply snuffed out after a few decades are not really ready to live (Hebrews 2:15).

We have a sense of eternity built into us (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Whole cultures and religions grow up around this reality, as well as many vague ideas. So, we need to know what is true.

Jesus shows us that the alternative to having eternal life is perishing or remaining under God’s judgement (John 3:14-18). He tells us he will be ‘lifted up’—a reference to his crucifixion—and that we need to look to him. Only Jesus, who has dealt with death, can promise eternal life and this is why we need to confess that he is God’s Son.

From one point of view this is very simple. We read or hear about Jesus. We are drawn to him. We believe God has sent him to us, that he is his Son. We are persuaded that he is speaking to us in love (John 6:68). We believe him. And we have eternal life.

But then, it’s not so simple. None of us comes to Christ naturally. It’s a gift (Matthew 11:27; John 10:29). If you find yourself confessing that Jesus is God’s Son, it’s because God has shown this to you, and drawn you to himself.

When this happens, everything in this life has an eternal feel to it. Nothing is just going to be snuffed out—not us, not what we’ve done, and not the relationships we have shared with others who have eternal life.

So, John is writing his letter to say we can be sure we have eternal life—that is, everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son. John tells us three things about this eternal life—how it works out in three particular circumstances. (The references below are to this passage.)

First, when we pray. Second, when we see fellow Christians sinning. Third, when the world calls our faith fairy tales. Any of these things can threaten our confidence that we actually have eternal life.

So, first. We can expect God to hear our prayers (vv. 14-15). If we ask for things in line with God’s purposes, we will get what we have asked for.

If we want to work for a particular company, or play for a certain club, we would find out what they want, how they work, what their goals are. Then, we would throw ourselves into help make this happen.

It’s like this with our praying. We’ve found that God is trustworthy and generous. We know him as our Father. So, we find out what he is about, and then ask for things that fit his plan. And things happen.

This is deeply satisfying and very useful. But it’s also eternal—that is, what happens will be not just create history. It will be immortalized in God’s coming kingdom (Mathew 25:37-40; Revelation 14:13).

Then, second. We might be anxious when we see a fellow Christian caught up in some wrong-doing. But we can tell the difference between a sin that is fatal and one that isn’t (vv. 16-18).

Putting it simply, a person who commits a sin that leads to death doesn’t have eternal life. That’s obvious. But John has already told us that Christians do sin (1:8; 2:1) and feel guilty (3:20). But some sins don’t lead to death. And our prayers at this point can make a difference.

An example may help. Peter denies Jesus after promising that he will be faithful. Clearly, he sins.

But Jesus has already told him that he will pray for him—that his faith will not fail (Luke 22:32). He also anticipates his repentance and future helpfulness to other Christians. His sin does not cause him to lose eternal life. It isn’t a sin that results in death.

A sin that leads to death is one we won’t confess (1:9). It’s one we won’t believe Jesus dies for (2:1). It’s one we have no real intention of stopping (3:8-10).

But, if you or I have been drawn to Christ, we have been born into the Father’s family and can’t keep on sinning. We hate what we’ve done. We run to Christ, are washed clean and eagerly desire to remain so.

It’s only by knowing God and walking honestly before him that we can recognise the difference between sins. But any sinning remains dangerous. So, we pray for one another as Jesus prayed for Peter. I’m sure there are fellow Christians who have seen me playing with fire, and prayed that my faith would not fail.

Eternal life enables us to share with God in his great project to save his people. We pray. God gives life. Satan can’t ‘get to’ this person and take them captive.

And third. We can know we are genuine or real when the world calls our faith a fairy tale (vv. 19-20). Eternal life come to us with its own built-in authenticity.

John says there are three things we know are real. Translations usually read ‘true’ here but the word actually means real. [There are two Greek words for true: alétheia—the opposite of false, and aléthinos—the opposite of unreal. This is aléthinos.]

Christians know God. They know he is real. They understand that all reality begins with him and with our confession that this is so.

The world begins with what it can see and control. That’s what it calls real. Everything else, they say, arises from that—things like ideas, beliefs, ideologies and laws.

But the reality is that God has made the world. He is what is real. Everything else exists because he makes it. It’s the opposite of what the world is saying. Encountering God as Father through Jesus breaks through this lie and shows us God who is true, or real.

Then, we are in him who is true. This is because eternal life is a relationship. We don’t just know about God. We know him. And we know he knows us. We live in his presence and by his speaking and his loving.

If there is any reality about a Christian, this is it. We have all messed things up—badly. And we go on getting things wrong. Our reality is not what we are, or what we may promise to be. Just ask Peter.

Our genuineness is from being in him who is true (John could mean God or Jesus). For example, love is not from us. It’s from God (4:10).

It’s God who is real. And what he makes shares in that reality (3:9; 4:4-6). Our whole life is what it is because of Jesus Christ (cf. John 7:37-39). Nothing else can last forever.

That’s why we need Jesus to have eternal life. Only Christ can stand before God and hold his head high. We need to know and confess that he is the Son of God—the one who washes us clean with his blood.

Satan, by clever talk and deception presents an opposite view of what is real—but it’s only ideas—an ideology.

The world looks at us and only sees a human being but our life is ‘coming down’ from God. We can see the God who is real, and live in him. That’s reality! And all this happens simply by confessing that Jesus is God’s Son.

So, don’t settle for idols which are have no real correspondence to what is real (v. 21). They can’t offer eternal life.

The whole human race is divided into two groups—those who know God is real and that their life comes from God, and the rest of the world which ‘lies in the power of the evil one’.

Here’s how the comparison works out. Jesus is totally real. He has come, and has given understanding—the verbs indicate something that goes on being effective. Jesus is entirely authentic—unselfish, holy and powerful.

But Satan is pure sleight of hand, ambition and pride. Well may we shudder over what Satan is capable of and of what it means to be in his power (John 12:31).

So, let’s trust in the name of the Son of God. He has come, given us understanding to know the real God, and be in the real God through his Son. He is the real God and eternal life.

3—Being true really matters

This series of articles all have to do with being ready to live, and ready to live in the real world. We’ve seen that this arena is not just the one we can see. There are ‘heavenly places’ where we relate to God and know his blessing. It’s a place where Christ reigns. And it’s also a place where Satan works with hateful constancy.

Paul says we need to be strong and stand our ground (Ephesians 6:10-13). And our first line of defence is truth.

An editorial in this morning’s paper claims that lies have become a way of public life in Australia. It says that much of what we hear is carefully crafted (it’s now a major industry), not to inform, but to exert power.

But lies are not the way to win in the real world we are in. We need truth!

Notice that it’s not a truth that originates from us. Paul uses imagery that shows we pick it up and put it on. What is this truth? Paul doesn’t leave us guessing.

Truth is Jesus himself (4:20-21). He’s come to our world and said what is true. But he’s also lived it. His goodness is real. And his love is real. And it has encompassed us, and saved us. Where truth is concerned, we have to start with him.

It would be worthwhile reading one of the Gospels through, and ask if this man Jesus is true. Paul is saying, we’ve heard about him, we’re surrounded by him—heard him speak in a way. In this way, we’ve discovered that the truth is in Jesus.

Our Lord towers over the make-believe, the ideologies, the excuses and straight out lies that make up so much of what we see and hear around us. Many have given up believing there is such a thing as ‘truth’. So, there’s nothing that can tie us together as a community. Nothing that can lift us out of the world we’ve imagined.

Compare this with Jesus. He challenges people to prove him to be false—a bold public claim. And he calls the devil the father of liars (John 8:44-47). He tells Pilate, in court, that he has come into the world to reveal the truth and that everyone who is true will come to him (John 18:37).

In the process, Jesus exposes us all as sinners, but he loves us and brings us to God. That’s not only the truth of Christ. It’s now the truth about us as well (John 3:20-21).

The Lord knows we don’t have the ‘stomach’ for this battle—in this case, the battle to live truly. Prophecies have told us how God clothes himself in righteousness (a breastplate) and salvation (a helmet), and deals with the godlessness himself (Isaiah 59:16-20). He intervenes.

In fact, the Lord comes to us as our King, wearing righteousness as a belt and faithfulness (or truth) around his waist (Isaiah 11:1-5). In other words, God must take up the fight or we are lost. And he sends Jesus to do the job, wearing righteousness and truth.

It’s ‘no secret that this intervention is done by Jesus on his cross (see Isaiah 53:12). It’s here that he goes to war with Satan and disables the apparatus—the lies and the accusations—that Satan uses against us (Colossians 2:15).

So, here’s an end to our self-importance and self-justification. These are the things that stop us speaking the truth to each other. They make us unreal. They lead to conflict or withdrawal from meaningful relationships. But now, our inclination to massage the truth, to make it palatable to our ego, or to further our ambition, is gone.

We can acknowledge we are unworthy sinners whom God has loved and for whom Jesus has died. In the light of this, we can speak the truth to each other (4:15, 25). Because we’ve lost our need to be the one who is right, we can see and speak about things as they are.

We’re free to say we were wrong. We can enjoy what others are doing. We can disagree without ceasing to love. We can investigate something that is new. We are free—in the truth!

Our truth telling doesn’t need to be brutal—exposure for the sake of being factual. It comes from the perspective of Christ being Lord. It’s about what will build up another person, not what will tear them down (Colossians 4:5-6). It’s about what will heal a community, not what will serve a party interest.

It’s important to actually do this! Apart from Christ, our life is a lie, and Satan will use this to his own advantage. But if we receive Christ as our truth, and stand in him, and relate to others by him, Satan is foiled. And wonderfully, a community is born where people live for each other rather than for themselves.

We’re doing something real, in the real world—and something that’s eternal.

Don’t bear false witness

Being misrepresented by someone is painful. But here, the Lord is speaking to us and forbids lying that harms a neighbour. This may happen in lots of ways—like giving false evidence in a court, or expressing opinions in conversations or in tweets on social media.

Everyone’s reputation is important to the Lord. He has told us not to take his name in vain, but now he says everyone’s name is valuable to him. No-one should be smeared with lies or tainted by suggestions. Neither should anyone be misled by flattery.

Because of our tendency to fabricate facts to suit ourselves, Israel is told that two or more witnesses must concur in their stories before condemning anyone (Deuteronomy 19:15).

Being honest may not be as simple as it sounds. Think about David lying about his affair with Bathsheba. Think about Peter not wanting to be linked with Jesus. Think about our explanations of what happened when a window is broken. I can remember mine when I was in early primary school: ‘I threw a stone in the air and the wind blew it into the window.’ We’ll try anything!

Lies of all descriptions create cynicism and leave us distant from one another. They certainly don’t make a strong community.

But it’s not easy to simply report what is true—without bias that favours ourselves. Why do we find it so hard?

We need to go back a long way to answer this, but it gets to the heart of the problem.

We go back to Adam and Eve. Satan suggests to them that God is not good. Much later, Jesus calls him ‘the father of lies’ (John 8:44). In other words, our lying come from this daddy of all liars.

Once God’s goodness is questioned, other lies start to appear. Adam and Eve run with Satan’s lie, and immediately, know they’re in trouble. They begin massaging the facts to suit their now vulnerable situation (Genesis 3:11-13).

When we deny the truth about God, we are guilty, even if we don’t call it that, and need to reframe the facts to make it appear that someone else is the problem and not us.

We need to find a way to be confident. This should come from God, but if it doesn’t, we have to find something else to be proud of. We take credit for things we don’t cause. Ambition drives us to ‘boast and be false to the truth’ (James 3:14). It becomes natural, even expected. We seek out communities that allow us to live this way.

Because of this, truth ceases to be considered important, both in private and public affairs, and people who try to be honest get defrauded. The Lord is not happy (Isaiah 59:14-15)!

But nothing we do changes the fact that we should be true—inwardly (Psalm 51:6). This is what David knows when he is caught trying to lie his way out of sexual abuse—and worse. He lies to his subjects, and deceives himself. Then a true witness comes to confront him with the truth. And he is devastated. He knows he will have to be washed clean.

If we give false testimony, we’ve tangled with God, and he is going to have to undo the mess we’ve got ourselves into. Falsehood dies hard!

If you read the story of Jesus you find a very different human being from ourselves. He is the truth—of who God is (John 14:6). He’s also the truth of what a human being should be. We could say, he’s real! There’s nothing phoney about him anywhere.

A group of officers are sent to arrest Jesus. They return with no prisoner and say, ‘No one ever spoke like this man’ (John 7:46). Other enemies approach him with flattering words, hoping to hear something they can use against him. They leave—rebuked and humbled (Matthew 22:15-22).

Jesus exposes who we are. That’s not comfortable! But then, Jesus has come ‘full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14; 14:6)—not just cold, forbidding truth, but truth that has come to heal. This is this truth that sets us free (John 8:32).

Only Jesus can release us from the crippling need to defend or exult ourselves—and he does this by acknowledging the truth about us before the Father, and dying in our place. And he rises from the dead to announce a new truth about everyone who trusts him. We are exposed, and forgiven.

Jesus has unmasked the lie Satan told. God is good. And he has undone the terrible web of untruth we spin.

Jesus has created a new life we can share. We can live the truth, in love (Ephesians 4:15, 21, 25). This is not just refraining from lies but actively revealing the truth in love, that is, in such a way as will do most good. Paul says plainly, ‘…each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body’ (Ephesians 4:25).

God has renewed a right spirit within us, as he did for David, so, we can speak the truth, in love. And the fruit of this will be a community that works, and trusts and grows.