Faithful on Fridays Blog

Absolute Truth
One of my purposes for writing this blog is to get you to think about what you believe and hopefully to increase your ability to witness to your faith. Truth is an interesting word that is actually quite controversial. Pontius Pilate, the Roman leader who pronounced the death sentence to Jesus asked the question, “What is truth?” Can something be true for you but not for me? Is it true all the time or just at certain times? I can think of a few ‘hot topics’ that truth can affect: abortion, homosexuality, lying, sex outside of marriage; I think you get the picture. With that line of questioning in mind, how does a Christian determine what is true? RC Sproul, a leading theologian of our day defined it as “God’s perception of reality.” In other words, whatever God thinks is absolute truth. How do we know what God thinks? We check the Bible and let it speak for itself; it is the Word of God.

Here are some time-honored, absolute truths that Christians must live by:

• The Bible is true; it was true, it is true, and it will be true eternally. It is inspired by God, without error, never changes, and it is our only source of authority. If you don’t believe those absolute truths about God’s written Word then the other ones are meaningless.
• Our God is one and yet in three distinct persons. Can I explain that? Not really. Theologians have been trying for 2,000 years and haven’t been able to adequately clarify that concept, yet we believe it by faith. We know from scripture that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. That is the primary way you can tell us apart from other religions and cults. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslims do not believe Jesus was God. That is an absolute truth for Christians that cannot change.
• Jesus was raised from the dead after defeating the devil and made victory in this life accessible to those who will believe and follow Him. That truth makes Him more than a prophet as other religions or cults call Him: that qualifies Him as God.
• Jesus is the only way to heaven. We don’t work our way there, it is a free gift from the Father to those who trust Him. There isn’t some cosmic balance on our shoulders, as Buddhists believe, that needs to be weighted on the side of good works. It’s a free gift from a loving God. How unique is that!

For a Christian, these are absolute truths; we won’t bend on them because they are God’s perspective on reality. If your perspective is different from God’s guess who needs to change.