It is good to remind ourselves that it is the truth of the gospel which sets us free. Recently, Mike Lynch wrote in Eternity Magazine:
“Christianity is much more than a powerful story. It is not a myth that embodies deep primordial truths about the human existential experience. It is not even the offer of a narrative to bring you meaning. Although it does involve a powerful story that resonates with realities that we continue to experience as human beings, the history of the Bible and the central story of Jesus are significantly more than useful information containing relevant ideas.
Christianity is first and foremost the offer of truth—facts and history that can bring you into what is true and right. As much as it appears to be mythic and religious truth, the Bible presents Christianity as actual, factual truth, historical, and real in relation to this world”.
It’s a powerful sentence, “Christianity is first and foremost the offer of truth”. The Apostle Peter writes, “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty” (1 Pet 1:16). Why does Peter believe that the gospel is not just another story? On the basis there is truth outside ourselves which is not discoverable by human reason. God offers us a truth whose source is outside the realm of our own experience. Jesus affirms this thought, “The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard … whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God“ (Jn 3:31-33).
The gospel is nothing if it is not true. For this reason, the Bible doesn’t leave us to ponder the truth in an historical vacuum. Indeed, the Gospel of John is particularly interested in the nature of truth. The miracles that John records really happened. They are historically true. Jesus did turn water into wine (Jn 2:1-11) and he did heal the officials son (Jn 4:43-54).
But truth is more than historical facts. John describes the miracles of Jesus as signs pointing to a greater reality (e.g. Jn 2:11, 54). While the world tells us that religious faith is an irrational way of avoiding the truth, Jesus says that faith in him is the ultimate means of acquiring truth, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). Knowing Jesus is knowing the truth about reality.
These days “truth” is a big deal. Expressions have been coined like “fake news” and “alternative facts” to exploit the view that truth is a relative quantity conditioned by the eye of the beholder. We are told we live in a “post-truth” world. This is terribly disorientating. We praise God that Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) is answered in the person of the Lord Jesus.