Battle Of The Heart
BATTLE OF THE HEART
Pílate ... summoned Jesús and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" "Is that your own idea," Jesús asked, "or did others talk to you about me? . . . My kingdom is not of this world." . ..
"You are a king, then!" said Pílate. Jesús answered, "You say that I am a king. In fací, the reason I was born and carne into the world is to testify to the truth.
Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." "What is truth?" retorted Pílate.
JOHN 18:33-34, 36-38
he first and most important step to understanding the nature of truth is exemplified in a conversation between Jesús and Pílate. The conversation began with Pílate asking Jesús if indeed He was a king. The very surprising answer of Jesús was, "Are you asking this on your own, or has someone else set you up for this?"
In effect, Jesús was asking Pílate if this was a genuine question or purely an academic one. He was not merely checking on Pilate's sincerity. He was opening up Pilate's heart to himself, to reveal to Pílate his unwillingness to deal with the implications of Jesús' answer. In the pursuit of truth, intent is prior to content, or to the availability of it. The love of truth and the willingness to submit to its demands is the first step.
But second, Jesús said something even more extraordinary. After claiming His lordship was rooted in a kingdom that was not of this world. He said, "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." Jesús was not merely establishing the existence of truth; He was affirming His pristine embodiment of it. He was and is identical with the truth. This means that everything He said and did, and the life He lived in the flesh, represented that which was in keeping with ultímate reality. And therefore to reject Him is to choose to govern oneself with a lie.
God's answers to life's questions are not just proven by the process of abstract reasoning; they are also sustained by the rigors of experience. And in the reality of history, God has demonstrated empirically the living out of truth in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His Son.
In short, the intimations of truth come in multisensory fashion. God as guardián of reason leads us to check the correspondence of His Word with reality and to ascertain the coherence of the assertions. But our experience in life proves those truths in concrete reality. Our grand privilege is to know God and to bring our lives into conformity with truth, which leads us to that coherence within.
Jesús said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31-32). In a world increasingly enslaved by error and addiction and seduced by ideas and images to believe a lie, how wonderful to be freed by the truth of Christ's peace. The Scriptures tell us that the enemy of our souls is the father of all lies. He will do anything to keep us from coming to the truth, because it is the most valuable thing in the world and leads us to the Source of all truth, to God alone.
To all of this the skeptic might say that such conclusions may be drawn only if the God of the Bible exists. To that I heartily answer, Absolutely! And on numerous campuses around the world it has been my thrilling privilege to present a defense for the existence of God, the reality of the resurrection, and the authority of the Scriptures unique in their splendor and convincing in the truth they proclaim. But let us not miss what the skeptic unwittingly surrenders by saying that all this could be true only if God exists. Implicit in that concession is the law of noncontradiction and the law of rational inference, which exist only if truth exists. Truth, in turn, can exist only if there is an objective standard by which to measure it. That objective, unchanging absolute is God, further revealed to us in the person of Christ.
Growing up in India, I heard a story of a little boy who had lots of pretty marbles. But he was constantly eyeing his sister's bagful of candy. One day he said to her, "If you give me all your candy. Til give you all of my marbles." She gave it much thought and agreed to the trade. He took all her candy and went back to his room to get his marbles. But the more he admired them, the more reluctant he became to give them all up. So he hid the best of them under his pillow and took the rest to her. That night, she slept soundly, while he tossed and turned restlessly, unable to sleep and thinking, I wonder if she gave me all the candy?
I have often wondered, when I see our angry culture claiming that God has not
given us enough evidence, if it is not the veiled restlessness of people who live in doubt because of their own duplicity. The battle in our time is posed as one of the intellect, in the assertion that truth is unknowable. But that may be only a veneer for the real battle: the battle of the heart, which Christ alone is able to transform.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. What is the ñrst and most important step to understanding the nature of truth?
2. Why does truth demand an objective standard?
PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Jesús said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples." How will His words change your life and witness this week?
2. Can you think of a time when, like the little boy with the marbles, you withheld your best from God and wondered if He was giving you His best?
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT
CHRIST?
God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
COLOSSIANS 1:19-20
aul Tillich, the noted existentialist theologian, traveled to Asia years ago to hold conferences with various Buddhist thinkers. He was studying the signiñcance of religious leaders to the movements they had engendered. Tillich reportedly asked what if, by some fluke, the Buddha had never lived and turned out to be some sort of fabrication? What would be the implications for Buddhism? Mind you, I would conclude that Tillich was concerned with the indispensability of the Buddha—not his authenticity.
The scholars did not hesitate to answer. If the Buddha was a myth, they said, it did not matter at all. Why? Because Buddhism should be judged as an abstract philosophy—as a system of living. Whether its concepts originated with the Buddha is irrelevant. As an aside, I think the Buddha himself would have concurred. Knowing that his death was imminent, he beseeched his followers not to focus on him but to remember his teachings. Not his life but his way of life was to be attended to and propagated.
So, what of other world religions? Hinduism, as a conglomeration of thinkers and philosophies and gods, can certainly do without many of its deities. Some other major religions face the same predicament.
Is Christianity similar? Could God the Father have sent another instead of Jesús?
I say to you that the answer is most categorically No. Jesús did not merely claim to be a prophet in a continuum of prophets. He is the unique Son of God, part of the very Godhead that Christianity calis the Trinity.
The apostle Paul wrote:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Colossians 1:15-18) Moreover, Jesús Himself prayed just hours before He was to be crucified,
"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.
For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only trae God, and Jesús Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:1-3) Jesús is absolutely indispensable to Christianity—and His claims are also unique. First is His description of the human condition. He declared that the heart is in rebellion against God.
Second, Jesús offers a unique solution to the problem. The provisión He gives for you and me is utterly unique, and it is not cheap. It is the cross. This graciousness of forgiveness is not found in other worldviews. For instance. Islam says that for you to get to heaven, your good deeds will have to outweigh your bad. In other words, you pay.
When Christ comes and says to you and me that He is offering forgiveness and doing so through the payment of His life on the cross, it is an extraordinary truth.
The Bible says we need a Savior and we need forgiveness. There is only one place in the world where love, forgiveness, and justice come together, and that is at the cross. This truth of Christ's grace is unique.
Third, Jesús is unique because in Him was no sin; He lived a perfect life. Even Pontius Pilate declared, "I find no fault in this man" (Luke 23:4 kjv ).
And fourth, His resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of His uniqueness.
Christianity, therefore, is Christ. Indeed, Englishman John Stott wrote, "If Jesús was not God in human flesh, Christianity is exploded. We are left with just another religión with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics; its unique distinction has gone."
At the very heart of Christianity, Jesús is the image and the incarnation of the invisible God—the One who carne to live among us to show us God's love, perfection, and grace. And this reality changes everything.