The Sanctity of the Truth

by Marian Trinidad

One of the underlying ideologies of our age is that of relativism.  It is fashionable in many circles to tout the notion that there are no ultimate certainties, no absolutes, no fixed rights or wrongs.  Truth is not that which exists in an objective place outside of the individual.  Truth is relative to the individual.  We each may have our own truth.  “That may be true for you but I don't see it that way.  I have my own view on the matter.  You have your truth and I have mine.” In reality no one can really live like this.  This is especially the case when a person who holds these notions becomes a victim of a crime. They will not sit around in some relativistic state wondering if they were really mugged or vandalized or had their car stolen out of their drive way.  When things like this happen we all know that a wrong has been perpetrated and where there is a wrong there must be a right. 

Truth in terms of the existence of absolute values and truth in terms of our complying with those values and having them as standards that we either follow or violate can not be so easily done away with.  This is also the case with telling the truth over against telling a lie.  Why is lying a problem?  It is a problem because it undermines the truth and truth is vital to human relationships.  This is indeed what the ninth commandment is all about.  It concerns covering over the truth so as to bring harm to my neighbor.  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  

This commandment's particular focus is that of not bearing false witness in court against someone – committing perjury that will bring harm to an accused person.  You are not to bear false witness in court by either lying or withholding the truth.   Yet this commandment also has a broader focus that forbids lying in any of our speech or actions. We are to hold to the sanctity of the truth. 

When we lie we lie in three arenas: We lie to ourselves, we lie to others and we lie to God.  Sin by its very nature is filled with darkness.  The sin that remains in us easily deceives us.  From this place deception and lies flow out of our hearts, blinding our minds and muddying the waters of all our relationships.  All of us have lied (dare I say all of us are liars!).  We do it so easily, yet we can not tolerate when people lie to us.   It is so important that we consider this problem of self-deceit in each of our hearts and lives.  As soon as you think it is not a problem in your own heart it is loose and operating.  What the Scriptures teach is that sin is deceitful and since we still have the remnants of sin within our hearts we still face the prospect of self-deceit.  Its work in our hearts not only blinds us to its presence there but it prevents us from seeing the truth that is outside of us.  In other words sin's deceitfulness blinds us to truth itself – or to what is true or real.   So we find ourselves lying – that is we find ourselves lying to ourselves, to others and to God. 

John Calvin expressed it this way: “The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.”

We can also lie for a variety of reasons but here are three: lying in order to harm another, lying to promote yourself, lying out of fear so as to protect yourself.  Whatever the motive lying or not speaking the truth is a violation of the ninth commandment.  

We need to remember that God is light and in him there is no darkness whatsoever.  If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another.  This light covers all of the virtues that God is, including the truth.   Since we have been reconciled to the God of truth his grace will indeed be working a love for the truth within our hearts.  Of this element of a believer's progressive sanctification Charles Spurgeon said, “Saints not only desire to love and speak truth with their lips, but they seek to be true within; they will not lie even in the closet of their hearts, for God is there to listen; they scorn double meanings, evasions, equivocations, white lies, flatteries, and deceptions.”  May this be increasingly true of us.

The good news is that Christ has secured forgiveness for the lies we have told and also provides grace to create within us a heart that is filled with light and loves the truth.  By God's grace to us in Christ we are able to put off the old garments of lying and deceit and put on garments of honesty and speaking the truth as we are admonished to do in Ephesians – the first garment of the transformed life is that of speaking the truth.  But that is not the way you learned Christ!-- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,  and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. (Eph 4:20-25 ESV)