What Is Truth?
A question that has spanned the centuries, sending ships, planes, and spaceships around the globe in explorations of discovery. It is a ubiquitous question with a multitude of answers. Humans have written prose, scripts, theological propositions, laws, essays, books, and movies, trying to explain, find, explore, and uncover it.
A recent Barna Research Group survey on what Americans believe asked the question, “Is there absolute Truth?” Sixty-six percent of adults responded that they believe that “there is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct," with seventy-two percent of those aged 18 to 25 expressing this belief.1
One side argues that truth is whatever you believe it to be, and the other side screams, “This is absolute truth!”
This dissonance spurs me to look at Jesus’ words and reaction to the question, “What is Truth?” by Pilate in the Gospels, specifically: Matthew 27:11-26; Mark 15:1-15; Luke 23:1-40; John 18:28-40
Rewind 2000 years. Jesus has come to the end of his 3-year ministry. He stands before Pilate (a governor, three levels below Caesar of Rome, ruler of the most expansive and powerful empire in the world), convicted and ready for a sentence of death by crucifixion or possibly just a sentence of scourging (John 19:1). In digging into John’s account of the dialogue, we see the interaction as it plays out.
Pilate: What charges do you bring against this man?
Priests and Officials: If He weren’t a lawbreaker, we wouldn’t have brought Him to you.
Pilate: Then judge Him yourselves, by your own law.
Jews: Our authority does not allow us to give Him the death penalty.
All these things were a fulfillment of the words Jesus had spoken, indicating the way that He would die. So Pilate reentered the governor’s palace and called for Jesus to follow him.
Pilate: Are You the King of the Jews?
Jesus: Are you asking Me because you believe this is true, or have others said this about Me?
Pilate: I’m not a Jew, am I? Your people, including the chief priests, have arrested You and placed You in my custody. What have You done?
Jesus: My kingdom is not recognized in this world. If this were My kingdom, My servants would be fighting for My freedom. But My kingdom is not in this physical realm.
Pilate: So You are a king?
Jesus: You say that I am king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the cosmos: to demonstrate the power of truth. Everyone who seeks truth hears My voice.
Pilate (to Jesus): What is truth?
Pilate left Jesus to go and speak to the Jewish people.
Pilate (to the Jews): I have not found any cause for charges to be brought against this man. Your custom is that I should release a prisoner to you each year in honor of the Passover celebration; shall I release the King of the Jews to you?
Jews: No, not this man! Give us Barabbas!
You should know that Barabbas was a terrorist.
Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged. The soldiers twisted thorny branches together as a crown and placed it onto His brow and wrapped Him in a purple cloth. They drew near to Him, shouting:
Soldiers (striking at Jesus): Bow down, everyone! This is the King of the Jews!
Pilate (going out to the crowd): Listen, I stand in front of you with this man to make myself clear: I find this man innocent of any crimes.
Then Jesus was paraded out before the people, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Pilate: Here is the man!
Chief Priests and Officers (shouting): Crucify, crucify!
Pilate: You take Him and crucify Him; I have declared Him not guilty of any punishable crime!
Jews: Our law says that He should die because He claims to be the Son of God.
Pilate was terrified to hear the Jews making their claims for His execution; so he retired to his court, the Praetorium.
Pilate (to Jesus): Where are You from?
Jesus did not speak.
Pilate: How can You ignore me? Are You not aware that I have the authority either to free You or to crucify You?
Jesus: Any authority you have over Me comes from above, not from your political position. Because of this, the one who handed Me to you is guilty of the greater sin.
Pilate listened to Jesus’ words. Taking them to heart, he attempted to release Jesus; but the Jews opposed him, shouting:
Jews: If you release this man, you have betrayed Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king threatens Caesar’s throne.
After Pilate heard these accusations, he sent Jesus out and took his seat in the place where he rendered judgment. This place was called the Pavement, or Gabbatha in Hebrew. All this occurred at the sixth hour on the day everyone prepares for the Passover.
Pilate (to the Jews): Look, here is your King!
Jews: Put Him away; crucify Him!
Pilate: You want me to crucify your King?
Chief Priests: We have no king but Caesar!
Pilate handed Him over to his soldiers, knowing that He would be crucified. They sent Jesus out carrying His own instrument of execution, the cross, to a hill known as the Place of the Skull, or Golgotha in Hebrew. In that place, they crucified Him along with two others. One was on His right and the other on His left. Pilate ordered that a plaque be placed above Jesus’ head. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Because the site was near an urban region, it was written in three languages (Greek, Latin, and Hebrew) so that all could understand.
Chief Priests (to Pilate): Don’t write, “The King of the Jews.” Write, “He said, ‘I am King of the Jews’!”
Pilate: I have written what I have written.
This silence of Jesus, specifically when Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Is curious. I turned to the other Gospel accounts to see if they offered more clarity. They don’t. Each of the writers preserves only a small portion of this exchange. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus speaks a few words or remains altogether silent. It is John’s Gospel that gives us the most textured rendering of the scene. John traces Pilate’s movement: from interrogation to confusion, to a nervous attempt at compromise, and finally to surrender; handing Jesus over to the hoard, to the bloodthirsty soldiers, to the machinery of crucifixion.
I can't help but go back to Isaiah here, in particular Isaiah 53, where we see a prophecy of the Messiah, and we can only suppose, Jesus, a trained Rabbi, knew the words, the prophetic message by heart.
Isaiah 53
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
make many to be accounted righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
Yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
Jesus had spoken of truth, then Pilate asks about it, and then… nothing. No reply, no clarification, just silence. N.T. Wright observes that Jesus’ silence before Pilate is not ambiguity, but eschatology.
“Jesus’ refusal to answer Pilate is not a sign of weakness or evasion. It is the continuation of his kingdom-announcement by other means: a refusal to accept the terms of the debate as set by the empire, and a silent assertion that real power looks wounded, vulnerable, but entirely truthful.”2
And as Frederick Buechner once wrote, “God’s silence is not absence. It’s presence that terrifies, presence that will not be turned into words.”3
Jesus' silence, then, is not failure to speak; it is Truth refusing to be reduced to placate the masses. That is, Pilate asked a question that cannot be answered propositionally, or with a PR blurb. Jesus, standing there bloodied and resolute, is the answer.
Truth from the pulpit
While Jesus remained silent, the Church has not. The Church has championed itself as the purveyor of Truth. If you've grown up in church, you've more than likely heard many strong definitions of truth. Maybe they sounded something like this:
The truth has set you free! Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and if you believe in Him you will have everlasting life!
Truth is the word of God, the Bible! And one must believe in the inerrant truth of the Good Book to have eternal life.
Jesus is the Son of God, and only through accepting Him as your personal Saviour and Lord can you be promised eternal life in Paradise. This is the Truth!
And, while most of these statements are somewhat true (pun intended), they lack integrity.
They lack integrity because they’ve often been weaponized. Stripped of story, mystery, and relationship, they've become transactional slogans. Truth has become a marketing strategy, shorthand for "we have the answers" in a world seeking the right path forward. Instead of drawing us into The Way of Jesus, these cliches can be used to draw a line between insiders and outsiders, the saved and the unsaved, the right and the wrong, the eternal and the damned. They are platitudes asking for agreement, a head nod, an Amen from the pews, but not transformation; they do not spur worshippers toward surrender and service.
I like Karl Barth's sentiment that truth is inerrant and can be found inherently in the Bible. Though he says it in theological dialectic, "The Bible is God's Word to the extent that God causes it to be His Word, to the extent that He speaks through it." 4
Truth Absolutely
There are two interpretations of Pilate’s question to Jesus: “What is truth?” One way to read it is to see Pilate as a pawn of the Roman Empire, deeply aware of the political climate of rule and order, and perhaps even familiar with the practical realities of relativism. He governs a region shaped by many religions, cultures, and competing claims to truth. So, his question may have been rhetorical, spoken in a patronizing tone:
"You know better, Jesus. You know there are many truths, and yours is but one under the absolute truth of Roman rule."
The other interpretation is that Pilate was curious, seeking a definition of Absolute Truth, one that could stand up against the Roman Empire. A truth he could understand, harness, and perhaps even profit from. A potential weapon he could wield to increase his power, control, and possible ascension. If Jesus had made his ruling elite this angry, rabid for his execution, then he could assume, the truth Jesus carried was powerful and threatening.
So, there is a possibility that Pilate, thinking like an alchemist, was searching for the kind of truth that could transmute an unruly crowd into something useful, something he could exploit to maintain his position or expand his influence.
Yet, we already know, this is not the Truth of Jesus. His is a more radical definition that transcends the political and religious structures of yesterday and today. His Truth is subversive, countercultural, and powerful, which has the potential to create a new kingdom on this earth with followers who serve their neighbor, tend to the sick, and share their bounty. This truth is accessible to the wealthy and the widow, the prostitute and the tax collector. Walter Brueggemann again says it so well in Truth Speaks to Power:
“The key players, it turns out, are those who refuse to be credentialed or curbed by traditional modes of power, who understand that the transformative power of truth is not a credible companion for consolidating modes of established power, but that truth characteristically runs beyond the confines of such power."5
Our truth, it seems, is contained in the story of a man called Jesus.
Who was born of a virgin, healed the sick, spoke against power, spent time with sinners, was falsely accused, was flogged and ridiculed, then was crucified. He was laid to rest in a rich man's tomb. Three days later, he rose from the dead, bore witness for 40 days, and then ascended into the heavens. He left behind a witness, the Spirit of Truth, who resides in the hearts of His followers. Jesus lived, lives, and leads.
The truth is Jesus. Absolutely.
Sources
1. Barna Research Group. “Americans Are Most Likely to Base Truth on Feelings.” 2002. (Or insert updated source/year if more current data is used.)
- N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 475.
- Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), s.v. “Silence.”
- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 463.
- Walter Brueggemann, Truth Speaks to Power: The Countercultural Nature of Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 3.