F. B. Hole.
(Truth for the Last Days Series. No.10.)
When the fulness of time came and it pleased God to give a perfect revelation of Himself in Christ, then it could be said "We beheld His glory … full of grace and truth," (John 1:14), for truth is REALITY — the revelation of all that God is, with the consequent putting of everything into its right position in regard to Him. He who knows God as revealed in Christ, and is by that knowledge taken out of the mists of error, has been brought into the realm of truth.
The word of God is truth and right through the New Testament books "truth" is mentioned, yet the word occurs with special frequency in the Gospel and Epistles of the apostle John and in the first and second Epistles to Timothy. Inasmuch as these are amongst the latest of the New Testament writings, this shows us that when error began to raise its head within the church the Spirit of God began to emphasize "truth." In contrast with the error the "truth" aspect of Christianity was brought to the fore.
In the world-system truth is absent. There are to be found of course honest men who would not wilfully tell a lie, yet what marks the world is unreality, and apart from the revelation of God we speculate and grope in the dark but never arrive at the reality of things. When Pilate asked his question "What is truth?" (John 18:38), he evidently spoke in a cynical vein. As a Roman Governor, yet himself not above pandering to popular clamour and being perverted by monetary considerations, he knew only too well what went on beneath the surface.
When he found himself in the presence of Truth Incarnate he ejaculated his question with the air of one who knew that truth was not to be arrived at in this world, and he hurried on without pausing for a reply. We can well understand his feelings.
If we know anything of the world to-day with all its complexity we may well ask the same question. Men incessantly reason and argue and strive and arrive at most contradictory conclusions. What is truth in the political sphere? — or in the commercial? — or the national? — or the scientific? Of the last take one small branch only and ask, What is medical truth? We are at once plunged into the contradictory assertions of rival schools. Each can show something in their favour and each can be convicted of many a failure by those who oppose. Those who know most would most readily admit that while they gain a glimmering of light and knowledge the reality, the true character of things, evades them.
Now God has been manifested here on earth and this is specially set before us in John's writings, hence the frequent occurrence of the word "truth" there. That revelation has reached us in the Lord Jesus Christ who could say, "I am the truth" inasmuch as He could also say, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." He it is who makes God real to us and perfectly expresses all that He is, and hence we have in the knowledge of Christ the key that unlocks all reality everywhere.
Moreover, "the Spirit of truth," (1 John 5:6) for He it is who makes effective in our hearts all that is objectively set before our eyes in Christ.
By the knowledge of Christ, by the indwelling and teaching of the Spirit, by the apprehension of the Father's word in all its sanctifying power, we are brought into a world of reality as far as our minds and hearts are concerned. Presently we shall enter into it in glorified bodies, now we know it by faith.
The second and third Epistles of John have a very distinct place in this connection. In both of them the truth is seen to be the touchstone of everything. In the second we learn that we are to guard it by whole-hearted refusal of what undermines it or denies it. In the third that we are to be fellow-helpers to it by heartily-identifying ourselves with those who maintain and propagate it, The truth is the touchstone of everything because it is the foundation stone of everything.
Moreover the truth "dwells in us and shall be with us for ever." (2 John 2). This connects itself with what we have just seen. The Spirit who dwells in us is the Spirit of truth and hence the truth dwells in us. For ever we shall be with Christ who is the Truth and hence the truth shall be with us for ever. But then of course the truth that may be spoken of as dwelling in us, since we possess the Spirit of truth, is intended to characterize us and find a proper expression in us, so much so that others may observe it and be able if necessary to testify to it.
To the elect lady of the second epistle the word was "I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father."
To Gaius the apostle said, "I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in truth." (3 John 3). By the energy of the Spirit he was characterized by the truth — that is, his character was formed by it, and consequently it practically governed his life — he walked in truth. It was this walking in truth that evidenced to the brethren that the truth was in him, and so they were able to bear witness to that fact.
How important all this is we can see by the apostle's further words, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." The joys of the Christian are so many and so great that the words "I have no greater joy" bear eloquent testimony to the importance that walking in truth had in his estimation. When that was fulfilled in his children his joy overflowed.
Walking may be spoken of as the simplest and most primitive activity of the human race. It naturally therefore symbolizes activity. To walk in truth is to have all one's activities — one's thinkings, speakings, goings, doings, all one's movements of mind or body — governed by and in keeping with all that world of reality which finds its centre in God Himself revealed in the Lord Jesus, and its circumference in the furthest reaches of His will and word. A lofty standard this, truly: yet not too lofty, nor is it impracticable. We may walk through a world of unrealities governed by realities which are divine.
We beg all our readers to carefully note this. It is so easy to rest content with a very different standard before one's mind. We will take just one point, a point which happens of late to have been brought before us, and in connection with it illustrate what we mean.
During the past century many Christians have been awakened to feel the sad state of sectarianism and division into which the Church has fallen, and in consequence of the zealous exercise engendered much truth formerly overlooked has been recovered. In regard to the recovery, however, the usual story has to be written. The power that recovered it waning, there has been a fresh lapsing into sectarianism and division, which has occasioned, and very rightly so, fresh distress and exercise of heart. As a consequence not a few are not satisfied to go on indefinitely with what has become a sectarian position. So far, so good.
What ideals, however, shall we pursue? It looks to us as though some have caught a vision of an unsectarian position, and very attractive and right it appears. How shall we get away from what is sectarian and occupy a position that is unsectarian? — that becomes the great question. It is by no means easy to find the answer, but certain things would almost certainly occur to us all.
For instance: Though feeling the necessity of Christian fellowship in some direction or another, we should have to make our fellowship as nebulous as possible so as to avoid any charge of being tied up to, or definitely connected with, a sect. We should probably feel it befitted us to show a degree less interest in the Christians with whom we actually meet, than in those Christians with whom we do not meet. In matters of service and ministry, we should demonstrate the fact that we do not belong to any "party" by inviting others to speak who belong to other parties than the one that we might have some small appearance of belonging to. Even this, however, would be a very poor and defective demonstration of the unsectarian position, since did we belong to an A party we would hardly prove that were really unsectarian by merely getting speakers from the B or X or Z parties. We should only show that we are A+B+X+Z party in our sympathies. To demonstrate that we were unsectarian we should at least have to obtain representatives from every other sect in Christendom, and the effort to prove in this fashion that we belonged to no party would end in our acknowledging every party.
It is not profitable to write such things, save as showing how defective and unprofitable they are. The pursuit of a negative ideal as ever — lands us nowhere. We want something positive.
Now it is a very positive thing to walk in truth, and that is what is set before us, as our aim and pursuit. The positive covers the negative and goes a great way beyond it. If, for example, we gain acquaintance with the truth as to the Church of God, its origin, its character, its order on earth, its unity, its governance from its exalted Head in heaven, its control by the Spirit found in its midst, and if our hearts become saturated with that truth so that it controls our minds and we walk in it we shall certainly not be sectarian, though we shall not be able to alter or cure the sectarian state into which the church has lapsed. We shall be unsectarian, yet we shall go far beyond a merely sectarian position for we should take up a true "church" or "assembly" position. We should walk in the truth of the church, responsible as we are to walk in that part of the truth of God as well as in every other part.
For of course the Church of God abides here still and the truth concerning it abides. In the first place we must be at pains to acquaint ourselves with that truth by the prayerful study of the Word of God. In the second place we must recognize that we cannot walk in the truth that particularly concerns the church without a walk in company with others: hence the necessity for that "lowliness and meekness with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love" as to which Paul admonishes us. In the third place we must recognize that though the majority of those composing the church may remain somewhat indifferent to these things, we need not postpone any walking in the truth of the church until such time as all may be disposed to do likewise. It is incumbent upon us to walk in this truth with as many as may be available whatever others may do.
By way of illustration let us suppose a case. In the last stages of the great war in the spring of 1918, there was a big British retreat. Several hundreds of thousands of men were involved. Army corps, divisions, battalions, got broken and mixed together. For a time all was confusion, as they fell back to positions far in their rear. Here, let us imagine, are a few score of men of the 10th Division mixed with units of other divisions and on arriving at a certain headquarter centre they find posted up orders that relate to the very division of which they form part. According to headquarter instructions they should be assembling at a certain spot and undertaking certain duties. What would they say and do? They might feel very tempted to say, "Headquarters can hardly realize the plight we are in. It is useless attempting anything of the sort under present circumstances. We might undertake what is ordered if we could muster 75 or even 50 per cent of our strength. As it is we had better just do each the best we can." And then they would pursue their disorderly attempts at further resistance or further retreat.
Very likely, however, their strict military training would assert itself and they would say, "There are our orders, what good we shall do by so acting is not at all clear to us, but let us do as ordered." And they would go in obedience and act in obedience, regardless of how many others did the same. They at all events would walk in their divisional orders, and to that extent contribute to the carrying out of the plans of the higher command who knew vastly more than they of the true position of affairs. And would they not be wise, and worthy of their medals?
By so doing, notice, they would not only be obedient but incidentally they would be preserving their own proper and appointed place in the vast organization of the British Army; holding themselves as simply a part of that huge body of troops, instead of viewing themselves as a little detached party of men, and acting consequently in what we may term a "sectarian" way.
All sorts of strange and unforeseen circumstances might conspire to group the men into little parties. Various retreating groups might feel they had gone adrift and try to get out of their "sectarian" position by various devices. Nothing, however, would really lift them out of it except each unit finding out what were the orders from headquarters and walking in those orders by yielding instant obedience. Such a unit would hold his right place in regard to the whole Army and as far as he was concerned would not be on "sectarian" lines.
The foregoing is but an illustration and like all illustrations is not perfect and must not be pushed beyond the point it illustrates, viz: — "walking in truth" — particularly with regard to the truth of the church.
The positive truth then is to govern us: and all the truth. The truth of the church has a place of great importance, but it is by no means all the truth, nor is it at all the truth that the apostle John particularly refers to in his writings. He occupies us with the fulness of that which has been revealed in Christ: He brings God, as it were, to us: so that we may be set in the full true knowledge of Himself, participating in His life and nature. Summarizing his teaching in His own words we may say, "We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." (1 John 5:20). Into the communion of all this blessedness are we now brought. Let us walk in it. Then shall we not only be marked by obedience to the truth ministered through Paul, but by that sweet and blessed communion with God to which John urges us.
In the second epistle we see the apostle instructing a Christian lady and her children to take very decisive measures in order to safeguard the truth in which she and they were walking. The particular error of that time was the anti-christian notion that Jesus Christ was not come in flesh. This had been introduced by deceivers under the pretext that they were "going forward" in doctrine and registering an advance upon the cruder notions of their predecessors. However, the point was that even a Christian lady and her children were responsible to know the true doctrine and if any did not bring that they were not to be received into her house nor given Christian salutation.
The doctrinal vagaries of anti-christian teachers seem endless. We have but to know the truth and refuse what is not the truth and those who propagate fundamental falsehood. This is our safeguard.
In the third epistle of John there is another thing which may well encourage us. We may not be individuals of definite gift nor of great spiritual force and energy yet we may be "fellow-helpers to the truth." (3 John)
When these words were penned the first century was nearing its end. The apostle Paul had foretold how that men, speaking perverted things with the object of making themselves a centre of attraction, should arise from amongst the very elders of the church (see Acts 20:30). This had now come to pass and Diotrephes was evidently a man of this kind. The apostles, save John himself, had now disappeared and, in view of the defection visible amongst elders and leaders, the Spirit of God was raising up, energizing and thrusting forth into service others, who were possibly men of much smaller calibre, yet not to be despised on that account.
These devoted brethren, strangers to Gaius to whom the epistle was addressed, had gone forth in service for the sake of THE NAME and, since they took nothing of the nations, they were in full dependence upon God. They carried evidently no official sanction warranting their actions, it was just the Name that impelled them. Diotrephes with a perverted zeal for official order might refuse them but Gaius was to receive them. The apostle puts the matter strongly. It is not merely a privilege conferred on us to receive such, so that we might if so disposed waive our privilege, and overlook them. It is a definite responsibility that rests upon us. "We therefore ought to receive such." The word "ought" indicates obligation. It is not something that we may do if we would please God, but something that we must do.
By so doing, observe, we become "fellow-helpers to the truth." Our attention is fixed not upon the men whom we may help, but upon the truth that they carry and so far represent. Gaius may indeed be a fellow-helper to them, and this was good. But he helped them because they stood for the truth and he really aimed at helping that forward. He received them and helped them for the truth's sake rather than for their own sakes.
This then carries us a step further. It is our first responsibility to walk in the truth. Then we are responsible to refuse with the utmost decision that which denies or undermines the truth. We are also to be propagators and heralds of the truth as were these nameless brethren — this of course according to the gift and energy and grace that may be conferred upon us. Lastly we are to be fellow-helpers to the truth; and this is open to every one of us.
The unnamed brethren were men of courage who went forth into the front line trenches of witness to the truth and exposed themselves to the fire of the enemy. Some of us may neither be gifted nor able for much of that, but we can at least be like munition workers behind the lines — if we may still speak in an illustrative sort of way. Gaius not only received them but showed them all Christian love and hospitality, finally setting them forward on their journey in a way worthy of God.
This indicate a vast field of service in which every saint may be engaged. It will always be the few who are able to go forth in public service after the fashion of these stranger-brethren. The majority will always have to be content with lesser and humbler things. Yet in innumerable ways we may all help the cause of truth and we may depend upon it that in the day of manifestation and reward we shall find it to have been no small thing if we have earned the title "fellow-helpers to the truth." In order that this may be, we must of course have the truth, its maintenance and propagation before us, and not merely persons. To help and show fellowship to individuals on merely personal grounds may mean nothing. It may mean at least nothing more than that they happen to be favourites with us and hence we favour them. The Lord who reads our hearts will not be deceived by this. He will know how to distinguish between those who have been fellow-helpers to their favourite workers and those who have been fellow-helpers to the truth.
To act as did Gaius, and as the Demetrius of whom verse 12 speaks, is to have "a good report … of the truth itself."
Doubtless they, and all who are like them, will have "a good report" before the judgment seat of Christ in the coming day, but now the truth itself bears witness to them. In their actions and manner of life they were translating that which the truth asserts and demands into practice. Others could turn first to the truth itself as set forth in the Living Word and the written Word and then turn to them and their ways, observing there some setting forth of the truth. In that way the truth itself was their testimonial and wrote out for them "a good report", which is even more important than having "a good report of all" — all saints of course are here in question, for there is no equivalent for the word "men" in the original.
Now this walking in truth, this identification with it in practice is the simple way of soul prosperity. Says the apostle to Gaius "Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers."
It is possible that not a few of us have often read these words without it occurring to us what a really remarkable inference lies in this apostolic wish. Gaius, then, was more prosperous as to the state of his soul than as to his body. His spiritual health so far exceeded his bodily health that John only wishes that the latter were up to the standard of the former! This is, we fear, rather an unusual phenomenon. With most of us, whatever the exact state of our bodily health may be, it is frequently better than our spiritual state. We are brighter physically than spiritually. In the early days it may have been otherwise but we cannot help feeling that Gaius was somewhat of a rarity in his day, and hence the great joy of the apostle in hearing about him and his walk in the truth.
It is very evident that a merely intellectual grasp of the truth does not mean spiritual prosperity. It may mean the very reverse. It may be only that kind of knowledge concerning which Paul wrote with some degree of contempt, "We all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies. And if any man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know." (1 Cor. 8:1-2). The knowledge that puffs up is a most dangerous thing for it has the appearance of being what it is not. Of this we have had all too many sad examples in our own day. The truth must penetrate our minds of course, but that is only the means to an end; the end being that it may be livingly and abidingly in us and thus characteristic of us and of our walk.
There is a very real danger for us in this as the present is a time of great intellectual activity amongst "the princes of this world." Men are probing, investigating, reasoning in all directions and in regard to every conceivable matter. Religion even is treated from a purely "scientific" aspect, so it is very easy for those of us who do take an interest in the things of God to catch the prevailing infection, and adopt the prevailing fashion in matters of thought, and so come to regard the Scriptures as a kind of intellectual playground. From this may the Lord Himself deliver us.
There is of course the opposite extreme. It is also a day when the masses are content with intellectual shallowness and want nothing as much as empty pleasures which make no demand at all upon their thinking powers. This too is like an infection and we fear that not a few Christians have caught it to the extent that they do not wish to look into anything of the truth of God that has the appearance of being "deep." They do not desire "waters to swim in" but prefer to continually paddle in the shallows and so save themselves all mental and spiritual exercise. If at all this applies to us, and in any measure in which it does, by so much will it be impossible for us to walk in truth. We cannot walk in the truth of that with which we are unacquainted.
We are responsible to be acquainted with it. If God has been at pains to reveal His truth to us in His word, we at least should be at pains to understand and walk in it. We may plead incapacity and softly sing —
"I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned."
but that, if true, would be to our discredit. In most cases it might be more honest to alter it to —
"I am not keen to understand."
and that would be to our deep shame.
The truth is revealed and the truth abides. Let us pay far more attention to it than to the worldly vanities and unrealities which surround us. Then let us walk in it. So shall we prosper in our souls.