The Triune God Makes Truth
You don't need to make your own truth.
Now, maybe I’m an oversensitive pastor overprotecting God’s reputation but when someone says, “God told me to,” I translate what comes after that statement (for example, “take a third job” or “divorce my wife”) as manufactured truth. Here’s the real truth: she takes a third job to fund irresponsible spending, or he wants a divorce because of selfish lust and immaturity. God gave us the second commandment to make it very clear he will not put up with anyone who drags his name through the mud to endorse our dirty sins.
In a warning to us all, the Bible condemns people who sinfully make their own truth “to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). When it comes to the truth, we must confess that we’ve scratched our itching ears, fed our lustful appetites, and made truth for ourselves – as care free as making a plate of food for ourselves at a potluck that gives us exactly what we want. And it turns out to be poison.
In John 16 knows that his disciples don’t want to face what they need to hear: it is time for Jesus to save the world by dying and rising. He’ll need to leave them for a while. Showing compassion for their hurts and confusion, Jesus holds off on the TMI and tells his friends, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” Jesus has truth he wants us to know, truth that will help us, and he’ll give it to us when we are ready for it. For now, what he does share with his disciples and us is enough to occupy our minds with this truth:
The Father makes truth exist
True or False: Zebras have stripes. True or False: The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. True or False: God loves you. All true, because God the Father makes truth exist. He created zebras and gives orders to the sun, and his eternal love for you begins in his own heart. These are some of the many truths that are true because God the Father created the world and adopted us as his children. While we observe these truths as true, we’re not responsible for them to be true. So when Jesus says, “All that belongs to the Father,”he is pointing us to the many, many truths that are true, have been true, and will always be true because they belong to the Father. He is responsible for their reality. They exist not because of certain circumstances or when we feel good about them or only on Sundays. They exist all the time because God the Father is God.
The Son makes truth work
If we think of God the Father’s truth that exists like a map, then Jesus the Son is the chauffeur who gets us where we need to go with expertise and care. “All that belongs to the Father is mine,” Jesus promises confused travelers needing divine direction now and forever. Jesus the Son makes truth work. He takes what the Father gives him and uses it to save us with his works of redemption – his living and dying, his rising and ascending, his clothing with righteousness and coming at the Last Day. For your Savior God truth is not dusty dogma sitting on a library shelf waiting for a seminary student to use it in a research paper. The Father makes truth real, and Jesus the Son makes truth work for you wherever you are.
The Holy Spirit makes truth known
Better than a medical chart, which most of us can open up and it looks like a foreign language, when God opens up his file of truths to us he also opens our minds and hearts to know and believe those truths. Jesus promised, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”This promise held magnificent weight for the disciples of Jesus who would become his witnesses and some of them even writers of Holy Scripture. It also applies to us, because the Spirit comes to us too, in the words of Scripture, in our baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper. He comes to counsel us, guide us, and teach us. Furthermore, notice that even God the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak on his own, but speaks “only what he hears” from the Father and the Son. If the Holy Spirit listens to the Father and the Son, certainly we do well not to make our own truth but instead listen to the Father and the Son too. The Holy Spirit makes known the truth that the Father makes exist and the Son makes work.
You don’t need to make your own truth. God’s truth is perfect for you. Turn to it. Trust it.
PRAYER: Mysterious God, revealer of mercy and Savior of souls, you are beyond sinners and at the same time connected to us intimately in your grace. We praise your wonderful works, and pray that we never squander the riches of your salvation spent on us to redeem us from our sins. Open our ears and hearts to listen to your truth, and open opportunities for us to share it to – and live it before – others. Amen.