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Jesus Came to Bear Witness to the Truth

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Jesus came to bear witness to the truth.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to Him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to Him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” –John 18:33-38

In a song chart-topping album, Sigh No More, Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons growls out the lyric, “How can you say that your truth is better than ours?” This line comes from a song on an album that was purchased 3.2 million times in the United States, an amazing number in our digital age. Mumford’s question is not far off from Pilate’s. Though the question has advanced a little (comparing competing notions of truth), one cannot help but note the same pride at the heart of the question. And with the pride, hear the confusion. Hear the lostness.

Pilate’s response to Jesus is one of the most ironic statements in the Bible. Pilate stared in the face of Jesus Christ, the One who made Pilate, and asked the wrong question. It should not have been, “What is truth?” but “Who is truth?” In John 14:6, Jesus has already answered that question. He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus tells Pilate that He came to bear witness to the truth and, essentially, to present truth to the world by presenting Himself. Pilate beheld the truth in that moment, but he did not have eyes to see nor ears to hear the truth crying out to him.

In a world where so many people claim that truth lies in the eye of the beholder, Christians know differently. Let us not be like Pilate, or Marcus Mumford, and so many others, who refuse to listen to truth. Jesus said that everyone who is of the truth listens to His voice. Jesus Christ speaks. He speaks through His Word in Holy Scripture. As you come to the Word of truth, pray for eyes to see and ears to hear. Pray for the living truth of God’s Word to dispel all doubt in your heart. Pray that you would listen to Christ’s voice, and that His truth would abide in you, as it will be with you forever (2 John 2).