THY WORD IS TRUTH

By Jeremy Dehut

In the high priestly prayer of Jesus, recorded for us in the gospel of John, one of the more popular statements made was, “Sanctify them in your truth; your word is truth” (Jn. 17:17). In this one statement many lessons are found, such as:

1) The affirmation of the existence of truth.
2) The sanctifying ability of God’s word because of its truth.
3) The supreme worth of God’s word because of its truth.

There are so many verses we could turn to in order to verify Christ’s statement, but there is one train of thought we intend to follow for the purpose of this article. And that is to discover the value and purpose of speech itself.

From the beginning:
From the beginning we see God communicating! He spoke the world into existence (Gen. 1). As God spoke, Christ created (Col. 1:15-17). The purpose of God speaking was to communicate His desire and purpose to Christ.

After creating Adam and Eve on the sixth day, God speaks to them in order to communicate instruction that was for their safety and wellbeing (Gen. 1:29-30).

Once Adam and Eve are removed from the Garden of Eden because of their disregard for God’s verbal instruction, they begin working on their family. At a certain age God communicated to Adam’s oldest sons His desire for a sacrifice (Rom. 10:17; Heb. 11:4), with one son obeying and the other son disregarding God’s instruction (Gen. 4:3-7).

From the verses listed above, we can deduce several things about speech:

Speech was meant to communicate important things to others.
From the text we see three instances of God communicating important things to others, first to Christ regarding creation, then to Adam and Eve warning them of the tree of knowledge, and finally to Cain and Abel detailing the type of sacrifice that would be acceptable.

Speech only has value and fulfills its purpose if it is truthful.
Imagine the chaos that would have ensued if God had spoken instructions to Christ regarding the world, and then said, “Whoops! That’s not what I really meant. We need to try that again!”

What if God had told Adam and Eve to avoid the wrong tree? Eventually they would have begun munching on the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil because they wouldn’t have had the knowledge needed to protect them.

If God had given Cain faulty information he might have had a right to be upset in God’s displeasure (Gen. 4:6-7). But since we know that God cannot lie (Heb. 6:18), we know that never would have happened.

Dishonesty defeats the purpose of speech!
Since speech is meant to communicate important things to others, and deceit actually conceals the truth, is it any wonder that God so strongly opposes lying? Of the six things listed that the Lord hates in Pro. 6:16-19, two of them have to do with dishonesty!

Just like liars are simply taking on the family trait of their “father” (Jn. 8:44), it is only right that as Christians our speech take on the same quality of honesty that God possesses!

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” (Eph. 4:15).

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25).

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 5:29).

Honestly?
How truthful are you being when communicating with people?

Do you allow them to honestly know how you are doing spiritually? Do you care enough about others to honestly inquire about them? Does your inquiry or answer come from love and a desire to build the other up? On the other hand, do you attempt to defeat the very purpose of communication by concealing the truth with your lack of interest and response?

As heirs of God (Gal. 3:29), commit yourself to being lovingly honest in your speech. Fulfill the purpose that the gift of communication was intended to have, “give grace to those who hear!”