Introduction
I AM
There are 16 signs recorded in John’s gospel, 8 are things which Jesus did and 8 were things which Jesus said. John is basically saying that the ‘I AM’ claims of Jesus are signs, selected from many other signs.
And he says these signs are selected with a purpose in mind and that purpose is that you believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, John 20:30-31.
Here we find the seventh of the eight of Jesus’ I AM’ claims, John 6:35 / John 8:12 / John 8:58 / John 10:9 / John 10:11 / John 11:25 / John 14:6 / John 15:1.
Each of His ‘I AM’ claims are claims that He is God, EGO EIMI, is the Greek equivalent of YHWH, Exodus 3:13-14 / John 5:18. He is Eternal, Psalm 135:13, and self-existent, Psalm 88:6-7.
When we come to the ‘I AM’ claims of Jesus, we need to remember that Jesus was not giving Himself a Name or a title, but was asserting His Deity. In other words every ‘I AM’ reveals some aspect of His nature and purpose.
I AM THE TRUTH
“I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 14:6
In his famous ‘Essay on Truth’, Roger Bacon wrote, ‘what is truth,’ the jesting Pilate asked and did not stay for an answer.’ I am not convinced that Pilate was jesting. He may have terminated the discussion and left the Praetorium because he did not believe that anyone could answer his question.
But, here is an interesting and curious fact. You will recall that the Governor, Pontius Pilate was a Roman. His native language was undoubtedly Latin, and, he may well have posed his question in Latin. If that is the case, the question he asked was.
‘QUID EST VERITAS?’ WHAT IS TRUTH?
Now here is a curious fact, you may take the same 14 letters of ‘Quid Est Veritas’ and with them form an anagram, that is, you may re-arrange those letters, and, if you do, they will give you. ‘Est Vir Qui Adest,’ which means, ‘it is the man who stands before thee!’
If only Pilate had been aware of the identity of the One who stood before him that day! If only Pilate had known! But, of course, when Jesus made that startling revelation, ‘I AM the truth’, it was not to Pilate that he spoke, but to His own disciples. And we are naturally interested to know just what he meant.
What about the word truth? Think about it because it’s an interesting word. If you consult your dictionary, you will find that it is defined as, ‘The quality or state of being true, accurate, honest, sincere.’ ‘The statement of things as they are.’
But I am not really satisfied with that definition, because all that it tells us is that according to the English word, there may be different levels of truth.
It does not take into account the fact that one may speak what he believes to be the truth and yet be honestly and sincerely in error. And this is easy to demonstrate.
For instance, if I were to tell you that, ‘I sincerely believe that, at this moment, there is a blizzard raging outside this building’, and you were to go to the door to discover that it really is snowing, I have spoken truth.
If, on the other hand, you discovered that the sun is shining and it is 100 degrees outside, not only would it be a miracle! I would have proved myself, at the very least, to be guilty of error, sincere as I may have been.
In that sense, ‘truth’ would mean, ‘The statement of things as they are’, and even an atheist would agree with that definition. And in that case, truth is something which is relative or comparative.
Now, we need a definition which is much more precise than that. We need a definition which is absolute and unconditional, and for such a definition we must turn to the word which Jesus used in the text before us.
Well, the word for ‘Truth’, which is used in the Greek New Testament is ‘Ale Theia’ and it basically means, ‘unconcealed’. It is a word which is developed from the word, ‘Lanthona’, which means ‘to be unknown, or to be hidden’.
When the Greeks wished to change the meaning of a word so that it meant the very opposite, they replaced the letter, ‘A’, ‘Alpha’, in front of it. You may take for example the word, ‘righteousness’, which is ‘Dikaiosune’. If we place the letter, ‘A’, in front of it, it becomes ‘A Dikaiosune’, which is ‘unrighteousness’.
Well, the word ‘truth’, has been formed in the same way. Place the letter ‘A’, in front of ‘Lanthano’, ‘unknown, or hidden’, and you create the word ‘Alethia’, so that it now means, ‘Unconcealed’.
Therefore, the New Testament word for ‘truth’ means, ‘that which is open and evident and exposed’, and which, is capable of withstanding any examination; any scrutiny any investigation’.
If we take it a step farther, ‘truth’, in the New Testament sense, means, ‘reality’ or the manifestation of things as they really are. Think about the phrase which we meet many times in the Bible, the phrase, ‘the only true God’.
It literally means, the only real God, because the word ‘Alethinos’ indicates the genuine as opposed to the false.
For this reason, when William Tyndale came to John 15:1-8, in which Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine’, he translated it, ‘I AM the Verri vine’.
Truth then, in the Bible sense, is reality and revealed in a person. That is why, when we say that ‘God is truth’, we mean that God is the ultimate reality, the Origin, the Creator and Sustainer of all things and that apart from Him there is no reality.
It follows, therefore, that if God is truth, His is the only Mind which knows reality perfectly, and truth is that which corresponds with His mind and will. In other words, we only possess the truth on any level and on any subject, when what we say about it is what God says about it.
If, for instance, someone were to say that the purpose of life is to have a good time and look after number one, that would only be true if it was what God said about it. Now, this is the consistent teaching of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
In Genesis 32:10, Jacob, coming out of Mesopotamia on his way back to Canaan gave thanks to God for his mercy and truth and praised God because he has dealt with him in Truth and faithfulness.
In Deuteronomy 32:4, Moses called God a ‘God of truth’, whilst in Exodus 34:6-7, when on Mount Sinai, God revealed Himself to Moses. His own description of Himself was ‘YHVH, YHVH, merciful, slow to anger, gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth.’
The psalmist never ceased to sing about the ‘God of Truth’. ‘All his works are truth. His truth endures to all generations. He keeps truth for ever. His truth reaches to the heavens.’ Psalm 100:5.
Turning to the prophets, twice in one verse, Isaiah 65:16, the prophet Isaiah called God, ‘The God of truth.’
Over in the New Testament, Paul described Him as, ‘the God who cannot lie’, Titus 1:2. And in Revelation 15:3, the redeemed praise God as ‘just and true in all his ways. God, then, is Himself, ‘Truth.’
But, let us now take this a step further, and notice that the God of truth, whose Word is truth, John 17:17, in the fullness of time, is, when the right moment came, Galatians 4:4, revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who came to us as ‘the truth incarnate’. The truth manifested in a physical body. The Word became flesh, John 1:1-2 / John 1:14.
This is why, in Revelation 3:7, Jesus Himself is described as, ‘The Holy One, the True One.’
And why, later in Revelation 3:14, the Lord Jesus describes Himself in words which cannot logically be understood in any other way than as a claim to Deity. ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.’
Jesus is actually saying, ‘I AM the Amen.’ Now, this is a statement which arrests attention immediately. You see, that word, ‘amen’, comes to us straight from the Hebrew language. It is a word which has not been translated. It is not English. It is not Greek. Even the Greeks did not translate it.
The word is also ‘Amen’ in the Greek language, and although we are in the habit of using the word as a convenient way in which to close a prayer, and have been told it means, ‘so be it’, it has a vastly more profound meaning than that.
Although the connection may not appear at first glance, there is a very close relationship between the words, ‘truth’ and ‘amen.’ The root meaning of the word, ‘amen’ is that of ‘nursing, nourishing, building up’, hence it has to do with ‘establishing, establishing, making sure.’
And, in its original use, it takes us back to God as the nursing Mother of His people. Now that is a thought to consider! The fact of the Motherhood of God. In Isaiah 66:13, God Himself said, ‘As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you’.
Now if the thought of the ‘motherhood’ of God is new and strange to you, perhaps I might throw in the additional fact, and say that one of the compound names for God, which is found in the Old Testament, is ‘El Shaddai.’ It is used no fewer than 48 times, and when you read the name, ‘God Almighty’, or ‘Almighty God’, that is the translation of ‘El Shaddai.’
But, it has long been a puzzle as to why the men who translated the Old Testament rendered ‘El Shaddai’ as ‘The Almighty God’, when Hebrew scholars have long known, that it really suggests the ‘Mother-love’ of God and the fact that God never tires of bestowing His bountiful goodness and fullness and riches on His people, as a mother bestows her tender care on her child.
And for this reason, ‘El Shaddai’ is literally, ‘El’ God, ‘Shaddai’, the Breasted One, for that is what the word ‘Shaddai’ means. And this is why besides calling God ‘the truth’, you may place this other name for God, ‘the Amen’, ‘the nourisher’, ‘the sufficient One’, the One who nurses, and nurtures His people.
And so, in Revelation 3:14, the Lord Jesus presents Himself to the church at Laodicea, a church which has been faithless and false in its witness, and He comes as, ‘The Amen, the Faithful and True witness’ The One who is true to His own nature, who will never cease to provide for His people. He is faithful ad true because He is the ‘Amen.’
As a title, ‘The Amen’, is equivalent to the title in our text, ‘The Truth’, because when Jesus says, ‘I AM the Truth’, it means that He cannot lie. He is true in all His words. He is true in all His actions. All truth lies within the compass of that word.
I think that this ought to be a source of great comfort to every child of God because it is the guarantee of the total reliability and faithfulness of everything He ever says or does. When He makes an assertion, that assertion is absolutely dependable.
When He makes a promise, you may rest all your weight on it, in the certain knowledge that it can never fail. When He warns of judgment, depend upon it, that judgment will follow as surely as night follows day. And because He is ‘Truth’, He will never make terms with a lie.
I expect that it has occurred to you by now, that, when we hear Jesus say, ‘I AM the truth’, we are, in fact, dealing with, yet another assertion of His Deity. I say, ‘yet another’ because such declarations of Deity come at us from all directions if only we have eyes to see them.
For example, the Hebrew word for ‘Truth’ is yet another name for God Himself. It is the word ‘Emet’, and it consists of the First, the Middle and the Last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Now in the first chapter of the Revelation, Revelation 1:8, we read, ‘I am the Alpha and the Onega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’ In other words, I am the First and I am the last.
I now turn to the last chapter, and in Revelation 22:12, we read, ‘Behold I am coming soon bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Onega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’
And who is the speaker? He is the Lord Jesus Himself, and the last Book in the Bible, and the Bible itself, closes with this statement, ‘Surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus’, Revelation 22:20.
In the light of all this evidence, it must be obvious that, because Jesus is the ‘Truth’, it is not enough simply to say that He is the greatest teacher the world has ever known, or that what He taught was true.
He does not say, ‘I know the truth’, or ‘I teach the truth’. Instead, He makes a claim for himself that no other teacher would dare to make. He says, ‘I AM the Truth’.
And any modern-day educator who dared to make such a claim would immediately be looked at as unbalanced. Indeed, no teacher of any worth would ever consider making such a claim, because it is a claim to deity.
After all, the wisest and greatest thinkers the world has ever known, have confessed themselves merely to be seekers after truth, and have admitted that truth has evaded them.
The great Socrates said that he was aware of how little he understood. Sir Isaac Newton, described himself as a child who had gathered a few pebbles, on the shore of a great ocean.
But Jesus was able to say, ‘if you continue in my word you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth shall make you free’. John 8:37.
Just consider what Jesus is actually saying here! The claim is stupendous, He says that is that ‘if we abide’, ‘meno’, remain, stay, in His word, that is if we continue to be obedient to Him, we shall know the truth.
Our lives will be controlled and governed by truth, and there will follow an ever-deepening awareness of truth and an ever-increasing capacity for truth, and we shall be made free by the truth.
I come back to the same point, time and time again. I am compelled to say that I cannot imagine any teacher in history who would dare to make such a claim and expect to be treated seriously by normal, intelligent, balanced people.
But Jesus says, ‘I AM the truth’. Do you wish to know truth? ‘Then follow Me and stay with Me’, Jesus says. I think that it is tragic that today, men and women, even members of the Lord’s church, are coming under the influence of liberal theologians and their so-called new hermeneutics, teachers who appear to have little or no regard for the authority of the Word, or the Christ of the word for that matter. It is sad to find them eager to spread their old, warmed-over critical theories, among less mature members of the church.
I know one man who told a group of young Christians, ‘we cannot be sure that we have the truth, because we cannot know anything with certainty.’
Now, such a statement as that sounds very profound and wise and advanced to impressionable people. They think it is wonderful evidence of deep thinking and a beautiful demonstration of tolerance. But I do not believe I need to point out to you just how dangerous and destructive such teaching is.
If we accept the notion that we cannot be sure of anything, the gates are thrown wide-open to allow anything and everything into Christianity. ‘We cannot know. We cannot be sure that we have the truth, therefore, others may have the truth, and we don’t know it!’
This is modern agnosticism, remember that the Greek word ‘Agnostic’ identifies one who does not know and is the exact equivalent of the Latin word ‘Ignoramus’. This is the modern agnosticism which so often parades as Christian scholarship. It is the ignorance which pretends to be wisdom.
If you ever hear anyone say that we cannot be sure that we the truth, you ought to tell that person that he has a controversy with the Christ, who said, ‘I AM the truth’, and he who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life. He who abides in me shall know truth and the truth will make him free’.
Oh! That members of the Lord’s church would steep themselves in the Word of Truth and the Truth Who is presented in the Word! I truly believe that the crying need of our age is for Christians who have taken hold of the Word, and who have allowed the Word to take hold of them.
Men and women who are mastered by the truth, because they have been mastered by the Master Himself. If you seek the truth, look no farther than the Word of God.
Jesus is the ‘Truth’ ‘Alethea’, the embodiment of ultimate reality, John 14:6. When Jesus speaks of truth, it describes that which corresponds to reality, what is factual and absolute, not relative but how Jesus is the truth?
He proclaims that truth is real and knowable, John 8:32. He proclaims that truth can set one free from the bondage of sin, John 8:32-34.
His doctrine is the way to the truth that frees one from sin, John 8:31-32 John 8:34-36. He faithfully proclaimed His Father’s Word, which is truth, John 17:14 / John 17:17.
By abiding in Jesus’ teachings, we can know the truth and the freedom it offers! Freedom from the bondage of sin becomes even more meaningful when we consider how Jesus is.
The very life of Jesus was a representation of the truth; he is Truth Incarnate, John 5:32-33 / John 8:46 / John 1:17.
Let us always bear in mind that there is only one Truth. The Lord God to whom we can go through Jesus Christ our Mediator Saviour and Truth.
