Wednesday, January 23, 2019

The Invincibility of the Church: We Know the Truth

The invincibility of the church is assured for it is founded upon the truth. Truth will always triumph over falsehood for truth is of God.

One of the ways that the Bible speaks of truth is in relation to the faithfulness of God. He is true to his word; he upholds the covenant he has made with his people. This brings an ethical dimension into the concept of truth. That is, truth is more than factual statements. Though there are many factual statements in the Bible and the concept of truth as relating to what actually is, is illustrated by them, God as faithful moves truth beyond things that are, to the way things ought to be.

When God called creation into being and placed man in its midst, there was a way in which man was to relate to God and all that He had made. Man was defined by these relationships. The serpent, however, tripped up the man by deceiving him into thinking that he could live differently than how he was created to live. When man bought into the lie, he was undone. Sin and death became the new normal.

In the face of this seeming defeat, God, in his faithfulness, revealed his plan to triumph over the lie. B
efore the world was even formed, a covenant had been established by which God would make a people from fallen humanity. To accomplish this, God injected truth into the false environment created by that first lie. The Word made flesh, full of grace and truth, arrived on the scene and demonstrated what it means to live in truth, to be truly human. His was a truth-filled relationship with the Father. He lived and taught the truth for he was faithful to the revealed will of God, even to the point of death on a cross. And then, his death and subsequent resurrection proclaimed the truth that sinful human beings need to be redeemed and rescued from the slavery of sin and death. This was followed by the vindication of Jesus when, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he was shown to have returned to the very presence of God.

The final triumph of the church will be enjoyed by all who have settled their eternal hope on Christ, for he alone is truthful and to be trusted. On the Day, all false ideologies, pretensions to power, deceitful dealing and cruel conniving will be exposed. Only those whose deeds are righteous, who have, by the grace of God, pursued holiness through their union with the victorious Christ, will bask in the glorious, unmediated, unmitigated truth of existence. Such will be those who believed that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.