Truth
The importance of the local church
- God created man for community, for relationship,
not to live in isolation. No man is an island. Man is a social creature,
he is designed for relationship. Part of what it means to be in the image
of God is to have relationship. This is inherent in key concepts in
understanding God such as love and truth, both of which are emphasised in
the first verse of 2 John. There is no such thing as going it alone in the
Christian life. That is abnormal. There are cases when that happens and
has to happen, but that is not to be considered normative. In emphasising
this it is not that there are not certain exceptions but you never build
principle on the basis of exceptions. You build principles on the basis of
absolutes and then when you find the normal circumstances then you
recognise that there are certain exceptions. But the exceptions are
recognised to be abnormal and not what is to be expected.
- Just as God called out a corporate body for
Himself in the Old Testament in the nation Israel, God called out a corporate body for Himself in
the New Testament. He called that a group in the Old Testament, He called
out Israel, and there is an emphasis in the Psalms on corporate worship;
not on just individual worship but on believers coming together as a
corporate body to worship God, and it is that corporate body that is also
significant in the angelic conflict. In the New Testament the corporate
body is the church. It is the church as a whole, not just the church body
as a whole but the individual local church is called out. Even in the
context of 2 John where there is an absentee pastor he is addressing a
corporate body of believers.
- The church is not simply a universal spiritual
organism of all believers united in Christ it is comprised of local church
assemblies, and God called and authorised local church assemblies not
simply as a place to learn doctrine, not simply as a classroom though that
is an important and key element of it, but it is a place where believers
function in the area of their royal priesthood and spiritual gifts.
- The problem of human viewpoint and cultural
baggage. While “go-it-alone” and self-sufficiency has many good aspects to
it, it is not the approach that we see in the Scriptures to the Christian
life. The normal Christian life as approached in the New Testament is
never viewed as individual, it is viewed as
members of the corporate body of Christ. So isolation in the body of
Christ is never viewed as something that is normal or desirable, it is
always viewed as a second class, third class situation that needs to be
rectified in some way if at all possible.
- In isolation there are several elements that are
missing. There is no opportunity for the Lord’s table,
and this is something that is supposed to be regular in the Christian
life, and it is a corporate worship time. There is not an opportunity to
train children in education. A third element that is missing if we live in
isolation is that there is no opportunity for the function of spiritual
gifts. We need to remember that the definition of a spiritual gift is that
they are special abilities given to every believer for the purpose of
ministering, serving, relating to edifying other believers.
- Going it alone limits the obedience to one
another passages—that we are to pray for one another, we are to admonish
one another, we are to teach one another, serve one another. These are all
aspects emphasising the mutual ministry within a local church. For these
reasons we are to function in a local church.
2 John 1:1 NASB
“The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not
only I, but also all who know the truth [a)lhqeia]. aletheia is
the basic Greek word for truth but John is not using this with a Greek meaning
of truth. The Greek concept of truth was derived on the basis of the
philosophical thought that had developed in the Greeks. In Greek thought truth
is abstract knowledge, that which exists independently of any God or creator or
person. Truth just hangs out there, it is impersonal. But that is not the
biblical concept of truth. When John says, “whom I love in truth,” en [e)n] plus the dative indicates means, so it should be translated, “whom I
love by means of truth.” John, like any pastor-teacher, loves his congregation,
but he demonstrates that love in the context and by means of truth. This means
that the highest expression of love of a pastor-teacher for his congregation is
teaching the Word. Notice that when John says, “I love them by means of the
truth,” we recognise that love here is not some autonomous abstract concept but
it is love that is related to truth, revealed truth. For example, 1 John 3:16 NASB “We know love by this, that He laid
down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” In
other words, love isn’t love isn’t some abstract concept, we just don’t say
this is what love is and then God fits that idea. God is the one who tells us
what love is and how we can understand it. He says that we don’t know a thing
about love unless we start at the cross. That means that we have to let the
Bible define what we mean by what right is and what wrong is, and we have to
let the Bible define what truth is and what love is.
What is truth? This is what Pilate asked Jesus.
- To answer this we have to start with the
Scriptures. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word is emet, and it is a noun form
that derives from a verb which is translated amen. Amen is the
verb normally translated to believe, although it has a wider range of
meaning than that. So the noun for truth, emet, is derived from the
verb meaning to believe. But underneath this is
an even more basic concept and the core meaning of the word that we have
both as believe and truth is the idea of stability and certainty, the idea
of immovability. For example, a related noun form, amuneh, is used in 2 Kings
18:16 NASB “At that time Hezekiah cut off {the gold from} the
doors of the temple of the LORD, and {from} the doorposts which Hezekiah king of
Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.” The word
“doorposts” is this word amuneh. This was that which provided stability and
anchor for the entire temple building. So the core idea here is that which
provides stability, certainty, a solid anchor. So the idea under belief is
to believe something that is true, and truth is something which is
certain, faithful, and so the noun also has the idea of truth,
faithfulness and certainty. What this tells us is that for the Hebrews the
idea of truth is the idea of something that is objective and real, and
because of that it is certain and dependable. That idea of certainty and
dependability leads us to the idea that for them the very notion of truth
itself was that of an absolute, something that was related to a universal,
something that was true for everybody and every situation in all ages. It
never changes.
- In the Old Testament truth is always related to
the character of God. So the starting point for truth is God, not man.
- The way the word is used in compound with other
words in the Old Testament. Over 24 times the word is used with another
key word in the Old Testament, and that is the Hebrew word chesed which
is translated a number of different ways. It is probably translated “lovingkindness” more than any other way, but it is
sometimes translated “mercy, grace.” It is not the normal Hebrew word for
love, it is a much more pregnant concept, and has all of these ideas of
faithfulness, loyalty, grace, mercy. It is a love that is not based on the
behaviour of other people; it is not a personal love; it is a love that is
there whether the object is attractive or unattractive. The concept of chesed—loving
kindness, plus truth—suggests by the context it is used in human
relationship that the idea may be an idiom for integrity. This is clear
from how it is applied to God. The first time the word occurs in Scripture
is Genesis 24:27 in the context of finding a wife for Isaac. NASB
“He said, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not
forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward
my master; as for me, the LORD has guided me in the way to the house of my
master’s brothers.’” Another example is Exodus 34:6 NASB “Then
the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God,
compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.’” 2 Samuel 2:6 NASB
“Now may the LORD show lovingkindness
and truth to you; and I also will show this goodness to you, because you
have done this thing.” Psalm 40:10 NASB “I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of
Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great
congregation. [11] You, O LORD, will not withhold Your
compassion from me; Your lovingkindness and Your
truth will continually preserve me.” Psalm 85:10 NASB “Lovingkindness and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Psalm 86:15 NASB
“But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, Slow to
anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.”
Psalm 89:14 NASB “Righteousness and justice are the foundation
of Your throne; Lovingkindness
and truth go before You.” When we take this, along with the fact that it
is frequently these two attributes are always frequently associated, we
see that these four attributes together form what we call the integrity of
God. What we learn from the Old Testament is that truth is related to a
person, it is related to grace and love; it is not abstract, it is in a
person and it is related to love. That should change our whole view of
what truth is. Truth is related to something that is personal and it is
related to love. In contrast, in Islam truth is what Allah says, not what
Allah is. In Christianity truth is what God is and what Jesus Christ is,
and Jesus Christ came to reveal truth because He said, “I am the truth.”
There is a difference between a god in a religion that has truth separate
from that god and God in the Bible who is truth in and of itself. It changes it from an impersonal mechanistic
universe, which is what we have in everything ultimately other than
Christianity, to a personal universe where truth is something grounded in
truth and in a God who loves His creatures.
- Chesed brings
together a number of ideas. It emphasises grace, undeserved merit,
unmerited loyalty or faithfulness of God, undeserved love. It focuses on
the fact that it is grounded on God’s character. So chesed, while it emphasises
God’s loyalty, it is a loyalty that is based on His righteousness. A love
that is not based on righteousness is a love that is going to lose its
foundation.