What’s In A Name?, Pt 20: El Emeth
Psalm 31:3-5 3Since you are my rock and fortress, lead me and guide me for your name’s sake. 4Free me from the net they have hidden to catch me, because you are my strength. 5Into your hand I commit my spirit; you will redeem me, ADONAI, God of truth. (CJB)
John 1:14 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (NIV)
Romans 1:25 25They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (NIV)
The Hebrew word Emeth (pronounced eh-meth) means firmness, faithfulness, or truth. YHWH El Emeth then means God of truth.
I’ve puzzled over the years as to why the world is the way it is, and it occurs to me that in the midst of the myriad of possible reasons there is one that is at the root of all of it. The world today is likely to say there is no such thing as absolute truth. But we who are faithful to the LORD God and His Son our Lord and King would say the exact opposite: That there is absolute truth.
3For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2Timothy 4:3)
And therein lies the problem: There is absolute truth, but people don’t want to hear it because it interferes with their preconceived notions of what they want to believe. This is called relativity, that there is no such thing as universal truth but that every person can decide for themselves what is truth and what is not. Here is an example. Society universally says murder is wrong. But the Nazis said killing of Jews was not wrong because they decided Jews were subhuman people. Or some people say abortion is not murder because it interferes with a woman’s right to decide what to do with her own body. Is murder universally wrong or subject to a person’s decision?
But God does give us absolute truth. His Word provides truth every time we read it and the reason we know that is that He says so himself.
….2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time… (Titus 1:2)
But if God provides absolute truth, we have to ask ourselves what we are going to do with it. Is truth a kind of cool thing that we hear about in Church or read about in the Bible and then is put aside as we go about the rest of our week? Whose definition of truth do we use? The guy at the bar? A national or local politician? Do we just check off the box and then move on? The answer to these and similar questions has to be an emphatic no. God is not a box to be checked off! The word absolute means something that is true all the time and every time, not just when it is convenient. So
· When God sent His Son to save the world from sins, he meant it.
· When God said to love your neighbor as yourself, he meant it.
· When God said to love the LORD God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, he meant it.
· When Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and life, no one comes to the Father except through me’, he meant it.
· When Jesus said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”, he meant it.
· When Jesus said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven”, he meant it.
· When Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened”, he meant it.
But these things are not easy, are they? In our own strength we find them impossible. That is the whole point. When sin entered the world, the world was transformed away from God’s eternal plan. When Jesus came the first time, he began the process of transforming the world back to God’s plan. But people can’t be convinced to accept God’s truth as absolute through logic, or moral argument, or confrontation. The only way to show the truthfulness of God’s way is in living it out for all to see.
We who are God’s people have an advantage in this area because we do believe the Bible is God’s absolute truth. So, in our interaction with people, we hold
· To Jesus (John 14:6-7)
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Knowing Jesus means knowing His Father, the author of all truth. In this case knowing means accepting Jesus as Savior, talking to Him and hearing back, and trusting that His ways are the right ways.
· To Jesus teachings (John 8:31-32)
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
It is one thing to read the Bible; it is quite another to hold to the teaching in it. Hold means to accept as fundamentally true and it sets a person free by freeing one from doubt, by allowing a person to completely trust God, and by allowing a person to relax in the knowledge they are doing things right.
· To the Bible (1Timothy 3:15-17)
…. from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The Word of God was written by human beings but was inspired, even dictated, by the Spirit of God. This means we can trust it to be true, and when we find passages which seem to be in conflict, we can trust it is our understanding that is in error not the passages themselves.
· To treating people with gentleness and respect (1Peter 3:15-16)
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
God created all people, including those we dislike. So, when confronted by the questions and antagonism of such people we must remember we haven’t lived their life or they ours. Revering Christ means loving just as He does and when people see we are not rising up to counterattack they understand there is something different about us. That’s all the open-door Christ needs.