What is the meaning of Truth in the Bible?

Bible Study and Teaching on Biblical Truth

Many are tired of this world where lies and deception abound and spiritual bondage holds many captive to sin, diseases, misfortunes, addictions, injustice, abuse and victimization, with no hope to escape.

All these people have a question in their heart: "Why?" Explain to them what the Word of God, the Bible, says about this.

In Hosea 4:1 God through His prophet reprimands the Jewish people for sinning against Him and says that "There is no Truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land", in verse 6 He delineates the consequences of sin and states: "God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because they have forgotten the Law of their God", and in verse 10 He concludes "Because they have ceased obeying the Lord".

Here we see that God's people, having ceased obeying the Law contained in His Word, had departed from Him and had lost all knowledge of God and the Truth, and were literally being destroyed in their flesh and in their spirit for lack of such knowledge and Truth.

The meaning of Truth in the Bible can be seen right here: Biblical Truth is the knowledge of the Law of God and its application, and this is what keeps us whole. Apart from it there is only confusion and destruction, because sin brings only confusion and causes only destruction!

Destruction is the natural consequence when people depart from God and follow the law of the world living in sin. In John 8:34 Jesus explains: "Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin".

But there is a way to escape all of this and recover from this! First of all, we need to understand where and how we have turned away from God and His Truth, and began to live according to the law of the world and therefore in sin.

Let's first define what sin is: sin is every thought and action contrary to the precepts of the teaching given to us by God and the Principles of His Kingdom outlined in His Word. In order not to commit sin, you must live according to God's Law, but to do this, you must first know It. In Hosea's Scripture we have seen that God's people in Old Testament Israel had obeyed God for some time and then at some point stopped, this was the cause of their destruction in body and spirit.

All of us Gentiles, descending instead from families who have never known God and always lived according to the culture, traditions and religion of the place they came from, are born farther away from God's knowledge and already with an heavy baggage of iniquity and generational sins. None of us grew up in the Truth and with families who taught us the True Principles of God's Kingdom, and so we all get to know sin and sin only from an early age, and don't even know that it is sin. Hence, we have to go back in our generations to trace where sin began, because sin started there.

Perhaps we come from families who have taught us to "do good and what is right" but that "doing good and what is right" was what seemed good and right to them, it was not what God taught, and therefore, though apparently good and right, it was in fact sin.

Proverbs 14:12 - "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death". Death and destruction are always the natural consequence of sin, which is why we find ourselves full of problems in this generation, as in this generation more than ever before sin abounds. Sin traps us with harsh consequences, and being a slave to sin is the ultimate bondage.

In fact God says in Proverbs 12:21 - "There shall no evil happen to the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with trouble". Proverbs 1:33 - "Whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil".

Sin will always fall under one of three categories as outlined in 1 John 2:16: "All that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world".

This sin can start with us, in our generation, and it can be an inclination we have inherited from our families and that we have been taught by them. Then, there are a number of things entering our lives because of sin committed by others against us, such as fear and victimization if we have been victims of injustice and abuse, for example, and we have to come out of bondage to these things in the same manner because they don't come from God but from the world.

When Jesus pronounced the words: "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free" in John 8:32 it was right after a discussion at the temple where He described to the Jews who He was, saying "I am from above; I am not of this world". His nature was and is as the nature of the Father, and the corruption of this fallen world, which is sin, is not in them.

Some believed and some didn't. To those who didn't believed, in verse 24 He said: "I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am He, you will indeed die in your sins". Then, in verse 31, to those Jews who believed in Him He said: "If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free".

The Truth does not have the power to make anybody free; It only has the power to make a disciple free. A disciple is a learner who understands that what he is taught by his teacher is true and sound, so he believes it and puts all this teaching into practice. This kind of person is the one who qualifies for the blessing of knowing the Truth and being made free by It.

In many passages the Bible is called "Word of Truth" (Psalm 119:160; 2 Corinthians 6:7; Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5; James 1:18, etc.), as God reveals Himself in It, and through It a disciple learns how to "partake in the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world caused by evil desires" (2 Peter 1:4), which are sin, and learns how to recover from bondage to such sin and its harsh consequences.

Jesus is also the Truth (John 14:6 - "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"), as He is the Word (John 1:1) and embodies the holy and spotless nature of God the Father; He is God in the flesh who reveals Himself to His disciples and shows them the right way of living through His teachings and living example and that will make them free. This is why He said that He came to "proclaim freedom to the captives and set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18).

The Holy Spirit is also called "Spirit of Truth" because it leads the disciple into all Truth (John 16:13), while he matures in wisdom and understanding.

The disciples of Jesus are not part of this world; they hate this world of sin and don't belong here! Jesus prays to His Father in Heaven for His disciples in John 17:14-17 - "I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth".

Jesus' disciples are cleansed and set apart through the process of Sanctification by God's Truth, which is His Word: they learn the Principles of His Kingdom in His Word, apply them to their lives and are made free from sin and its harsh consequences.

This is how they will know the Truth and how the Truth will set them free and make them free! This is the meaning of the Truth will set you free: knowing the Truth will set a disciple free from bondage and make a disciple free from sin and eternal condemnation, because a disciple will learn the Principles of God's Kingdom and live by them.

Romans 6:22 - "Now that you have been set free from the power of sin and have become servants of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life".

Romans 8:1-2 - "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, because the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death".