To know God is the universal and unending quest of all mankind. No culture or age is exempt, whether ancient or modern. In man alone among all of God’s creation there exists an incompleteness which compels him to seek solace. Earthly things do not satisfy, and man’s gaze is inevitably drawn to the heavens which stir in him vague memories and ancient voices from the past that pierce the soul and hint of a time when he was whole. It is God whom he seeks and must know to assuage the loneliness and emptiness of his existence.
Ancient man knew there were “…things, not of this world, but mysterious and superior, and worthy of being sought to the exclusion of everything else.”[1] And through religion he sought to know his Creator. Speaking of a time before God revealed himself to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians, the Apostle Paul wrote of this perceived truth.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. [Romans 1:19-23, RSV]
The perceived truth of which Paul spoke, those things not of this world, are the norms, the permanent things, to which mankind must adhere in order to live. It is a moral order that transcends time. It is not instinct or learned behavior through time. Those norms or permanent things are applicable to all of mankind and to all ages. Following the fall of man and separation from God, men knew of good and evil.[2] But as time advanced man’s understanding of good and evil diminished.[3] Recorded over a 1,600-year span of time, the revelation to the Hebrews and the first century Christians brought illumination, order, and meaning to those pre-revelation norms or permanent things and which mankind had forgotten but perceived and endeavored to know. Man could not only know of God’s power and deity, they could know Him as Father God.
J. I. Packer asks a question and then answers it with regard to the purpose of mankind: “What were we made for? To know God.”[4] John the Apostle gives the answer as to “why” knowing God is the most important quest of one’s life. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” [John 17:3, KJV] It is only through knowing God, not just knowing about Him, that we can have eternal life with God. And we can only know God through knowing his Son Jesus Christ the mediator for “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me.” [John 14:6, KJV] To know God is to repent of sin and accept Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior. Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross bridged the chasm caused by man’s broken relationship with God. This is the only remedy that will provide solace for lost man’s loneliness and emptiness in this life and eternity hereafter.
The essence of God is truth. To know God is to know truth. Christ came to earth as man but also God incarnate to testify unto the truth. The night of his betrayal, Christ stood before Pilate who asked Jesus, “…‘Art that a king then?’ Jesus answered, ‘Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.’” [John 18:37, KJV] [emphasis added]
For 2000 years this has been the goal of the faithful who claim to hear his voice: to know God and therefore to know truth. Why is it then that the various branches of the church who claim to know God preach truths that point in so many different directions? Several answers suggest themselves: man is a fallen creature and has a corrupt nature, man has freewill, and there is tempter who seeks to strike at God through destruction of His creation. And every generation of the church (the people of God) have faced Satan’s snares and deception in their quest for truth.
Every generation since Christ’s crucifixion has faced the same difficulties. Even the apostles and early giants of the church encountered dissension and corruption while sorting out truth under the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps one of the most important disputes within the early church is recorded in Acts 15 and Galatians 2.
The dispute arose over some men who came from Judea to Antioch and taught that unless the Gentile brethren were circumcised as commanded by Jewish law that they cannot be saved. Paul and Barnabas took great exception to this teaching and traveled to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders regarding the matter. The essence of Paul’s argument was that nothing, be it circumcision or anything else, was necessary for justification other than faith in Christ Jesus. James and the other apostles readily agreed with Paul and sent letters of instruction to the Antioch church that circumcision was not a requirement of salvation. [Acts 15]
These instructions were compatible with an earlier revelation to the Apostle Peter while visiting Simon the tanner whose house was next to the seaside in Joppa. After falling into a trance, Peter had a vision that challenged his Jewish conception of the larger issue of who could be a part of God’s kingdom. Somewhat doubtful of the message brought by the vision, God had arranged a divine appointment for Peter with a Roman army officer by the name of Cornelius, a Gentile but a devout man who feared God. Through this encounter Peter recognized that Gentiles were to be included in Christ’s kingdom. [Acts 10]
Even with all of his faults and impetuousness, Peter was the pre-eminent disciple of the twelve. Deeply emotional, he was passionate in his love and devotion to the Savior. It was to Peter that the Father revealed Jesus as “…the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” [Matthew 16:15-17. KJV]
Paul, having neither Peter’s spiritual credentials nor having been a disciple when Christ was on the earth, counted himself unworthy to be called an apostle because he had persecuted the church of God. Yet, he was bold in his proclamation of the truth and not apologetic about his labors. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.” [1 Corinthians 15:10, RSV]
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul spoke of his encounter with Peter when he came among the Gentiles at Antioch. At first, Peter fellowshipped and ate with the Gentiles. But when other Jewish Christians from Jerusalem arrived, Peter feared their disapproval and separated himself from the Gentiles. Because of his stature and influence in the church, other Jews and even Barnabas followed Peter’s example (see Galatians 2:11-13). Commenting on Peter’s cowardice in the face of possible criticism from other Jewish Christians, Matthew Henry wrote of “The weakness and inconsistency of the best of men, and how apt they are to falter in their duty to God, out of undue regard to the pleasing of men,” and of “The great force of bad examples, especially the examples of great men and good men.”[5]
Led by the Spirit, fearless Paul rose to the challenge and publicly rebuked Peter, his elder in age and prestige, because of Peter’s actions and example and the others for following him (see Galatians 2:14). This was a monumental moment in the history of the church because the whole course of Christianity and the way of salvation were at stake and depended on the correct understanding of truth. Peter’s actions and example could not be ignored for the sake of unity or the greater good. If one accepts that all scripture is inspired by the leading of the Holy Spirit, Paul’s account of the confrontation in his letter to the Galatians is divine affirmation of Paul’s understanding of the truth and is also consistent with Peter’s earlier acknowledgement of the inclusion of the Gentile’s in Christ’s kingdom.
The modern evangelical church in America is in great distress and suffering attack from within and without. In the following chapters we shall briefly survey the history of the church down through ages. With this foundation as a guide, we shall extensively examine the afflictions and failings of the evangelical church over the last 125 years that have led to its demise as a moral force necessary to stem the decline of American culture. These afflictions have arisen over the centuries because the church has made its authority the equal or superior to the Bible in many areas, has absorbed the spirit of the world, and has misinterpreted its proper role and relationship with government and other spheres of life.
Christians must once again plumb the depths of truth found in the unadulterated Word of God and follow the examples of Paul and others of the faithful from generations past who faced persecution and death as they spoke truth in the face of error, heresy, weakness, worldliness, and inconsistencies within the church. The revival of the church rests on knowing God. And knowing God begins and ends with the sola scriptura—the scriptures only.
Clarification of the meaning of truth
In the following chapters we may speak of biblical truths, scientific truths, or attach some other adjective to truth or truths. This is done for purposes of narrowing the discussion and illumination of the topic under consideration. However, these various labels applied to truth are not meant to imply that there are categories or types of truth in which each stands alone. This is what modern secular society does when it compartmentalizes truth and labels each compartment as containing a different kind of truth. For example, the world classifies scientific knowledge as fact which is binding on everyone. Such truths are termed rational, objective, and universally valid and apply to science, economics, politics, and the rest of the public arena. The remainder is consigned to religious truth deemed to be personal preferences, feelings, and individual choices which are non-rational, subjective, and relative only to particular groups. One of the consequences of this dichotomy is that religion is no longer considered a source of objective knowledge and therefore does not have a voice or authority in other realms of society. Thus, values are detached from the realm of true and false.[6] But as Francis Schaeffer points out, there is only one truth.
Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital “T.” Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality—and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.[7] [emphasis added]
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 77.
[2] Genesis 3:22, KJV.
[3] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 1-Book I & II, (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1910), pp. 25-28; Acts 17:30, RSV.
[4] J. I. Packer, Knowing God, (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 1973), p. 33.
[5] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, ed. Rev. Leslie F. Church, Ph.D.,(Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p. 1840.
[6] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), pp. 20-21
[7] Ibid., p. 15, quoted from Francis Schaeffer’s address at the University of Notre Dame, April, 1981.
