What is Truth?

Pilate saith unto [Jesus], "What is truth?" (John 18:38a).

Since we were not present when Pilate asked Jesus this question, we cannot know whether he asked in seriousness or in a sarcastic manner. Regardless, the question that Pilate asks is a question that many in our own time are asking: what is truth? What can we be sure is true, correct, and right? Why is it that so many people have so many different answers regarding what the truth is? Many today even question whether there is "a" truth-- in their thoughts, there is no such thing as "absolute truth," and what is true for one person may not be true for another. Maybe you wonder what truth is, or even if truth can be known.

While modern man may wonder about truth, the Bible warns us about such concerns. Paul advises the Colossians to watch themselves lest they be taken captive by the philosophies of men, according to human traditions, no longer holding fast to Christ (Colossians 2:8). The reason that we are to hold fast to Christ is that He is God: "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

Jesus worked to demonstrate that truth exists while He was alive on the earth. Consider His statement to Pilate that led Pilate to ask, "What is truth?":

Jesus answered, "Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:37b).

Jesus' life, then, involved bearing witness to "the truth." In John 14:26, Jesus indicates that He is "the way, the truth, and the life." John bears witness to Jesus that He was full of "truth" and that while the law was given through Moses, "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:14, John 1:17).