What is Truth? | John 18 | J. Allen Mashburn

This passage records what may have been the last intimate, personal conversation that Jesus had with another individual before He was crucified.  In this exchange between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, we see two men with opposing agendas.

Pilate comes across as one who is agitated at having been placed in the middle of what he sees as a religious dispute between Jews.  His sarcasm and short answers reveal his irritation.  Jesus, on the other hand, uses this conversation to reveal His true identity to Pilate.  When asked if He is really the King of the Jews, Jesus pulls no punches, but responds in the affirmative, v. 37.

Then Jesus tells Pilate that His mission in coming to this world was that of going to the cross and dying to bear witness to the truth.  At this point, Pilate asks a question born out of pure cynicism.  He asks Jesus, “What is truth?”  This was a rhetorical question.  Pilate did not really want an answer, and he did not wait around to receive one.  In essence, he was telling Jesus, “What is true for you may not be true for me!  You say ‘to-may-to’, I say, ‘to-mah-toe’. Don’t talk to me about truth for truth cannot really be known!”    So, Pilate threw away a glorious opportunity to come to know the truth for himself.  He looked truth in the face, refused to see it and walked away, forever lost in his sins!

I would like to take Pilate’s question this evening and ponder it for a few minutes.  I believe the Bible gives us enough information about truth so that we can answer this question for ourselves.  In fact, I want to take the texts I will use to examine truth from just the book of John.  Of the 222 verses in the Bible that contain the word “truth”, 22 or 10% are found in the Gospel according to John.  What is truth?