The Biblical Concept of Truth
God is truth
What does the Bible say about truth?
Jesus (who was God in flesh) claimed to BE truth when he said,
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”
—John 14:6
This idea of God being truth wasn’t introduced with Jesus, though. The Old Testament says that God abounds in truth.
“The Lord God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth”
—Exodus 34:6
Definition of truth
As a modern-day English-speaker, my mind relates truth with “honesty.” To operate in truth is to be honest about the way things really are. My mind also relates truth with “accuracy.” Anything that is “true” is accurate to the way things really are.
While God definitely is both honest and accurate, the Hebrew and Greek words ascribe even deeper meaning.
OT definition
emet (noun, Hebrew)
firmness, faithfulness, truth
• sureness, reliability
• stability, continuance
• faithfulness, reliableness
• truth
When the OT teaches that God is truth, it also means that God is reliable. He’s firm, stable, and constant which means that we can count on him and depend on him.
NT definition
aletheia (noun, Greek)
truth
• the reality lying at the basis of an appearance
When the NT teaches that God is truth, it means that God is the reality that exists at the basis of the way things appear. God is the reality, and anything that contradicts God contradicts reality.
God’s truth trumps our personal experience
We can depend on God and base everything we do on him, because he is firm and stable.
If God‘s word is truth then everything else must be a lie. We must believe God no matter how convincing Satan‘s arguments appear.
—Watchman Nee (The Normal Christian Life)
Sometimes our experiences might seem to contradict what God says. For example, if God says that he loves us, yet we feel unloved, then that means our feelings are misaligned with the truth. Appearances can be tricky. If our circumstances tell us one thing, while God tells us another, then whatever God says will ultimately trump the lies that our circumstances are telling us.