II. CHRIST AS THE TRUTH.–The thought grows deeper as we advance. Obedience to the Way conducts to the vision of the Truth; ethics to spiritual optics. The truth-seeker must first submit himself in all humility and obedience to Christ; and when he is willing to do His will, he is permitted to know.
(1) Christ is more than a teacher. “We know that Thou art a Teacher, come from God,” said Nicodemus. He is more, He is the Truth of God. All truth is ensphered in Him. All the mysteries of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him. We fully know truth only as it is in
Jesus. When the Spirit of Truth would lead us into all truth, He can do nothing better than take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to us, because to know Christ is to know the Truth in its most complete, most convenient, and most accessible form. If you know nothing else, and know Christ intimately and fully, you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free. If you love truth, and are a child of the truth, you will be inevitably attracted to Christ, and recognize the truth that speaks through His glorious nature. “He that is of the truth heareth My voice.”
(2) Distinguish between Christ the Truth, and truth about Him. Many true things may be said about Him; but we are not saved by truths about Him, but by Himself the Truth.
Not the indubitable fact that Jesus died; but the Person of Him who died and lives forevermore.
Not the certain fact that Jesus lay in the grave; but the blessed Man Himself, who lay there for me.
Not the incontestable facts of His resurrection and ascension; but that He has borne my nature to the midst of the throne, and has achieved a victory which helps me in my daily struggle.
This is the ground basis of all true saving faith. The soul may accept truths about Christ, as it would any well-authenticated historical fact; but it is not materially benefited or saved until it has come to rest on the bosom of Him of whom these facts are recorded.
(3) To know Christ as Truth demands truth in heart and life. The insincere man; the trifler; the flippant jester who takes nothing seriously; the superficial man who uses the deepest expressions, as counters for society talk; the inconsistent man who is daily doing violence to his convictions, by permitting things which his conscience condemns–must stand forever on the outskirts of the Temple of Truth: they have no right to stand before the King of Truth. If you have never discerned the truth as it is in Jesus, it becomes a serious question whether you are perfectly true, or whether you are not, like Pilate, harboring insincerity in your heart, which blinds your eyes to His ineffable attributes.
(4) Concern yourself with Christ. Be content to let the world and its wisdom alone. “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God . . . He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” Give yourself to know Christ, who is made unto us wisdom, as well as sanctification and
redemption. To know Him is to be at the fountain-head of all truth; and the soul which has dwelt with Him by day and night will find itself, not only inspired by an undying love for the true, but will be able to hold fellowship with truth-lovers and truth-seekers everywhere; nay, will be able even to instruct those who have the reputation of great learning and knowledge in the schools of human thought. “I have more understanding than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have kept Thy
precepts.” To know and to possess Christ, is to have the Word, that is the Wisdom of God, enshrined as a most sacred possession in the heart.
III. CHRIST AS THE LIFE.–It is not enough to know; we need life. Life is, indeed, the gate to knowledge. “This is life eternal that they should know Thee.” It was imperative, therefore, that Jesus should become a source of life to men, that they might know the Truth, and be able to walk in the Way, and more especially since death had infected and exhausted all the springs of the world’s vitality.
It was into a world of death that the Son of God came. The spring of life in our first parents had become tainted at its source. At the best Adam was only a living soul. Dead–dead–dead in trespasses and sins; such was the Divine verdict, such the course of this world. Earth resembled the valley in the prophet’s vision, full of bones, very many and very dry. All the reservoirs of life were spent; its fountains had died away in wastes of sand.
Then the Son of God brought life from the eternal throne, from God Himself; and became a Life-giving Spirit. His words were spirit and life: He was Himself the Resurrection and the Life: those that believed in Him became partakers of the Divine Nature. The tree of life was
again planted on the earth’s soil, when Jesus became incarnate. “I give eternal life unto My sheep,” He said, “and they shall never perish.” “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life.”
If, then, you are wanting life, and life more abundantly, you must have Christ. Do not seek it, but Him: not the stream but the fountain; not the word, but the speaker; not the fruit, but the tree. He is the Life and Light of men.
And if you have Christ you have life. You may not be competent to define or analyze it; you may not be able to specify the place or time, when it first broke into your soul; you may hardly be able to distinguish it from the workings of your own life: but if you have Christ, trust Christ, desire Christ above all, you have the Life. “He that hath the Son hath the Life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the Life.” “We know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true . . . this is eternal life.” “I,” said Jesus, “am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
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