What does it mean that God is truth?
When Scripture calls God true, it is saying something about reality itself — that what He is, is what actually is, and that everything else is measured by Him. Commentators handle the phrase carefully: they will say God is true and that His word is truth, but several of them stop short of saying God is the truth, and the reason turns out to be worth knowing.
Truth Means Reality
Truth in the Bible is not first a set of correct statements. It is what is actually there, made known.
F. B. HoleWhen the fullness of time came and it pleased God to give a perfect revelation of Himself in Christ, then it could be said, "We have seen his glory … full of grace and truth" (John 1:14), for truth is REALITY — the revelation of all that God is, together with the putting of everything into its right position in regard to Him. Anyone who knows God as revealed in Christ, and by that knowledge is taken out of the mists of error, has been brought into the realm of truth.
Why God Is Not Called "The Truth"
Truth, on this understanding, is an expression of something. That is exactly why one writer refuses the sentence "God is the truth" — God expresses no one but Himself, and nothing stands above Him to measure Him by.
J. N. DarbyEverything has its true nature, its true character, in the eyes of God. That is the truth. It is not that He is the truth. The truth is the right and perfect expression of what a thing is (and, absolutely, of what all things are), and of the relations in which it stands to other things. So God could not be the truth. He is not the expression of some other thing. Everything relates to Him. He is the centre of all true relationship, and of all moral obligation. Nor is God the measure of all things, for He is above all things. It is God become man; it is Christ, who is the truth, and the measure of all things.
Commentators differ in how they put this. Some do speak of truth as one of God's attributes. Another writer keeps both sides by using two different titles.
H. J. VineThe Son, as Man, is "the Truth," for He is the expression of what is true. As God, He also is spoken of as "the True" (1 John 5:20); as is the Father in John 17:3; but as Man here below, He perfectly expressed what is true, and is therefore personally "the Truth." The truth, then, is divine, it is entirely of God, the manifestation of Himself.
God Always Speaks The Truth
The distinction is not a technicality. It tells you where to look when you want to know what God is really like — and it leaves His spoken word completely reliable.
W. T. P. WolstonTake God at His word. He always speaks the truth. Men can tell lies… But God is true, and always speaks the truth, though He is not the Truth. What is the Truth? Christ. The truth is the absolute and perfect expression of what is. Christ is that. God is love. God is gracious, holy, tender, and merciful. How do I know it? Because it has all come out to man in the Person of the Son of God, for He was the Truth.
Truth Shows Everything As It Is
Because truth is reality brought into the open, it does not only tell us about God. It settles the question of what we are too.
W. W. FeredayTruth, as we have said, is the revelation of things as they really are. The law, though true, was not "the truth." It did not tell God out to us; its stern bearing hid Him rather than revealed Him. Nor did it show what man is, but rather what man ought to be. But Christ's coming has brought it all out into the light. God is fully declared… His love, mercy, holiness, and righteousness have all been perfectly expressed in Christ and His cross. Man, too, stands fully declared. I need not go around the prisons to learn what man is capable of; the cross tells the story more completely and truly.
Truth Is Meant To Hold You Steady
Truth known this way is not information to store. It is given to shape a life, and without it a believer has no ballast.
J. N. DarbyWe must have our waists girded with truth, or else we shall be like a ship with its sails spread but no ballast — it would founder… It is written, "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth," and further on, "For their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." Christ set Himself apart as the expression of all the truth of God in man… We ought not only to know the truth, but to have our affections filled and governed by it.
Summary
- Reality. Truth is not merely accurate words; it is what really is, brought out into the open — and with it, everything put in its right place before God.
- Person. God is above comparison, so He is not the expression of anything else; Christ, God become man, is the truth and the measure of all things.
- Titles. God and the Father are called "the True"; the Son as Man is "the Truth," because He perfectly expressed what is true.
- Word. God is true and always speaks the truth, so He can simply be taken at His word — proved by all that came out in His Son.
- Effect. The truth declares God, and it declares man; held with the affections, not just the mind, it becomes the ballast that keeps a life from foundering.