What is truth?
Pilate's famous question was asked in the one place where it could have been answered on the spot — standing face to face with the prisoner who had just said He came into the world to bear witness to the truth. The commentators read this scene as more than an ancient courtroom exchange: it exposes what truth actually is, why the world cannot find it, and why a man can ask the right question and still miss everything.
The Answer was standing in front of him
The Lord had already claimed to be the truth in person. That claim turns Pilate's question into an irony that writers return to again and again.
An Outline of Sound WordsPilate's question, so often asked before and since, shows that the world is utterly ignorant of the truth, and this because it is ignorant of the true God... What an opportunity Pilate missed! He asked, "What is truth?" and there before his eyes was Him who had said, "I am… the truth." Such is man in his greatness! Such is the world in its ignorance of God and His truth!
Why no answer came
Notice what Pilate does immediately after asking: he walks out. He never waits.
William KellyAnd Pilate, with a "What is truth?" returns to the Jews. He did not seriously seek an answer: an awakened conscience alone does; and grace, as it produces the desire in the sinner, gives the answer of good from God.
Yet the Lord's previous sentence had left him a way in that did not require him to define anything. One writer suggests his own dishonesty may be the reason truth looked out of reach:
Numerical Bible Notesif he knew not what was truth, he could know, at least, whether he was "of" it. And, if to be true were needful for such knowledge, was the lack of this, perhaps, what made truth appear such an unattainable thing?
Truth means reality
The Bible does not treat truth as a set of correct opinions. It is the real state of things, God included.
F. B. HoleWhen the fulness 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, with the consequent putting of everything into its right position in regard to Him. He who knows God as revealed in Christ, and is by that knowledge taken out of the mists of error, has been brought into the realm of truth.
Three places truth is found
Scripture gives the word "truth" to a Person, to a book, and to the Spirit — and they cannot contradict each other.
F. B. HoleAll truth has come out in Christ: He is the truth. All truth is revealed for us in Scripture, so the Word is truth. The Holy Spirit is given to us so we may know and obey the truth: He is the Spirit of truth. Thus, may we have enough grace to direct our spiritual energy in this direction of obeying the truth!
Outside that revelation, the search runs into sand. Commentators read Pilate's tone differently — some as cynicism, some as the despair of a tired empire — but they agree on where the search ends:
A J PollockThere is no voice of absolute truth outside the Word of God. Every human opinion is biased more or less. Pilate might well ask, "What is truth?"
Knowing truth and being "of the truth"
The Lord's test was not intellectual. He said everyone who is of the truth hears His voice — which leaves room for a person to hold correct information and still be outside.
The Bible TreasurySolemn, too, is it to think that the truth may be known to a certain extent intellectually, and professed vaguely to a still greater extent, yet be unknown in the heart and to the conscience. To profess the truth is not necessarily to be of the truth; in order to this we must be begotten of God by the word of truth (James 1:18)... Life is exclusively by the word of God, in the power of the Spirit... The process is not an external and mechanical one, it is a moral one dealing with the heart and conscience.
Asking, then walking away
The danger of the question is not that it is too hard. It is that people ask it without meaning it.
The Bible TreasuryTo ask the question "What is truth?" and forthwith to turn away, is to show the fatal unconcern and indifference of spiritual death... But is the precious truth of God our object? Then, "Buy truth, and do not sell it." It may cost us something to purchase and to hold it, but it is worth more than its weight in gold: "the law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces." This is the truth as it is in Jesus, for He is the truth personally and absolutely.
Summary
- Truth is a Person. Pilate asked what truth is while the One who said "I am the truth" stood in front of him — the question had a face.
- Truth is reality. It is the full revelation of God in Christ, which puts everything else into its right position in relation to Him.
- Truth is threefold. Christ is the truth, Scripture reveals it, the Spirit is the Spirit of truth — and they never contradict one another.
- Truth is received morally, not mentally. A person can profess it and still not be "of" it; that comes by being born of God through the word of truth.
- Truth is worth buying. "Buy truth, and do not sell it" — holding it may cost something, but Pilate's alternative was to ask and walk out.