As frustrating as it might be for some people, there things that are set as a standard in the universe as it exists, that are inescapable. We might call it nature, and call the principles laws of nature, but in all cases, whatever they may be, there’s one word that captures all of it under it’s umbrella, and it’s the word “Truth”. It’s a very appealing to entertain a certain pithy slogan such as, “your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth”. It’s an asinine sentiment, and renders the use of the word in the English language useless. It serves only to entertain a person’s delusions, and in no way excuses them from their ignorance of the meaning of the word in actuality. Because once the truth is known, there is no denying the sense there is in it, and to act in opposition to it is futility in the fullest sense of the term. To act incongruous to the truth, whether knowingly or unknowingly, will render us at the mercies of the effects of our words in deeds, once they avail themselves within the framework of reality. So, rather than entertain the debate over this issue, moving forward, we will treat these notions of relative truth with disdain, and dismissal, for the intellectual laziness that we might be tempted to give more credibility than is worth.
In my last post, I laid out a pretty thorough statement on the way that I see the world, which is the anchor I rely on for the sake of making the decisions I do in my life. These are issues that I have been convinced of to be True. So if you asked me what the truth is, this would be my answer. All that can be said from that point forward is that the Truth is that these are the things that I have stated to be what I believer to be what the Truth is. Are my sentiments and convictions the actual Truth? Well, only the Truth can know for certain, and only the Truth can reveal that to be the case. Because the Truth is what the Truth is, and the closer you get to the Truth, the more the Truth begins to exhibit characteristics of a person, or personality. Yeshua, equips this idea, by equating that to Himself, confirming our suspicions about what our relationship with the idea might be. And Yeshua identifies Himself as that personality. But then He does something very profound with that, at a very specific scene, that’s famous for its theological density, and that would be John 17, the Garden Prayer. In it, Yeshua prays for some very interesting things that are difficult for people to chew on. In that chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, two particularly explosive verses posit statements that in my life as a believer some 25 years, I can’t say have been given much attention at all. The first is the issue which is central to the teaching of Christianity, the way of eternal life, found in verse: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Then spends roughly 17-18 verses explaining some things about that, then arives at verse 21-23:
[Jhn 17:21-23 NASB20] 21 that they may all be one; just as You, Father, [are] in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 “The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me.
This outline offers much in terms of quality and nature as the pre-crucified Christ’s view of Himself, in relationship to the rest of His experience, which we can gather through the witness testimony of the text. If the student can take hold of the meaning of these handfuls of sentences, you have everything you need to put together the whole picture of what the message is that these evangelists are offering to the world, and imploring them to accept, as a Samaritan might welcome a wounded stranger, and provide for his recovery after being violently robbed and assaulted. The Gospel book itself in its entirety is doubtless intended to make the characters relateable to where we’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and hear them out. If this is the spot in the case in the defense that the dead are raised, it would seem that this presentation would be where we should be looking if we’re to derive an understanding of the substance of this idea, and it seems to be centered on this unity. How more than one thing can actually be one thing. This is a reference to the prayer of Deutoronomy 6:4, and by invoking in His own prayer, the Gospel writer is bridging the gap between the way things had been, and the new direction the world is going. That embedded in the bed rock of the world as it had been are clues about the Truth, and that Truth is who and What God is, at the core of whom is being True, and telling the Truth. For the ancient human, to be God, meant to be someone responsible for some portion the universe and its order and nature, and it was a peculiar think for those declare a single God, who held and demonstrated all of the power of the universe. To add to the richness that we’ve already mined from Yohannan the theologian and his ecclectic and dynamic record of the life of Yeshua, he settles on a very distinct and thorough view of who and what he thinks that God is, and he lands on the person of his rabbi, the master from Nazareth. And so, he leaves us without excuse in terms of what we need to sus out the whole picture, which brings us to the first portion of it that we’ll leave this on for now. That is the portion that the lot and the little aren’t very far from each other. When we look around us things can usually only go one way or another with the question of love or disdain, life or death, sacred or profane, sinner or saint. When it comes down to dichotomies, if any question is ever going to be answered, it must first require that it is assumed that there is an answer at the end to be found, in order to ask the question to begin with. The Answer is always there, and is always closer than a brother.