Truth is the Way

alan ford

Well-known member
This is a section from Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, the book I just got. I'm not sure if I ever read something so nicely explained regarding the "what is Truth?" question posed to Jesus by Pilate. There are some really nice points and I would recommend reading. Enjoy!

13 Truth Is the Way

Truth is not something you can appropriate easily and quickly. You certainly cannot sleep or dream yourself into the truth. No, you must be tried, do battle, and suffer if you are to acquire truth for yourself. It is a sheer illusion to think that in relation to truth there is an abridgment, a short cut that dispenses with the necessity of struggling for it. With respect to acquiring truth to live by, every generation and every individual must essentially begin from the beginning.

What is truth, and in what sense was Christ the truth? The first question, as is well known, was asked by Pilate (Jn. 18:38), and it is doubtful whether he ever really cared to have his question answered. Pilate asks Christ, "What is truth?" That it did not occur to Pilate that Christ was the truth demonstrates precisely that he had no eye at all for truth. Christ's life was the truth (Jn. 14:6). To this end was Christ born, and for this purpose did he come into the world, that he should bear witness to the truth.

What, then, is the fundamental confusion in Pilate's question? It consists in this, that it occurred to him to question Christ in this way; for in questioning Christ he actually denounced himself; he revealed that Christ's life had not illumined him. How could Christ enlighten Pilate with words when Pilate could not see through Christ's own life what truth is!

Pilate's question is extremely foolish. Not that he asks, "What is truth?" but that he questions Christ, he whose life is expressly the truth and who at every moment demonstrates more powerfully by his life what truth is than all the most profound lectures of the cleverest thinkers.

Though it makes perfect sense to ask any other person, a thinker, a teacher, or whoever, "What is truth?" to ask Christ this it is the greatest possible confusion. Obviously Pilate is of the opinion that Christ is just a man, like everyone else.

Poor Pilate! Pilate's question is the most foolish and confusing question ever asked by man. It is as if I were to ask someone standing right before me, "Do you exist?" How can that person reply? So also with Christ in relation to Pilate.

Christ is the truth. "If my life," he might say, "cannot open your eyes to what truth is, then what can I say? For I am the truth."

As with Pilate, in our day Christ as the truth has also been abolished: we take Christ's teaching – but abolish Christ. We want truth the easy way. This is to abolish truth, for Christ the teacher is more important than the teaching. Just as Christ's life, the fact that he lived here on earth, is vastly more important than all the results of his life, so also is Christ infinitely more important than his teaching.
Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only true explanation of it; the only true way of acquiring it. Truth is not a sum of statements, not a definition, not a system of concepts, but a life. Truth is not a property of thought that guarantees validity to thinking. No, truth in its most essential character is the reduplication* of truth within yourself, within me, within him. Your life, my life, his life expresses the truth in the striving. Just as the truth was a life in Christ, so too, for us truth must be lived.

*Reduplication is Kierkegaard’s term meaning to exist in what one understands, to manifest the truth in one’s life. It means to live out in life the challenges of thought, to be what one says.

Therefore, truth is not a matter of knowing this or that but of being in the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here, best seen in Christ's response to Pilate. Christ did not know the truth but was the truth. Not as if he did not know what truth is, but when one is the truth and when the requirement is to be in the truth, to merely "know" the truth is insufficient – it is an untruth. For knowing the truth is something that follows as a matter of course from being in the truth, not the other way around. Nobody knows more of the truth than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be in the truth; it is to have the truth for one's life.

This always costs a struggle. Any other kind of knowledge is a falsification. In short, the truth, if it is really there, is a being, a life. The Gospel says that this is eternal life, to know the only true God and the one whom he sent, the truth (Jn. 17:3). That is, I only know the truth when it becomes a life in me.

Truth is not a deposit of acquired knowledge, the yield. This might have been if Christ had been, for example, a teacher of truth, a thinker, one who made a discovery. But Christ is the way as well as the truth. His teaching is infinitely superior to all the inventions of any and every age, an eternity older and an eternity higher than all systems, even the very newest. His teaching is the truth – not in terms of knowledge, but in the sense that the truth is a way – and as the God-man he is and remains the way; something that no human being, however zealously he professes that the truth is the way, dare assert of himself without blasphemy.

Christ compares truth to food and appropriating it to eating it (Jn. 6:48–51). Just as food is appropriated (assimilated) and thereby becomes the sustenance of life, so also spiritually, truth is both the giver and the sustenance of life. It is life.

Therefore one can see what a monstrous mistake it is to impart or represent Christianity by lecturing. The truth is lived before it is understood. It must be fought for, tested, and appropriated. Truth is the way. And when the truth is the way, then the way cannot be shortened or drop out unless the truth itself is distorted or drops out.

Is this not too difficult to understand? Anyone will easily understand it if he just gives himself to it.
 

alan ford

Well-known member
Some excerpts from the Insight book

“the truth came to be through Jesus” in the sense that he put the things foreshadowed by the Law into the realm of actual truth. As he himself was no shadow but the reality, Jesus was “the truth.”

God’s Word Is Truth. God’s Word presents things as they really are, revealing Jehovah’s attributes, purposes, and commands, as well as the true state of affairs among mankind.

‘Walking in the Truth.’ Those who desire to gain God’s approval should walk in his truth and serve him in truth. (Jos 24:14; 1Sa 12:24; Ps 25:4, 5; 26:3-6; 43:3; 86:11; Isa 38:3)
Christianity is “the way of the truth” (2Pe 2:2), and those who assist others in furthering the interests of Christianity become “fellow workers in the truth.” (3Jo 8)

I am thinking, since basically the whole of the Hebrew scriptures points towards the arrival of Jesus (the word, the truth) and Greek scriptures focus solely on him and his life, and then seeing how in the JW world there is not nearly as much focus on him, it makes me think of how is it possible for them to say "I am in the truth".
This quote from the post above then rings especially true
in our day Christ as the truth has also been abolished: we take Christ's teaching – but abolish Christ. We want truth the easy way. This is to abolish truth, for Christ the teacher is more important than the teaching.

To me it means that if we are to say "I am in the truth" we need to then live our life as he did. Basically for every action or thought we have, we should ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" (WWJD) This gives me a new appreciation of Jesus' words "I am the way and the truth and the life".
 

evw

Well-known member
Some excerpts from the Insight book

“the truth came to be through Jesus” in the sense that he put the things foreshadowed by the Law into the realm of actual truth. As he himself was no shadow but the reality, Jesus was “the truth.”

God’s Word Is Truth. God’s Word presents things as they really are, revealing Jehovah’s attributes, purposes, and commands, as well as the true state of affairs among mankind.

‘Walking in the Truth.’ Those who desire to gain God’s approval should walk in his truth and serve him in truth. (Jos 24:14; 1Sa 12:24; Ps 25:4, 5; 26:3-6; 43:3; 86:11; Isa 38:3)
Christianity is “the way of the truth” (2Pe 2:2), and those who assist others in furthering the interests of Christianity become “fellow workers in the truth.” (3Jo 8)

I am thinking, since basically the whole of the Hebrew scriptures points towards the arrival of Jesus (the word, the truth) and Greek scriptures focus solely on him and his life, and then seeing how in the JW world there is not nearly as much focus on him, it makes me think of how is it possible for them to say "I am in the truth".
This quote from the post above then rings especially true


To me it means that if we are to say "I am in the truth" we need to then live our life as he did. Basically for every action or thought we have, we should ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" (WWJD) This gives me a new appreciation of Jesus' words "I am the way and the truth and the life".
Such a truth in what you say! I always notice that Jesus gets a much too 'small' place with me and I have to work hard on that. In the congregation it is not standing out since everything is about Jehovah (not wrong by the way), but it seems as if Jesus is hardly important except around the time of the memorial celebration. No excuus ofcours for me
 

alan ford

Well-known member
Such a truth in what you say! I always notice that Jesus gets a much too 'small' place with me and I have to work hard on that. In the congregation it is not standing out since everything is about Jehovah (not wrong by the way), but it seems as if Jesus is hardly important except around the time of the memorial celebration. No excuus ofcours for me
When I started to dig deeper in the Bible as opposed to WT literature, I started asking myself why this was the case. And then one thing led to another, and here I am..
 

alan ford

Well-known member
I bet if you asked the author who Jesus is he would say he is God. :rolleyes:
Probably, but still what he wrote here is true. I think he did a great job at the time when church was still wielding great power in the lives of people. I didn't read much from him except some quotes and chapters here and there, but it was enough for me to see that he wasn't liked because of his view that went contrary to the church. He basically attacked the "mediocre shell" of conventional Christianity. I don't think he focused on the nature of God as much as he did on nature of being a Christian.
Here are some quotes from this book.
 

Watchman

Moderator
Staff member
Probably, but still what he wrote here is true. I think he did a great job at the time when church was still wielding great power in the lives of people. I didn't read much from him except some quotes and chapters here and there, but it was enough for me to see that he wasn't liked because of his view that went contrary to the church. He basically attacked the "mediocre shell" of conventional Christianity. I don't think he focused on the nature of God as much as he did on nature of being a Christian.
Here are some quotes from this book.
The truth is, it is not possible to understand what Jesus did if we do not accept that Jesus was a servant. He repeatedly said that God sent him, that he did not come on his own initiative. So, leaving Jehovah out of the picture adds up to a lie.
 

alan ford

Well-known member
The truth is, it is not possible to understand what Jesus did if we do not accept that Jesus was a servant. He repeatedly said that God sent him, that he did not come on his own initiative. So, leaving Jehovah out of the picture adds up to a lie.
I agree, except that we can't leave Jesus out of the picture either since he is a perfect representation of Jehovah.

John 14:6 states
6 Jesus said to him: “I am the way+ and the truth+ and the life.+ No one comes to the Father except through me.+ 7 If you men had known me, you would have known my Father also;+ from this moment on you know him and have seen him.”+
 

alan ford

Well-known member
This just occured to me regarding your statement
that Jesus was a servant.

He's like the faithful and discrete servant from his parable. Only he proved himself worthy and received everything from the Father, same as the true FDS will upon master’s return.

Revelation 5:12
12 and they were saying with a loud voice: “The Lamb who was slaughtered+ is worthy to receive the power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”+
 

BagdadBill

Well-known member
I agree, except that we can't leave Jesus out of the picture either since he is a perfect representation of Jehovah.

John 14:6 states
6 Jesus said to him: “I am the way+ and the truth+ and the life.+ No one comes to the Father except through me.+ 7 If you men had known me, you would have known my Father also;+ from this moment on you know him and have seen him.”+
Acts 4:12 Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.
Properly understood, this says that Jehovah has directed our attention to his son for salvation. Everything still originates with Jehovah but now, Jesus is the only accepted means to gain access to God.
 

alan ford

Well-known member
Acts 4:12 Furthermore, there is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must get saved.
Properly understood, this says that Jehovah has directed our attention to his son for salvation. Everything still originates with Jehovah but now, Jesus is the only accepted means to gain access to God.
Exactly, so sidestepping or reducing the role of Jesus, and claiming to be in the truth is mutually exclusive. We can't serve Jehovah without him.
 
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White Stone

Well-known member
Some excerpts from the Insight book

“the truth came to be through Jesus” in the sense that he put the things foreshadowed by the Law into the realm of actual truth. As he himself was no shadow but the reality, Jesus was “the truth.”

God’s Word Is Truth. God’s Word presents things as they really are, revealing Jehovah’s attributes, purposes, and commands, as well as the true state of affairs among mankind.

‘Walking in the Truth.’ Those who desire to gain God’s approval should walk in his truth and serve him in truth. (Jos 24:14; 1Sa 12:24; Ps 25:4, 5; 26:3-6; 43:3; 86:11; Isa 38:3)
Christianity is “the way of the truth” (2Pe 2:2), and those who assist others in furthering the interests of Christianity become “fellow workers in the truth.” (3Jo 8)

I am thinking, since basically the whole of the Hebrew scriptures points towards the arrival of Jesus (the word, the truth) and Greek scriptures focus solely on him and his life, and then seeing how in the JW world there is not nearly as much focus on him, it makes me think of how is it possible for them to say "I am in the truth".
This quote from the post above then rings especially true


To me it means that if we are to say "I am in the truth" we need to then live our life as he did. Basically for every action or thought we have, we should ask ourselves "what would Jesus do?" (WWJD) This gives me a new appreciation of Jesus' words "I am the way and the truth and the life".
The Old Testament teaches us to love the Father. The New Testament teaches us then to love the Son. For both of THEM we will have eternal life.(John 17:3)

I know what you mean. In fact, when I was being raised as a JW as a child, I came to hate Jesus as Christendom people view him as God instead of Jehovah, and that was how also other JWs view it. When asked if I was a Christian, I would say no and say I am a JW, which shows my limited understanding what it means to be a Christian.

Even as I was baptized as a JW, I saw him as only the one who provided us the ransom, like he was just an instrument used by Jehovah and nothing more. But I came to know more of the truth, and had a hunger to know him as the scriptures says, he is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”. The New Testament was written so that we may know the Christ—his beloved Son, and have a relationship with him just as we had with the Father.
 
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Cristo

Well-known member
The Old Testament teaches us to love the Father. The New Testament teaches us then to love the Son. For both of THEM we will have eternal life.(John 17:3)

I know what you mean. In fact, when I was being raised as a JW as a child, I came to hate Jesus as Christendom people view him as God instead of Jehovah, and that was how also other JWs view it. When asked if I was a Christian, I would say no and say I am a JW, which shows my limited understanding what it means to be a Christian.

Even as I was baptized as a JW, I saw him as only the one who provided us the ransom, like he was just an instrument used by Jehovah and nothing more. But I came to know more of the truth, and had a hunger to know him as the scriptures says, he is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”. The New Testament was written so that we may know the Christ—his beloved Son, and have a relationship with him just as we had with the Father.

Truth is perfect, no doubt, that's why you recognized it. :)
 
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BagdadBill

Well-known member
This is one of the things I ignored while I was a study. Highlight Jesus and push him to the front of everything we are or do or say because his father did and told us to recognize his choice in the matter. That said, Jesus points us back to Jehovah as the origin of everything. Somewhere along the way, someone will mention holy spirit and throw the spanner in the machine. It was so simple and we have to add some mud into it.
 

alan ford

Well-known member
Even as I was baptized as a JW, I saw him as only the one who provided us the ransom, like he was just an instrument used by Jehovah and nothing more.
Sadly this is the attitude that's still prevalent in JW today. And it's not their fault, but the fault of the ones taking the lead. They pay lip service but don't give him the honor he deserves. They don't remove him from the picture outright, but they did at least once ... Notice how in this April 15, 2013 Watchtower we can see clearly the GB in the position of power but Jesus is absent... Or probably invisibly present :)

2013286_E_cnt_2_xl.jpg


Psalm 2:12
Honor* the son,+ or God* will become indignant
And you will perish from the way,+
For His anger flares up quickly.
Happy are all those taking refuge in Him.

Philippians 2: 9-11
9 For this very reason, God exalted him to a superior position+ and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name,+ 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground+11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord+ to the glory of God the Father.

John 3:36
The one who exercises faith in the Son has everlasting life;+ the one who disobeys the Son will not see life,+ but the wrath of God remains upon him.+
 

goldie

Well-known member
Sadly this is the attitude that's still prevalent in JW today. And it's not their fault, but the fault of the ones taking the lead. They pay lip service but don't give him the honor he deserves. They don't remove him from the picture outright, but they did at least once ... Notice how in this April 15, 2013 Watchtower we can see clearly the GB in the position of power but Jesus is absent... Or probably invisibly present :)

View attachment 3476


Psalm 2:12
Honor* the son,+ or God* will become indignant
And you will perish from the way,+
For His anger flares up quickly.
Happy are all those taking refuge in Him.

Philippians 2: 9-11
9 For this very reason, God exalted him to a superior position+ and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name,+ 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground+11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord+ to the glory of God the Father.

John 3:36
The one who exercises faith in the Son has everlasting life;+ the one who disobeys the Son will not see life,+ but the wrath of God remains upon him.+
Could it be that Jesus is absent because the picture is depicting the EARTHLY part of Jehovahs organization?
 

BARNABY THE DOG.

Well-known member
Could it be that Jesus is absent because the picture is depicting the EARTHLY part of Jehovahs organization?
If I was painting a picture of Jehovah‘s earthly organisation I would paint a crowd of people preaching and the symbolic picture of Christ as a shepherd over-looking the scene with a crook in his hand (I don’t mean a GB crook but a shepherd‘s crook). The only reason for the picture that the GB made of themselves, was simply to “confirm” their own seniority and then rubber stamp it as ‘truth’ by adding the title “Jehovah’s earthly organisation”. That’s rubbish. Jehovah does not ‘have’ an “organisation” but a “people for His name.“ What they preach is by His authority. Between them, they could have arranged for writers to contribute; donations for support would have paid for printers - there would have been no need for buildings and business upkeep, taxation (or relief) and with advancement, necessary arrangements could all be all in the ether by now. The opportunity for a brotherhood of equality and unity was sacrificed for position and power but it would have happened anyway no matter what course it took. Man made it an organisation. Jehovah simply uses it - and plans to use it for a far better purpose soon too.
 

Truth_Seeker

Well-known member
Could it be that Jesus is absent because the picture is depicting the EARTHLY part of Jehovahs organization?

I don't believe so! I think it's intentional. They try to minimise the position of Jesus so they elevate themselves. Too bad nobody can get to Jehovah but through Jesus Christ.

Now these things, brothers and sisters, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos on your account, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. For who considers you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you! For I think, God has exhibited us, the apostles, last of all as men condemned to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to mankind. We are fools on account of Christ, but you are prudent in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are without honor! For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.
1 Corinthians 4:6‭-‬10‭, ‬17

But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
2 Peter 2:1‭-‬3
 
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