In today's passage Pontus Pilate asks Jesus the age-old question “What is truth?” With the proliferation of AI-generated media, endless online debates, and widespread disinformation, our contemporary society is experiencing “epistemic fatigue”, we are exhausted from constantly having to discern what’s real. Many of us are tempted to throw up our hands like Pilate, dismissing the pursuit of truth as hopeless or irrelevant. But Jesus’s response shows that truth is not just an idea to be debated; it is something deeper and more personal.
In Scripture, truth is not defined merely in terms of fact versus fiction. While the Bible affirms objective truth (e.g., orange cones are orange), it speaks primarily of truth as an ultimate, personal reality: the eternal life of God. Truth is not just propositional—it is incarnational. Jesus says, “For this purpose I was born… to bear witness to the truth,” revealing that truth is something embodied in His life, words, and personhood. The biblical concept of truth is therefore not merely cognitive, but relational and existential.
Every worldview is built upon an assumption of some ultimate reality. For materialists or rationalists, the material universe is that ultimate foundation. But such views are insufficient to answer the most important human questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my destiny? These existential questions demand a bigger framework—one that science or subjective feeling cannot satisfy. The Christian faith asserts that ultimate reality is God’s eternal life, and Jesus came not only to reveal this truth, but to make it accessible to us.
The teaching distinguishes three approaches to knowing truth: rationalism (knowing through logic and nature), mysticism (knowing through feeling and intuition), and revelation (God making truth known). Rationalism and mysticism both have their place, but neither can access the transcendent truth of God on their own. Only divine revelation—God speaking through His Word and through Christ—can lead us to real knowledge of ultimate reality. Revelation is not something we can earn or discover through intellect or experience alone; it is received by faith.
Faith is the “organ” through which we receive revelation. Just as our eyes are the organ for light, faith is what allows us to see and embrace the truth that God reveals in Jesus. This truth is not abstract or detached—it is embodied in Christ and offered to us not just for mental agreement but for spiritual belonging. The goal of Christianity is not merely to know the truth intellectually, but to become people who are “of the truth”—who live in alignment with the eternal reality of God.
Ultimately, we are called to reject the shallow, pragmatic view of truth that says, “It’s true if it works,” and instead embrace the deeper, biblical view: that truth is what aligns with God’s eternal life, made manifest in Christ. Jesus stood before Pilate as the Truth in human form, and Pilate missed it. The challenge for us is not to repeat that mistake—to not just ask “What is truth?” but to listen to the voice of the one who says, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Through faith, we are invited not only to know the truth, but to belong to it.
