Word of Salvation – February 2011
THE POWER OF TRUTH WITH LOVE, Rev. John de Hoog
(Sermon 10 in a series on the Ten Commandments)
Reading: Deuteronomy 19:15-21; Proverbs 6:16-19
Text: Exodus 20:16; Ephesians 4:15
Human beings are made in God’s image. That basic fact about us gives the Ten Commandments all their power. A couple of examples:
“You shall not murder”. When we murder or attack another human being, it involves attacking God, because we are tearing up God’s image in that other person.
“You shall not steal.” God made human beings to own and care for things, just like he made Adam and Eve to care for the garden. God is the owner of all things, but we, made in his image, are also made to own things, and when people steal from us they attack something very central to who we are as people patterned after God.
This same principle, being made in God’s image, is also absolutely central to the Ninth Commandment – “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.” The basic principle here is this: As people made in God’s image, we thrive on truth with love. No truth, or no love, or truth without love, or love without truth all make us shrivel up as human beings, they all dehumanise us, they are all destructive of human community, they all attack our humanity made in God’s image. We human beings are made to thrive on truth with love.
This commandment is first of all concerned with truth-telling in the courts. We read from Deuteronomy 19 earlier, where it becomes plain that a witness in the courts potentially had the power of life and death over someone accused of a crime. On the testimony of two witnesses a man could be condemned to death. Israel took this very seriously. Witnesses had to undergo very serious investigation, and if they were found to be false witnesses they could lose their lives themselves. Bearing false witness in the courts could potentially become committing murder, breaking not only the ninth commandment but also the sixth.
But the meaning of this commandment can then be extended beyond the courts to every situation we find ourselves in. It requires us to tell the truth in love. Paul reflects this commandment in Ephesians 4:15 when he writes, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” Speaking the truth in love is already found in the commandment in Exodus 20 – after all, it’s not just about giving false testimony, it’s about giving false testimony against your neighbour, whom you are to love as yourself.
So here is the central principle of the ninth commandment. God has made us human beings to thrive on truth with love. No truth, or no love, or truth without love, or love without truth, causes us to shrivel up as human beings. We need truth with love to live full and rich lives. Why? Because we’re made in God’s image, and God always speaks truth with love.
Let’s explore this today under two headings. 1. Truth with love is God’s way FOR us. 2. Truth with love is God’s way WITH us.
First, truth with love is central to God’s will for us. I’d like to try to show you how central it is. Let’s look at the way the ninth commandment relates to all the other commandments.
First commandment: When you put anything or anyone else before God, you tell or believe or live out a lie, and so you break not only the first commandment but also the ninth. When we lie we put ourselves before God.
Second commandment: When you think you can manipulate God to your own ends, treating God like a puppet on a string, you tell or believe or live out a lie and so you break not only the second commandment but also the ninth. We lie because we imagine that our lie can achieve something good for us that God can’t.
Third commandment: Dishonouring God’s name involves telling lies about God. When we lie we fail to honour God’s name.
Fourth commandment: Thinking you can’t rest for a day from your labours involves believing or living a lie about God’s provision for you. Lying involves trying to get something you believe God won’t provide.
Fifth commandment: We can disrespect our parents and destroy our families through unloving lying words. When we lie we shame our parents.
Sixth commandment: Unloving lying words can kill. When we lie we kill the person we are lying against.
Seventh commandment: We can commit adultery with lying words; we can’t commit adultery without lying.
Eighth commandment: We can use words to steal. Lying always involves stealing something from someone else, even if only their right to hear the truth from us.
Ninth commandment: Lying involves lying.
Tenth commandment: We always have to tell ourselves and maybe others untruths when we try to justify our covetous desires.
Now I know that was a bit of a whirlwind tour of the ten commandments, and we could go into each point in much greater detail. But in this whirlwind tour, we’ve seen two things:
First, breaking any of the other commandments involves breaking the ninth commandment. You can’t break the first, the second, the third, you can’t break any of them, without at the same time breaking the ninth commandment.
Second, when we break the ninth commandment we always break at last one and usually most of the other commandments. For example, when you as a child lie to your parents about who broke the window, you are also breaking at least the first, second, third, fifth, sixth, eighth and tenth commandments besides the ninth commandment.
I’ve been trying to demonstrate our first point: Truth with love is God’s way for us. To even begin to obey God in any area of life, truth with love is the starting point.
This is not just a random idea from God, just something he imposes on us. God doesn’t say “Oh, you have to practice truth with love just because I’ve decided that you do!” Rather, it’s because truth with love is central to God’s being, and he made us in his image, and so he’s made us to need truth with love to be fully human.
See how central truth with love is to God’s character. Just a few references from Proverbs: Proverbs 6:16-19 “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.” Here are things the Lord hates: lying, false witnesses, stirring up dissension, a heart that devises wicked schemes. No truth, no love. Proverbs 12:22 “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.” Proverbs 19:5 says, “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.”
Truth, the opposite of lying, is bound up in the very identity of God. When Jesus was appearing before Pilate, Pilate asked him, no doubt with a cynical smirk, “What is truth?” To Pilate, and to anyone else who has ever asked that question, Jesus gives this answer, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” In John 15 and 16, Jesus repeatedly calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth”. In John 17 Jesus prays to his Father about his disciples, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” And in 1 John, people who belong to God are said to “belong to the truth”.
You see, God is truth. You won’t find the truth by gazing wistfully into space. You won’t find truth by looking inside yourself. God is truth. Jesus says, “I am the truth”. You’ll find truth in me, because I am God, and God is truth.
Now if God is truth, then untruth – dishonesty, lying, deception – is the very opposite of God. Untruth is anti-God. It is utterly disgusting to God. What does God hate? Lying lips, a false witness who pours out lies. God hates lying. Why? Because it is exactly contrary to his own character. It is anti-God.
Most of us have no idea how much God hates dishonesty, and how angry it makes him. We have no idea because we are so much involved in this world, where lying and deceit are just the norm.
It is just normal for politicians to break election promises. It is just normal for people to lie about their income to get a tax break. Our whole culture today is no longer interested in truth or substance or character, just perception, appearance and image. Who cares if it’s true, as long as it sounds good and makes me look good.
Policemen could write books about all the lies people have told to get out of traffic fines. Teachers at universities spend half their lives listening to lies that students tell explaining why assignments are late. It is just normal for husbands and wives to deceive each other when they have things they want to keep private.
And because these things are considered just normal, we have lost a feel for how much God detests dishonesty, for how much he hates lying lips and false witnesses.
God hates these things because they grate hard against his character, who he is as God.
If God is truth, it is no accident that his enemy, the devil, is called the “father of lies”. Think about it. Where did all the evil in the world come from? Didn’t it all begin with a lie? The serpent came along, and he spoke to Eve, and he spoke a lie. Eve listened to the lie, and the world was plunged into evil and corruption. It all began with a lie.
Jesus speaks of the devil in John 8:43-45. He says to the Jews who are questioning him, “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!”
See the very strong contrast. Jesus tells us he is the truth. He is the truth and he speaks the truth. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. God’s word is the truth, God is truth. But the devil is a liar and the father of lies. When he lies, he is speaking his native language. The devil is anti-God because he is a liar. And through his lies, this world has been cast into sin.
Now when you speak unloving lies, whose language are you speaking? God’s language, or the devil’s language?
You hardly need to ask the question, do you! Lying lips speak the language of the devil! When a child of God speaks lies, it’s as if his lips are cut off from who he really is. His lips are speaking the native language of the devil.
Pause
But in all this emphasis on how much God loves truth, we have to remember that there is a kind of truth-telling that is repugnant to God. He hates truth without love. Don’t be a false witness against your neighbour. The whole purpose of the truth is to be for your neighbour. The second great commandment is to love your neighbour as yourself.
Paul tells us to speak the truth in love. We dare not abuse people by speaking truth lovelessly. And anyway, people won’t hear it. You know how it is. “I just have to get this off my chest” and you blurt out what you think is a hard and difficult truth about the other person, but do they hear it? Do they hear your concern and love for them, or do they just hear your explosion of hostility to get something out of your system.
How do I know that God hates truth without love? I really know it because truth with love is the way God deals with us. It’s our second point: Truth with love is God’s way WITH us.
Think about what Jesus did on the cross. Did he speak the truth about us? Yes, he was devastatingly truthful! He was bearing our sin there on the cross. Why was he trussed up on the cross? He was suffering all of God’s wrath against all of the sin of all of his people. Did he speak the truth? Yes, the ugliness of our rebellion against God was on open display.
But while Jesus spoke the truth about us on the cross, did he speak that truth with love? Absolutely! That was the great point, wasn’t it! He spoke the truth, but in the greatest exhibition of love for us that we could possibly imagine. He spoke truth. He loved us.
Imagine if God was only a God of truth, with no love. There would have been no need for the cross, simple judgment would have been sufficient to express God’s truth. The hard truth about our sin would have simply destroyed us.
Or imagine that God was only a God of love, with no truth. Again, there would have been no need for the cross, for God would have been just loving, and our sin would not matter, he would just wipe it away, he would just love us. But we would not have a God to love. We would not be able to respect a god who cared not at all about injustice and cruelty and spite.
But God’s way with us is truth with love. On the cross, God spoke the truth about our sin, but he spoke that truth in supreme love through our Saviour, our Lord Jesus.
Pause
We’ve seen that God’s way for us is truth with love. That’s his will for us. We’ve seen that God’s way with us is truth with love. That’s the way he treats us. It means that truth with love must be the centre of our relationships with each other.
There is always a certain tension about that, isn’t there. Truth without love is easy for some – just get it off your chest, blurt it out. Love without truth is easy for others – “I couldn’t possibly tell her the truth about herself, that would be much too hard. I’ll just love her.”
Truth without love is easy. Love without truth is easy. The difficult road is speaking truth with love.
But you know from your own experience that truth spoken to you with love is very powerful. If you know that the other person loves you, you can hear any kind of truth from him or her. Why is truth with love so powerful?
Because that’s how you are made, a human being made in God’s image, that’s how God deals with you in his truthful love in Jesus Christ, and that’s how he requires you to relate to others.
Amen