When I was younger, the truth seemed to be a fairly simple idea. If you fall off your bike, you'll hurt yourself. If you insult someone bigger than you, they'll probably punch you. If you gave attitude to your parents, you'll probably get sent to your room. But as we get older the idea of truth gets a lot more grey. We find out that some things we always assumed to be truth aren't always true. I remember in university, really being struck with this idea that not only, so I was told, are there no universal truths, but anyone who claimed to have the truth was actually just being narrow minded. More than that, they were being dangerous.

One of the defining characteristics of a post-modern society is that there is a constant distrust of anyone or anything that claims to have the truth. Even the most basic things that we take for granted, for example, language. Foucault, the famous french philosopher for example, is most famous for his saying 'language is oppression', meaning that language was only developed so that people who knew the language would not be oppressed. Everyone who didn't know the language would be oppressed, so language was essentially invented as a power grab for control. Foucault was a huge fan of a German philosopher Nietzsche who was around in the mid-19th century. One of Nietzsche's main arguments was that any claim for the truth was a power grab. Anyone who claimed to know the truth about anything was, he said, just trying to gain control over a person, a people group or a situation.

But there's a problem with this. If any claim for the truth is a power grab, then isn't a statement like 'anyone who claims to know the truth is just trying to get power', an example of a power grab too? That statement in itself assumes that it is true, and not only that true, it assumes it's universally true! So anyone who says that anyone who claims to know or have the truth is just trying to get power is, by their own argument, trying to get power themselves. They fall victim to their own test.

What if we were to get away from this idea that truth is some sort of understanding, some sort of intellectual realisation. Instead, what if the truth were a person. In the Bible, in John 14:6, Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." You'll have a hard time finding such a bold statement like that anywhere else. Jesus didn't just say he had the truth, he said he was the truth. No one comes to God except through him. That is a really bold statement.

But we need to think about it. If what Foucault and Nietzsche and many others have said is true, if Jesus was simply trying to gain power by claiming to not only know the truth, but to be the truth, what would his motives have been? Surely he would have wanted something in return? Money, property, women, fame... there must have been something. But if you look at the life of Jesus, that's not what we see. Jesus told the rich to give their money and their possessions away, he said that anyone who looked at a woman lustfully committed adultery with her in his heart, essentially making a clear statement that women are not objects, they don't exist just for men to gaze do whatever they want with. And what about fame? Jesus said in Matthew 20 that the last will be first, and the first last, and that clearly goes against the way fame works in our world.

The idea that Jesus only claimed to have and be the truth so that he could have power only holds weight if you only see Jesus as a man, just like any other man. But if you see Jesus as who he said he was, as God who became man, then you'll see that Jesus left fame, glory and power to come to earth as a man. He came to serve. If anyone was entitled to being born and raised in a palace, of having everything they ever could have wanted, of having all the power and control in the world, it would have been Jesus. But that's not what happened. He was born in a stable, his first bed was a manger, a box where donkeys and cows would eat their food. He came into this world in the most humble way imaginable, the same way he lived his life. These aren't the markings of someone trying to gain control.

So we need to consider this. If Jesus's claim that he was the truth wasn't a power grab, then what was it? Jesus said in John chapter 8 that, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” That's it, that's the key. The real truth doesn't chain us up, it doesn't make us narrow minded. It liberates us, it sets us free. This is the central point of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. God loved us so much that even though we were so caught up in our own version of what the truth is, God sent Jesus, the real truth, to suffer the consequences of where our own versions of the truth would ultimately take us.

But the choice is ours. Who's version of the truth are we going to follow. Who are we going to think knows best. Is it us? Is it human truth? With all of the mistakes of history, all of our wars, all of our brokenness and pain, do we really think that we know best? Or are we going to follow Jesus, who said he was the truth. Statements like that need to be looked into. If you're not sure, really dig... really try to find out if you believe Jesus was the truth, or was he a liar. How you answer that questions will completely determine how you'll live your life and how you'll define what truth is.

- Rich Crosby