First published by Christian Publications, Inc., 3825 Hartzdale Drive,Camp Hill, Pennsylvania 17011 Republished by www.kneillfoster.com in 2005. K. Neill Foster, Publisher. Paul L. King, Editor. A.W. Tozer, 1897-1963, Editorial Voice.
WELCOME TO:
#22 CLASSIC-CHRISTIANITY/THE E-ZINE
CLASSIC-CHRISTIANITY/THE INDEX
THEME: WHAT IS TRUTH?
====================================================
1) THE PUBLISHER ON "THE TRIUMPH OF TRUTH"
2) THE EDITOR ON "TRUE TRUTH"
3) A.W. TOZER ON "TRUTH IS MORE THAN WORDS"
4) THOMAS A KEMPIS ON "TRUTH AND PHILOSOPHY"
5) WILLIAM GURNALL ON "THE VALUE OF TRUTH"
6) RECOMMENDED READING
7) A.A. HODGE ON "TRUTH AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF GOD"
8) CHARLES H. SPURGEON ON "DILUTING AND DOCTORING THE TRUTH"
9) CHARLES H. SPURGEON ON "BLUNTING THE SWORD OF TRUTH"
10) E.M. BOUNDS ON "OLD AND NEW TRUTHS"
11) ANDREW MURRAY ON "TRUTH IN SUBSTANCE AND REALITY"
12) RECOMMENDED READING
13) OSWALD CHAMBERS ON "THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"
14) A.B. SIMPSON ON "PRESENT TRUTH"
1) THE PUBLISHER ON "THE TRIUMPH OF TRUTH"
Truth in our Postmodern world is in short supply. It is a legitimate concern for our present generation, but in reality the battle for truth is as old as the Garden of Eden. There hasn't been a time in human history when truth has not been seriously challenged. In the course of human events truth has been suppressed, twisted, scorned, even rejected. But it will never become extinct. The truth is, truth is. Truth transcends time. And truth will ultimately triumph.
1) THE EDITOR ON "TRUE TRUTH"
Pilate's question to Jesus, "What is truth?" is just as relevant to twenty-first century citizens of earth as it was to those of the first century. American culture today questions whether there can be such a thing as absolute truth. Religious pluralism so waters down the concept of truth that it claims all religions are true, which, when clearly thought through, is an "untruth," a logical impossibility, and thus a deceptive falsehood. Religious beliefs that are mutually exclusive and contradictory cannot all be true. Only one religion can possibly be true; there are not many ways to God. Jesus Himself claimed that He is THE way and THE truth. He is the "true truth," that is, authentic or real truth; and the Christian faith unashamedly proclaims what is really true.
This issue begins a three-part series on the importance of truth. The first part focuses on the nature of truth, the December Advent issue on Jesus the Absolute Incarnation of Truth, and the third issue on living a life of truth. In an age of shifting sands, these classic writers show us the bedrock of truth. They do not deal in philosophical abstractions, but in practical truth for life. As we come to know the genuine truth, the "true truth," it still sets us free (John 8:32).
2) A.W. TOZER (1897-1963) ON "TRUTH IS MORE THAN WORDS"
In His confrontations with the Jewish leaders, Jesus gives us reason to look at those in His day who held truth to be merely intellectual. They supposed truth was capable of being reduced to a code--much as we accept that two times two is four. . . .
Truth is more than words. It is this that we must remember: those religious leaders evidently believed that the words of truth were the truth. This is still a basic misunderstanding of Christian theology. To make this analysis in our own day is not just a matter of splitting hairs. Oh, no! If it were only splitting hairs, I would not bother. What we speak of has both moral and spiritual consequences. They believed that the word of truth was truth--that if you had the words, you had the truth. If you could repeat the code, you had the truth. If you were living by the word of truth, you were living in the truth. . . .
There is today an evangelical rationalism not unlike the rationalism taught by the scribes and Pharisees. They said the truth is in the word, and if you want to know the truth, go to the rabbi and learn the word. If you get the word, you have the truth. That is evangelical rationalism, and in fundamental circles we have it today. . . . It is a doctrine that "if you learn the text you have the truth."
A.W. Tozer, FAITH BEYOND REASON (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1989), 17-19, 21.
4) THOMAS Ã KEMPIS (1380-1471) ON "TRUTH AND PHILOSOPHY"
Happy is he to whom truth manifests itself, not in signs and words that fade, but as it actually is. Our opinions, our senses often deceive us and we discern very little.
What good is much discussion of involved and obscure matters when our ignorance of them will not be held against us on Judgment Day? Neglect of things which are profitable and necessary and undue concern with those which are irrelevant and harmful, are great folly. We have eyes and do not see.
What, therefore, have we to do with questions of philosophy? He to whom the Eternal Word speaks is free from theorizing. For from this Word are all things and of Him all things speak--the Beginning Who also speaks to us. Without this Word no man understands or judges aright. He to whom it becomes everything, who traces all things to it and who sees all things in it, may ease his heart and remain at peace with God. . . .
The more recollected a man is, and the more simple of heart he becomes, the easier he understands sublime things, for he receives the light of knowledge from above. The pure, simple, and steadfast spirit is not distracted by many labors, for he does them all for the honor of God. And since he enjoys interior peace he seeks no selfish end in anything.
Thomas à Kempis, THE IMITATION OF CHRIST (Deep Worship CD-ROM, 2001), Chapter 3.
5) WILLIAM GURNALL (1616-1679) ON "THE VALUE OF TRUTH"
God has never let truth get lost. . . . If truth were not so precious to God, He would not allow it to be purchased with the blood of His people--or most important, with the blood of His Son. . . . It is no wonder that God values truth so highly when we consider what it is--truth is the substance of His thoughts and counsels from everlasting to everlasting. It is the fullest representation that God Himself could give of His own being so that we might know and love Him. . . .
Truth is solid. The man who cleaves to it is free (cf. John 8:32). . . . Truth has a firm bottom; we can lay the whole weight of our souls upon it and know that it will not break. . . . Truth will not be bound.
William Gurnall, THE CHRISTIAN IN COMPLETE ARMOUR: DAILY READINGS IN SPIRITUAL WARFARE, James S. Bell, Jr., ed. (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), June 4, June 5.
Editor's note: Gurnall was a seventeenth-century English Puritan pastor.
6) RECOMMENDED READING
FAITH BEYOND REASON
by A.W. Tozer
In these ten sermons based on the Gospel of John, Tozer explores how faithin God transforms the ordinary into something humanly unimaginable.
Item Number 0875094252
Order from Christian Publications by calling 1-800-233-4443 (in North America) or fax 1-717-761-7273 or web: www.christianpublications.com.
7) A.A. HODGE (1823-1886) ON "TRUTH AS AN ATTRIBUTE OF GOD"
The truth of God in its widest sense is a perfection which qualifies all his intellectual and moral attributes. His knowledge is infinitely true in relation to its objects, and his wisdom unbiased either by prejudice or passion. His justice and his goodness in all their exercises are infinitely true to the perfect standard of his own nature. In all outward manifestations of his perfections to his creatures, God is always true to his nature -always self-consistently divine. This attribute in its more special sense qualifies all God's intercourse with his rational creatures. He is true to us as well as to himself; and thus is laid the foundation of all faith, and therefore of all knowledge. It is the foundation of all confidence, first, in our senses; second, in our intellect and conscience; third, in any authenticated, supernatural revelation.
The two forms in which this perfection is exercised in relation to us are, first, his entire truth in all his communications; second, his perfect sincerity in undertaking and faithfulness in discharging all his engagements.
A.A. Hodge, OUTLINES OF THEOLOGY (Escondido, CA: Ephesians 4 Group, 1998), on CD-ROM.
Editor's note: Hodge was a Princeton theologian and son of theologian
Charles Hodge.
8) CHARLES H. SPURGEON (1834-1892) ON "DILUTING AND DOCTORING THE TRUTH"
I have likened the career of certain theologians to the journey of a Roman wine cask from the vineyard to the city. It starts from the wine-press as the pure juice of the grape, but at the first stopping-place the drivers of the cart must quench their thirst, and when they come to a fountain, they substitute water for what they have drunk. In the next village there are numbers of lovers of wine who beg or buy a little, and the discreet carrier dilutes again. The watering is repeated, until, upon its entrance into Rome, the fluid is remarkably different from that which originally started from the vineyard. There is a way of doctoring the gospel in much the same manner. A little truth is given up, and then a little more, and men fill up the vacuum with opinions, inferences, speculations and dreams, until their wine is mixed with water, and the water is none of the best.
Charles H. Spurgeon, 1000 DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1976), 475.
9) CHARLES H. SPURGEON (1834-1892) ON "BLUNTING THE SWORD OF TRUTH"
We have to deal with a spirit, I know not how to name it, unless I call it a spirit of moderatism in the pulpits of Protestant churches. Men have begun to rub off the rough edges of truth, to give up the doctrines of Luther and Zwingli, and Calvin, and to endeavor to accommodate them to polished tastes. . . . There is creeping into the pulpits of Baptists and every other denomination, a lethargy and coldness, and with that a sort of nullification of all truth. While they for the most part preach but little notable error, yet the truth itself is uttered in so minute a form that no one detects it, and in so ambiguous a style, that no one is struck with it. So far as man can do it, God's arrows are blunted, and the edge of his sword is turned in the day of battle. Men do not hear the truth as they used to. . . . May heaven put an end to all this moderatism; we want out-and-out truth in these perilous days; we want a man just now to speak as God tells him, and care for nobody.
Charles H. Spurgeon, "The War of Truth," SPURGEON'S SERMONS (Deep Worship CD-ROM, 2001).
10) E.M. BOUNDS (1835-1913) ON "OLD AND NEW TRUTHS"
Hold to the old truths--double distilled. . . .
It is not new truth that the world needs, so much as the constant reiteration of old truths, yet ever new truths, of the Bible.
Lyle Wesley Dorsett, E.M. BOUNDS: MAN OF PRAYER (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 60, 72.
11) ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917) ON "TRUTH IN SUBSTANCE AND REALITY"
Spiritual truth is robbed of its power when held, not in the life of the Spirit, but in the wisdom of man. When truth enters the heart, it becomes the life of the Spirit. But it may also only reach the outer parts of the soul, the intellect and the reason. It occupies and pleases our minds and satisfies us with the imagination that it will exercise its influence. However, its power is nothing more than human argument and wisdom that never reaches to the true life of the spirit.
There is a truth of the understanding and feelings which is only the human image, the shadow, of divine truth. There is a truth that is substance and reality, communicating the life of the things of which others only think and speak. The truth in shadow, in form and in thought was all that the Jewish law could give. The truth as substance, the truth as divine life, was what Jesus brought as the only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth.
Andrew Murray, THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1984), 102.
12) RECOMMENDED READING
IN STEP WITH THE SPIRIT
by A.B. Simpson
Dr. Simpson explains the attributes of the Holy Spirit and how they can
empower believers to live and walk in the Spirit.
Item Number 0875096603
Order from Christian Publications by calling 1-800-233-4443 (in North America) or fax 1-717-761-7273 or web: www.christianpublications.com.
13) OSWALD CHAMBERS (1872-1917) ON "THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"
What is needed is a final court of appeal, and this we have in the Bible. It is not a question of the infallibility of the Bible, that is a side issue; but of the finality of the Bible. The Bible is a whole library of literature giving us the final interpretation of the Truth, and to take the Bible apart from that one supreme purpose is to have a book and nothing more; and further, to take our Lord Jesus Christ away from the revelation of Him given in the Bible is to be left with one who is open to all the irreverent slanders of unbelief.
"The Truth" is our Lord Himself; "the whole truth" is the inspired Scripture interpreting the Truth to us; and "nothing but the truth" is the Holy Spirit, "the Spirit of truth," efficaciously regenerating and sanctifying us, and guiding us into "all the truth."
Oswald Chambers, THE COMPLETE WORKS OF OSWALD CHAMBERS: GOD'S WORKMANSHIP (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 2000), 425.
14) A.B. SIMPSON (1843-1919) ON "PRESENT TRUTH"
While all inspired truth is necessary and important, yet there are certain truths that God emphasizes at certain times. He is ever speaking to the age and generation, and He never speaks at random but always to the point and to the times. . . .
From age to age God speaks the special message most needed, so that there is always some portion of divine truth which might properly be called "present truth," God's message to the times. God is always wanting messengers that understand Him and that preach the preaching He bids, and when He can find such instruments He will always use them and bless their ministry.
A.B. Simpson, PRESENT TRUTHS OR THE SUPERNATURAL (Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1967), 9-10.
VOL. IV, ISSUE 4, August 1, 2002. Published every other month 2/1;
4/1; 6/1; 8/1; 10/1; 12/1. Archives on www.kneillfoster.com.
Republished by www.kneillfoster.com 2005.