Pontius Pilate was the Roman politician that asked Jesus, “What is truth?”. Situational ethics, relativism, and public opinion infected Pilate’s soul, spiritually blinding him and most likely sealing his eternal fate. Historians tell us that Pilate’s political career ended when he committed suicide.
Pilate’s comment about “the truth” reminds me of the story about three men applying for a job, one was a statistician, another a mathematician, and the last one a politician. Each man was asked during the interview, “What is two plus two?” With the help of his graphs and charts, the statistician determined that the answer lay between three and five. The mathematician got out his calculator and notepad and decided four was the correct answer. The politician looking both ways, whispered into the interviewer’s ear, “What would you like two plus two it to be?”
According to Noah Webster, relativism is “The doctrine that knowledge or truth is relative and dependent upon time, place, and individual experience.”Ancient Israel had times of relativism. “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Because Israel refused King Jesus’ rule and his rule Book (the Bible), they made up their own rules and laws instead. They defined marriage, morality, and sanctity of life by “what was right in their eyes.” Sound familiar?
There is a significant problem with this! God said to Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?”(Job 38:4). God’s creation is ruled by immovable absolute truths. God’s Word is Truth for living in God’s creation. You will have trouble if you do not follow the owner’s instruction manual! Take gravity, for instance. Say a friend of yours was going to walk off a great precipice and you said, “You’re going to fall!” and they replied, “Gravity might be a truth for you to follow, but it’s not the truth for me.” Even if your friend identifies as a bird when they jump they would ultimately be both foolish and dead.
God, who by His Word founded the earth, said about his written Word, “Thy word is truth.” (John 17:17). The truth about heaven & hell, salvation, and the devil is as true as the law of gravity. When we “speak the truth in love,” we shouldn’t be any less confident about the Bible than the reality of gravity. The results of stepping off an eternal cliff are even more drastic than jumping off an earthly cliff. Truth is absolute!
Pontius Pilate governed a fickle people that cheered “Hosanna” to Jesus on a Sunday, and later that week, they shouted to Pilate about Jesus, “Crucify Him!” In a nation that screams, “We have no king but Caesar.”, let us not be fickle. Let us hold fast to the Truth!
John 14:16 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.