This was the question that Pontius Pilate asked our Lord –  in answer to His affirmation: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.  Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18: 37).   It’s too bad Pilate didn’t wait for a response.  Alas, that is the trouble with fallen man.  Christ would bring truth and  light to the human heart, and man asks: “What is truth?”  But he never gets an answer.

   Pilate stands for secular Gentilism as a whole.  His attitude is repeated whenever man exalts human reason over the infallible and inerrant word of God.  Instead of believing and receiving God’s word as absolute truth, man sits in judgment on that word, believing only what portions are most congenial to his natural tendencies.  The supernatural elements of revelation are carefully stripped away, and the word of God made of none effect through the traditions and dilutions of men.  Yea, what is truth?

   Pilate need not have asked the question had he been a follower of Christ.  But then, how could he have been?  Salvation had to come to the “Jew first,” exclusive of the nations.  “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15: 24).  It was not until after their rejection of the Gospel that the Christian message could be sent into all quarters of the globe.  Nevertheless, the trial and crucifixion of Christ demonstrate Jewish, as well as Gentile, failure.  Having crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2: 8), the whole world (Gr. kosmos) stands guilty before God.

    But wonder of wonders!  As the age nears its appointed end, the institutional church stands guilty of having corrupted the Word, of having substituted the rudiments of human reason for the Divine teachings that alone can bring life.  Wherever we look, apostasy casts its dark and awful shadows athwart the faith of God’s elect.  As an institution, the church seems bound for failure.  Having been entrusted with the truth, it now turns a deaf ear to its promptings.

   Among Catholic and Protestant divines, philosophy still reigns supreme; while the simplicity of the word of truth is on all hands denied.  Rationalism, scholasticism, Higher Criticism, Preterism, and other forms of error spread their sickly disease throughout the ranks of God’s people, weakening them that they might become prey to the adversary.   What is needed now, is not a stronger dose of human reason, but a return to the Gospel of the Grace of God, in all its primitive purity and splendor.

  Yes, the truth is able to heal.  But so long as man cries, “What is truth?” he must stand convicted of unbelief.  This is surely “man’s day” (1 Cor. 4: 3).  And at present God is silent.  But the time is soon coming when the world’s imaginations will be cast to the ground, and the vials of wrath poured upon the earth.  Today is the day of grace.  Hearken while you can; do not resist the truth.  The truth is what God hath already declared in His word.  It requires no qualification or re-interpretation by men.  It has all power to quicken, to strengthen, and to refresh the weary saints –   lest their hearts faint in the wilderness.  What medicine for today!