Can We Really Know the Truth?
Truth and Knowledge are important. “Truth” is defined as a body of factual information that accurately describes reality. “Knowledge” is arriving at such certainty that you cannot be wrong. Truth and knowledge keep us from being ignorant or acting in error.
Can we really know the truth? Yes, we can. Jesus said: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). When the apostle John wrote to the first-century Christians, he said: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). According to both Jesus and John, a person not only can know something, but he can know that he knows it.
Think about this. If a person cannot know that God exists, then he cannot know that the Bible is His in-spired Word. If a person cannot know that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then he cannot know that Jesus is God’s Son. If a person cannot know that Christ is God’s Son, then he cannot know that he is saved. But John stated: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” Can you see how important it is to understand the concepts of knowledge and truth?
Peter said his desire was that Christians “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Paul expressed his desire “that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9). God’s desire is for “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Paul’s statement, “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12), doesn’t make any sense unless a person can understand the correct relationship between knowledge and truth. John said that we can “know that we know” Jesus and “know that we are in him” as we keep His commandments or His Word (1 John 2:3,5). Thus, John summed up this sentiment by saying simply, “We know that we are of God” (1 John 5:19).
Christianity isn’t some kind of religion based upon a fairy-tale-like idea that may or may not be true. Rather, it is rooted and grounded in the knowledge that God exists, and in the truth that Jesus Christ is His Son and that the Bible is His Word. These are things we can know. And this is the truth that will make us “free.”
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