We have seen that the divine light is the nature of God’s expression, that it is the source of the divine truth, and that it shines in the divine life. Now we must go on to see that the divine light is embodied in Jesus as God incarnate. Because He is the embodiment of the divine light, the Lord Jesus said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). He spoke a similar word in John 9:5: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” The divine light that issues in truth and shines in life is embodied in the Person of the Lord Jesus, who is God incarnate. This matter is deep and profound. I would encourage you to pray-read these verses in order to touch the reality of these matters concerning the divine light.
In 1:6 John speaks concerning the divine truth: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth.” What is truth? It is difficult to define truth. We may think that truth in such a verse as 1:6 refers to sound or correct doctrine. The word for truth in the Chinese language means genuine doctrine. Many have a similar understanding of the English word “truth” and consider that, at least insofar as it is found in the Bible, it means correct doctrine.
In our daily conversation we may have a somewhat different understanding of truth and regard truth as meaning something that is true as opposed to something false. For example, we speak of telling a true story.
If we would understand the meaning of truth in the Bible, we need to go beyond the traditional and common understanding of what truth is. The traditional view concerning the truth in the Bible as correct doctrine is not accurate, and the common denotation of the word should not be applied to the word truth as found in the Bible.
The Greek word for truth is aletheia. In studying this word, I consulted a number of lexicons and concordances. I was especially helped by the article on truth in Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Furthermore, I also considered all the verses in the New Testament that use either the word aletheia or a related word. After studying these verses in context and after consulting the lexicons and concordances, I came to certain conclusions regarding the meaning of truth in the New Testament, and these conclusions are summarized in the lengthy note on truth in 1:6 printed in the Recovery Version of the Epistles of John. In this message we shall consider only the first part of this note.
The Greek word aletheia means truth or reality (versus vanity), verity, veracity, genuineness, sincerity. It is John’s highly individual terminology, and it is one of the profound words in the New Testament. This word denotes all the realities of the divine economy as the content of the divine revelation, contained, conveyed, and disclosed by the holy Word.
According to the New Testament, truth is first God, who is light and love, incarnated to he the reality of the divine things—including the divine life, the divine nature, the divine power, the divine glory—for our possession, so that we may enjoy Him as grace, as revealed in John’s Gospel (John 1:1, 4, 14-17).