Truth Preserved; Truth Revealed

Most of us have experienced how a message can deteriorate as it is passed from person to person. Even if the greatest care is taken in to preserve the exact words, the message can still be misunderstood by the intended audience. What a dilemma – how can a message be preserved throughout many generations and still contain its original impact.

How does God preserve the integrity of His message? How does He insure that His original intend is clearly perceived and accurately understood? He has a strategy that astounds me!

Throughout history many wrong assumptions have been made regarding where and how truth is preserved. People have rigorously defended these assumptions, believing that their efforts would mean the difference between the message lost and the message preserved.

The story of the Bible – how it came about and how it was preserved throughout the ages is truly awesome. The way in which the original scrolls were preserved; the way in which men were inspired to translate these scriptures into modern languages, and many paid with their lives for it – all these stories makes it clear that God’s hand was involved in this book. The Scriptures are undoubtedly part of God’s strategy to preserve and reveal truth, yet it is not the complete strategy.

Except for Hebrew and Greek scholars, we only have a translation of the original writing available to us. Anyone who has studied the original languages will know that translations – even your favourite, most accurate ones, are inferior to the original. There is a richness in the construction of the Greek and Hebrew languages that often got lost in translation.

But even if we assume that we have a perfectly accurate translation, that still does not mean people will understand the original meaning. Any writing is still subject to personal interpretation. That means that your culture, your personal history and issues will greatly influence your understanding of these writings What was meant when the these papers were originally written, often gets lost when we view it through our 20th century and personal interpretation filters.

Recognising the errors that inevitably creep in through misinterpretations, religious institutions have added traditions and rituals in an attempt to explain the scriptures. These institutions insist that truth cannot be understood through the scripture alone, but needs the context of their traditions to understand the true meaning. These man-made traditions can easily be seen in the older establishments like the Catholic Institution, but man-made traditions are just as prevalent in the most up-to-date Charismatic organisations. These additions do nothing to explain or clarify the truth, rather it further deteriorates the message.

Some fiercely defend their view of truth. They defend the integrity of the Bible or the necessity of their own traditions and religious practices. The truth, however, needs no defense. Truth is like a lion – it can defend itself.

God’s strategy for accurately communicating His thoughts and preserving the truth throughout all generations, does not rely on the accuracy of scriptural translation, nor on any human tradition or institution. Neither is He dependent on your intellectual ability. He is able to communicate what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived. He does not depend on our ability to gather and process information.

So what is His strategy? He reveals Himself! Yes, God inspired the writing of the scripture, but the essential ingredient for us to understand scripture is His active, living involvement to give revelation, to open our eyes to see as He sees. He is able to by-pass all the reasoning and influences of our minds and impart revelation directly to our spirits. Revelation is an active event in which the living God manifests Himself. In a way God does not need to preserve the truth, because He is the truth and delights in revealing Himself. In all our attempts to defend and preserve truth, we have missed one very important factor: God can, and does, speak for Himself.

Truth is not found in sentences, words and letters alone. The Word of God precedes the Bible! The Truth is a person: Christ. He uses the scriptures, but He does not rely on scripture alone to reveal Him. He is actively and personally involved in revealing Himself. The greatest testimony to truth is a person who knows Christ, a relational knowledge beyond mere mental information.

By Andre Rabe