The Source and Standard of Absolute Truth - It Flows from the Character of God

My wife and I are wired to be teachers and we love learning. We also have three boys who have inherited our curiosity. Our youngest can tell you about every bone and muscle in the human body. He’s our resident expert on muscle pain, cramps, sprains, all of it. If one of us has a muscle or joint ache or pain, we ask him what to do about it. Our oldest is our resident technology expert. If you want to know anything about a computer, phone, or a camera, we ask him. There is not much he doesn’t know about technology. It’s amazing. We all seem to know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and we like to share that information we each other.

A week or so ago, my wife told me about this guy who charged his cell phone with a potato and a can of Coke. I said “there is no way that is true.” So, you know what I did? I went to the source of our truth these days, Google. That’s right, I Googled it. Turns out Google said it wasn’t true. My wife still wasn’t convinced so the next day she tried it. Sure, enough it doesn’t work. Google was right again! Google seems to hold all the answers, doesn’t it? Or maybe not? Surely the algorithm wouldn’t cater certain results to me and then different results for you, would it? 

There are so many things we turn to the internet for as our source of truth every day. Our kids do the same thing. They look to the internet or to social media every day as a source of truth. But not everything we read, hear, or find on the internet is truth. So, when do we just accept things as truth or not accept them as truth? Truth refers to what is real, trustworthy, dependable, genuine, or valid. But we also live in a world full of lies because people lie all the time. We learn from Genesis 3 how man’s disobedience and sin caused the whole of creation including man to be plunged into sin. We were sold a lie by the father of lies and we’ve been lying and living in a world full of lies ever since. 

Every day of our lives we are saturated with news, information, and data that we have to filter through to determine if it is true or false. All of this information gets filtered through our worldview. And if we’re not careful, that bombardment of data and information can shape or change your worldview if what you believe to be truth is not held up to some standard of absolute truth. Especially as it relates to things like reality, morality, and spirituality.

We also live in a day and age where truth is claimed to be relative. Relative truth is the belief that truth changes based on the individual’s understanding of it. With relative truth, there are no absolutes and what may be true for you may not be true for me. Your truth can be your truth and my truth can be my truth. It is a moving target. However, for truth to be truth it has to be the same for all people, in all ages, in all places. It has to be absolute. Universally true for all people for all time. There has to be some sort of a standard we look to as our source of absolute truth, right? A standard being that which everything else is compared to or measured against. For those of us who are followers of Christ, that standard of truth is God. God is the source and standard of all truth because everything that exists was brought forth from the mind and the mouth of God. Listen to Isaiah 45:18-19:

18 For the Lord is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the Lord,” he says, “and there is no other. 19 I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I could not be found. I, the Lord, speak only what is true and declare only what is right.

We see here that God himself claims to be the source and standard of all truth. And as the creator of all things, He gets to decides what is and what is not truth. In other words, truth flows from the character of God because God is truth. It embodies him. Truth could not exist outside of God because there would be no standard to gauge truth against. John MacArthur’s definition of truth states: 

Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory and being of God. Truth is the self-expression of God and the definition of Truth flows from God. 

It is ironic to me that man as a created being tries to determine truth from a frame of reference that excludes God. Reality and truth as we know it exists because it originates with God. Remember, for something to be absolute truth, it has to be the same for all people, in all places, for all time. Only the character and essence of God can meet that criterion. The reason that God’s truth is the same for all people, in all places, for all times is because

God is eternal

It is hard for us to get our mind wrapped around the eternality of God. We exist in time for a time and most everything in our lives has a time component to it. But God is not bound by time. God created time but he exists outside of time because he is eternal. He always has been and he always will be.

Psalm 90:2

Before the mountains were born, before You gave birth to the earth and the world, 

from eternity to eternity, You are God.

Isaiah 41:4

I, Yahweh, am the first, and with the last—I am He.”

Revelation 22:13

13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Isaiah 57:15 tells us that God is the one who “inhabits eternity.” Revelation 4:8 says that he is “the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” The Bible is God’s revelation to us about himself. He tell us time and time again in his word that he is eternal. He has always existed, and he will always exist. The good news of the gospel is anchored in the eternality of God. It wouldn’t be good news if we were not eternally rescued from sin and separation from a holy God. The good news of the gospel is that the sacrifice of Jesus made an eternity spent in relationship with God possible. God’s eternality is what makes the truth of the gospel so powerful. John 3:16 says, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." What guarantees that eternal life is the eternality of God. God is also the source and standard for truth because

God is unchanging (immutable)

In theological language we would say that God is immutable. Immutable means unchanging over time but it also means unable to be changed. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That’s what we learn from

Hebrews 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Malachi 3:6

6 “I am the Lord, and I do not change.

For all of us, the one thing that seems to be constant in our world is change. People change, culture changes, times change, language changes, technology changes. Change is happening all around us every day and sometimes at a speed that is not very comforting to us. But God does not change. I don’t know about you that brings a wealth of comfort and confidence to me every day. His mercies are new every morning. Why are they new every morning? Because God doesn’t change, and he said every morning there will be new mercy there for us. I love that verse because I know the same God that showed mercy to me today is going to have that same mercy available to me tomorrow because mercy is just as a big a part of his character as eternality and immutability. God never changes. This means his promises never change. His truth never changes. Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is absolute truth.

Psalm 146:3-6

3 Don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. 4 When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them. 5 But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God. 6 He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He keeps every promise forever.

God is unchanging. God is also the source and standard for truth because he knows all truth. In theological terms we would say...

God is omniscient

Omniscient means having infinite knowledge. God has knowledge of all things.

Hebrews 4:13

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

Proverbs 15:3

The Lord is watching everywhere, keeping his eye on both the evil and the good.

God has infinite knowledge of all people and all things. He is the source of all wisdom and all knowledge. He is the one we can turn to when we are lost, searching, or confused. I think sometimes our human brain forgets that God knows all. The reason I think that is because there are so many times in our lives when we don’t seek out God’s wisdom and knowledge on what to do in a particular situation or how to live our lives. We look to the world, our friends, the internet, books, blogs, or social media to validate our decisions, our way of living, or our motives. But God is the source of infinite knowledge and wisdom, and he knows us better than we know ourselves. Listen to

Psalm 139:1

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.

God knows all things including the motives of our own hearts. I think that qualifies God to be our source and standard for truth. Just to reiterate, God’s character is defined by eternality, immutability, and omniscience. These are the characteristics of God that make God the source and standard of truth.

Winston Churchill once made a comment suspected to have been directed toward a prior Prime Minister of Britain. He said that the man “Occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” Our world is full of people that stumble over truth every day and they hastily pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened. Even though our intricate bodies, the cosmos, and the beauty of this world scream to people daily that they are not here by chance. They choose to reject God as the source and standard for truth. This cannot be us as believers and followers of Christ. We have to evaluate everything that enters our ears and eyes against the source of all truth, God himself. Is God your standard of truth? If not, what do you need to do today to make God your standard of truth every day, for every decision and every thought?