João 18

João 18

Robertson - Quid est veritas? The answer in Latin is Vir est qui adest as has been succinctly said by the use of the same letters. Pilate turned with indifference from his own great question and rendered his verdict D L Moody - “What is truth?” In Latin this is “Quid est veritas?” The letters can be arranged so as to read, “Est vir, qui adest,” meaning, “It is the man who is before you.” Larry Richards - We have no way of knowing Pilate’s tone of voice as he spoke these words. Was he scoffing? Or did he perhaps speak with longing, or despair?We do know that truth is discovered only by those who abandon worldly moral compasses, and chart a course by the Word of God. Only those willing to do God’s will can know it, and only those who do God’s will discover truth. Again the spiritual battlefield is defined. Let’s set our course in life by the compass of God’s Word, and ignore the advice and the “wisdom” of mere men. (Borrow 365 Day Devotional Commentary page 808) And when he had said this, he went out again (See Pilate's movements) to the Jews (Ioudaios) and *said to them, “I find no guilt (aitia) in Him - After Pilate asks the question of the ages and of all the sages of the ages, he apparently does not even wait for Jesus to reply. He turns to now confront the Jews outside the Praetorium. Perhaps Jesus was silent, but John often tells us when Jesus is silent. It seems more likely that Pilate has had enough talk about kings, kingdoms and truth and seeks to "get on" with his day. He was convinced Jesus was not guilty of any crime against Rome. So he goes back outside the Praetorium to face the raucous Jews and renders a "Not guilty" verdict to the utter chagrin of the Jewish leaders. NET NOTE on the Jews - Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders, especially members of the Sanhedrin. See the note on the phrase “Jewish leaders” in v. 12. The term also occurs in v. 31, where it is clear the Jewish leaders are in view, because they state that they cannot legally carry out an execution. Although it is likely (in view of the synoptic parallels) that the crowd here in 18:38 was made up not just of the Jewish leaders, but of ordinary residents of Jerusalem and pilgrims who were in Jerusalem for the Passover, nevertheless in John’s Gospel Pilate is primarily in dialogue with the leadership of the nation, who are expressly mentioned in Jn 18:35 and Jn 19:6. Vance Havner - If life's true valuation is not to be found in things, thrills, and theories, then where shall we look? The other way is the way of truth. Our Lord, on trial before Pilate, said, "My kingdom is not of this world [that is, it is not a kingdom of things, thrills, and theories].... To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:36-37). Pilate asked wearily, "What is truth?" Men still are asking, "What is truth?" but truth is a Whom; Christ is the truth, not merely a truth-teller, and when Paul said, "For me to live is Christ," he was giving us life's true estimate. It is not to live for Christ or like Christ, mind you, but to live is Christ. He did not want an answer. He merely thought it such an unnecessary piece of trifling to talk about truth, he himself had so slight an idea of what the word might mean, that when he had said, “What is truth?” “he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.” That was the truth about the Truth, from the lips of a man who cared nothing about truth, yet who was compelled to bear this testimony, “I find in him no fault at all.” Truth (225) aletheia from a = indicates following word has the opposite meaning ~ without + lanthano = to be hidden or concealed, to escape notice, cp our English "latent" from Latin = to lie hidden) has the literal sense of that which contains nothing hidden. Aletheia is that which is not concealed. Aletheia is that which that is seen or expressed as it really is. The basic understanding of aletheia is that it is the manifestation of a hidden reality (eg, click discussion of Jesus as "the Truth"). For example, when you are a witness in a trial, the court attendant says "Raise your right hand. Do you swear that you will tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?" And you say, "I do" and you sit down. The question the court attendant is asking is "Are you willing to come into this courtroom and manifest something that is hidden to us that only you know so that you will bear evidence to that?" Therefore when you speak the truth, you are manifesting a "hidden reality". Does that make sense? An parallel example in Scripture is the case of the woman in the crowd who had touched Jesus (Read context = Mk 5:24-25, 26-27, 28-29, 30, 31-32), but when she became "aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him the whole truth " (Mk 5:33) and nothing but the truth. She did not lie. She spoke no falsehoods. Truth then is the correspondence between a reality and a declaration which professes to set forth or describe the reality. To say it another way, words spoken or written are true when they correspond with objective reality. Persons and things are true when they correspond with their profession (which we describe with words like integrity, sincerity, non-hypocritical, etc). In other words, "what you see is what you get". Hence a truth is a declaration which has corresponding reality, or a reality which is correctly set forth. David Black says "The historical present describes a past event as though it were actually taking place: λέγουσιν αὐτῷ περὶ αὐτῆς, they spoke to him about her (Mark 1:30). Here the present is a pictorial tense, displaying the action vividly before our eyes. In English we often use the historical present when recounting personal experiences ("then he says to me"). (BORROW It's Still Greek to Me page 106) Historical presents in John 18 - Jn 18:3 - came; Jn 18:4 - said; Jn 18:17 - said; Jn 18:26 - said; Jn 18:29 - said; Jn 18:38 - said QUESTION - What is truth? (WATCH WELL DONE VIDEO) ANSWER - Almost two thousand years ago, Truth was put on trial and judged by people who were devoted to lies. In fact, Truth faced six trials in less than one full day, three of which were religious, and three that were legal. In the end, few people involved in those events could answer the question, “What is truth?” After being arrested, the Truth was first led to a man named Annas, a corrupt former high priest of the Jews. Annas broke numerous Jewish laws during the trial, including holding the trial in his house, trying to induce self-accusations against the defendant, and striking the defendant, who had been convicted of nothing at the time. After Annas, the Truth was led to the reigning high priest, Caiaphas, who happened to be Annas’s son-in-law. Before Caiaphas and the Jewish Sanhedrin, many false witnesses came forward to speak against the Truth, yet nothing could be proved and no evidence of wrongdoing could be found. Caiaphas broke no fewer than seven laws while trying to convict the Truth: (1) the trial was held in secret; (2) it was carried out at night; (3) it involved bribery; (4) the defendant had no one present to make a defense for Him; (5) the requirement of 2-3 witnesses could not be met; (6) they used self-incriminating testimony against the defendant; (7) they carried out the death penalty against the defendant the same day. All these actions were prohibited by Jewish law. Regardless, Caiaphas declared the Truth guilty because the Truth claimed to be God in the flesh, something Caiaphas called blasphemy. When morning came, the third trial of the Truth took place, with the result that the Jewish Sanhedrin pronounced the Truth should die. However, the Jewish council had no legal right to carry out the death penalty, so they were forced to bring the Truth to the Roman governor at the time, a man named Pontius Pilate. Pilate was appointed by Tiberius as the fifth prefect of Judea and served in that capacity A.D. 26 to 36. The procurator had power of life and death and could reverse capital sentences passed by the Sanhedrin. As the Truth stood before Pilate, more lies were brought against Him. His enemies said, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:2). This was a lie, as the Truth had told everyone to pay their taxes (Matthew 22:21) and never spoke of Himself as a challenge to Caesar. After this, a very interesting conversation between the Truth and Pilate took place. “Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?’ Pilate answered, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.’ Therefore Pilate said to Him, ‘So You are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’ Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:33–38). Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” has reverberated down through history. Was it a melancholy desire to know what no one else could tell him, a cynical insult, or perhaps an irritated, indifferent reply to Jesus’ words? In a postmodern world that denies that truth can be known, the question is more important than ever to answer. What is truth? A Proposed Definition of Truth In defining truth, it is first helpful to note what truth is not: • Truth is not simply whatever works. This is the philosophy of pragmatism—an ends-vs.-means-type approach. In reality, lies can appear to “work,” but they are still lies and not the truth. • Truth is not simply what is coherent or understandable. A group of people can get together and form a conspiracy based on a set of falsehoods where they all agree to tell the same false story, but it does not make their presentation true. • Truth is not what makes people feel good. Unfortunately, bad news can be true. • Truth is not what the majority says is true. Fifty-one percent of a group can reach a wrong conclusion. • Truth is not what is comprehensive. A lengthy, detailed presentation can still result in a false conclusion. • Truth is not defined by what is intended. Good intentions can still be wrong. • Truth is not how we know; truth is what we know. • Truth is not simply what is believed. A lie believed is still a lie. • Truth is not what is publicly proved. A truth can be privately known (for example, the location of buried treasure). The Greek word for “truth” is aletheia, which refers to “divine revelation” and is related to a word that literally means “what can’t be hidden.” It conveys the thought that truth is always there, always open and available for all to see, with nothing being hidden or obscured. The Hebrew word for “truth” is emeth, which means “firmness,” “constancy” and “duration.” Such a definition implies an everlasting substance and something that can be relied upon. From a philosophical perspective, there are three simple ways to define truth: 1. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. 2. Truth is that which matches its object. 3. Truth is simply telling it like it is. First, truth corresponds to reality or “what is.” It is real. Truth is also correspondent in nature. In other words, it matches its object and is known by its referent. For example, a teacher facing a class may say, “Now the only exit to this room is on the right.” For the class that may be facing the teacher, the exit door may be on their left, but it’s absolutely true that the door, for the professor, is on the right. Truth also matches its object. It may be absolutely true that a certain person may need so many milligrams of a certain medication, but another person may need more or less of the same medication to produce the desired effect. This is not relative truth, but just an example of how truth must match its object. It would be wrong (and potentially dangerous) for a patient to request that their doctor give them an inappropriate amount of a particular medication, or to say that any medicine for their specific ailment will do. In short, truth is simply telling it like it is; it is the way things really are, and any other viewpoint is wrong. A foundational principle of philosophy is being able to discern between truth and error, or as Thomas Aquinas observed, "It is the task of the philosopher to make distinctions" (quoted by Drewlo, E. F., in Thoughtful Adaptations to Change: Authentic Christian Faith in Postmodern Times, Friesen Press, 2017, p. 155). Challenges to Truth Aquinas’ words are not very popular today. Making distinctions seems to be out of fashion in a postmodern era of relativism. It is acceptable today to say, “This is true,” as long as it is not followed by, “and therefore that is false.” This is especially observable in matters of faith and religion where every belief system is supposed to be on equal footing where truth is concerned. There are a number of philosophies and worldviews that challenge the concept of truth, yet, when each is critically examined it turns out to be self-defeating in nature. The philosophy of relativism says that all truth is relative and that there is no such thing as absolute truth. But one has to ask: is the claim “all truth is relative” a relative truth or an absolute truth? If it is a relative truth, then it really is meaningless; how do we know when and where it applies? If it is an absolute truth, then absolute truth exists. Moreover, the relativist betrays his own position when he states that the position of the absolutist is wrong—why can’t those who say absolute truth exists be correct too? In essence, when the relativist says, “There is no truth,” he is asking you not to believe him, and the best thing to do is follow his advice. Those who follow the philosophy of skepticism simply doubt all truth. But is the skeptic skeptical of skepticism; does he doubt his own truth claim? If so, then why pay attention to skepticism? If not, then we can be sure of at least one thing (in other words, absolute truth exists)—skepticism, which, ironically, becomes absolute truth in that case. The agnostic says you can’t know the truth. Yet the mindset is self-defeating because it claims to know at least one truth: that you can’t know truth. The disciples of postmodernism simply affirm no particular truth. The patron saint of postmodernism—Frederick Nietzsche—described truth like this: “What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms … truths are illusions … coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins” (from On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, quoted by Mann, D., in Structural Idealism: A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002, p. 138). Ironically, although the postmodernist holds coins in his hand that are now “mere metal,” he affirms at least one absolute truth: the truth that no truth should be affirmed. Like the other worldviews, postmodernism is self-defeating and cannot stand up under its own claim. A popular worldview is pluralism, which says that all truth claims are equally valid. Of course, this is impossible. Can two claims—one that says a woman is now pregnant and another that says she is not now pregnant—both be true at the same time? Pluralism unravels at the feet of the law of non-contradiction, which says that something cannot be both “A” and “Non-A” at the same time and in the same sense. As one philosopher quipped, anyone who believes that the law of non-contradiction is not true (and, by default, pluralism is true) should be beaten and burned until they admit that to be beaten and burned is not the same thing as to not be beaten and burned (Avicenna, Metaphysics I, quoted by John Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings, Wolter, A., trans., Bobbs-Merrill, 1962, p. 10). Also, note that pluralism says that it is true and anything opposed to it is false, which is a claim that denies its own foundational tenet. The spirit behind pluralism is an open-armed attitude of tolerance. However, pluralism confuses the idea of everyone having equal value with every truth claim being equally valid. More simply, all people may be equal, but not all truth claims are. Pluralism fails to understand the difference between opinion and truth, a distinction Mortimer Adler notes, “Pluralism is desirable and tolerable only in those areas that are matters of taste rather than matters of truth” insert (Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth, Macmillan, 1990, p. 4). The Offensive Nature of Truth When the concept of truth is maligned, it is usually for one or more of the following reasons: One common complaint against anyone claiming to have absolute truth in matters of faith and religion is that such a stance is “narrow-minded.” However, the critic fails to understand that, by nature, truth is narrow. Is a math teacher narrow-minded for holding to the belief that 2 + 2 only equals 4? Another objection to truth is that it is arrogant to claim that someone is right and another person is wrong. However, returning to the above example with mathematics, is it arrogant for a math teacher to insist on only one right answer to an arithmetic problem? Or is it arrogant for a locksmith to state that only one key will open a locked door? A third charge against those holding to absolute truth in matters of faith and religion is that such a position excludes people, rather than being inclusive. But such a complaint fails to understand that truth, by nature, excludes its opposite. All answers other than 4 are excluded from the reality of what 2 + 2 truly equals. Yet another protest against truth is that it is offensive and divisive to claim one has the truth. Instead, the critic argues, all that matters is sincerity. The problem with this position is that truth is immune to sincerity, belief, and desire. It doesn’t matter how much one sincerely believes a wrong key will fit a door; the key still won’t go in and the lock won’t be opened. Truth is also unaffected by sincerity. Someone who picks up a bottle of poison and sincerely believes it is lemonade will still suffer the unfortunate effects of the poison. Finally, truth is impervious to desire. A person may strongly desire that their car has not run out of gas, but if the gauge says the tank is empty and the car will not run any farther, then no desire in the world will miraculously cause the car to keep going. Some will admit that absolute truth exists, but then claim such a stance is only valid in the area of science and not in matters of faith and religion. This is a philosophy called logical positivism, which was popularized by philosophers such as David Hume and A. J. Ayer. In essence, such people state that truth claims must either be (1) tautologies (for example, all bachelors are unmarried men) or (2) empirically verifiable (that is, testable via science). To the logical positivist, all talk about God is nonsense. Those who hold to the notion that only science can make truth claims fail to recognize is that there are many realms of truth where science is impotent. For example: • Science cannot prove the disciplines of mathematics and logic because it presupposes them. • Science cannot prove metaphysical truths such as, minds other than my own do exist. • Science is unable to provide truth in the areas of morals and ethics. You cannot use science, for example, to prove the Nazis were evil. • Science is incapable of stating truths about aesthetic positions such as the beauty of a sunrise. • Lastly, when anyone makes the statement “science is the only source of objective truth,” they have just made a philosophical claim—which cannot be tested by science. And there are those who say that absolute truth does not apply in the area of morality. Yet the response to the question, “Is it moral to torture and murder an innocent child?” is absolute and universal: No. Or, to make it more personal, those who espouse relative truth concerning morals always seem to want their spouse to be absolutely faithful to them. Why Truth Is Important Why is it so important to understand and embrace the concept of absolute truth in all areas of life (including faith and religion)? Simply because life has consequences for being wrong. Giving someone the wrong amount of a medication can kill them; having an investment manager make the wrong monetary decisions can impoverish a family; boarding the wrong plane will take you where you do not wish to go; and dealing with an unfaithful marriage partner can result in the destruction of a family and, potentially, disease. Nowhere are the consequences more important than in the area of faith and religion. Eternity is an awfully long time to be wrong. God and Truth During the six trials of Jesus, the contrast between the truth (righteousness) and lies (unrighteousness) was unmistakable. There stood Jesus, the Truth, being judged by those whose every action was bathed in lies. The Jewish leaders broke nearly every law designed to protect a defendant from wrongful conviction. They fervently worked to find any testimony that would incriminate Jesus, and in their frustration, they turned to false evidence brought forward by liars. But even that could not help them reach their goal. So they broke another law and forced Jesus to implicate Himself. Once in front of Pilate, the Jewish leaders lied again. They convicted Jesus of blasphemy, but since they knew that wouldn’t be enough to coax Pilate to kill Jesus, they claimed Jesus was challenging Caesar and was breaking Roman law by encouraging the crowds to not pay taxes. Pilate quickly detected their superficial deception, and he never even addressed the charge. Jesus the Righteous was being judged by the unrighteous. The sad fact is that the latter always persecutes the former. It’s why Cain killed Abel. The link between truth and righteousness and between falsehood and unrighteousness is demonstrated by a number of examples in the New Testament: • For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thessalonians 2:11–12, emphasis added). • “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18, emphasis added). • “who will render to each person according to his deeds; to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation” (Romans 2:6–8, emphasis added). • “[love] does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:5–6, emphasis added) What Is Truth? - Conclusion The question Pontius Pilate asked centuries ago needs to be rephrased in order to be completely accurate. The Roman governor’s remark “What is truth?” overlooks the fact that many things can have truth, but only one thing can actually be the Truth. Truth must originate from somewhere. The stark reality is that Pilate was looking directly at the Origin of all Truth on that early morning almost two thousand years ago. Not long before being arrested and brought to the governor, Jesus had made the simple statement “I am the truth” (John 14:6), which was a rather incredible statement. How could a mere man be the truth? He couldn’t be, unless He was more than a man, which is actually what He claimed to be. The fact is, Jesus’ claim was validated when He rose from the dead (Romans 1:4). There’s a story about a man who lived in Paris who had a stranger from the country come see him. Wanting to show the stranger the magnificence of Paris, he took him to the Louvre to see the great art and then to a concert at a majestic symphony hall to hear a great symphony orchestra play. At the end of the day, the stranger from the country commented that he didn’t particularly like either the art or the music. To which his host replied, “They aren’t on trial, you are.” Pilate and the Jewish leaders thought they were judging Christ, when, in reality, they were the ones being judged. Moreover, the One they convicted will actually serve as their Judge one day, as He will for all who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Related Resource: Is all truth God's truth? What Is Truth? Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" — John 18:38 Today's Scripture : John 18:28-38 It was the closest Pilate would come to life’s greatest discovery. Jesus had just told him that He had come into the world to bear witness to the truth. This prompted Pilate to ask, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). The shrewd Roman politician had asked the right question of the right Person, and his answer was standing before him. But instead of falling to his knees in repentance, confession, and faith, he could only pass off the answer by concluding, “I find no fault in Him.” Sooner or later, all of us find ourselves in Pilate’s position, where we must decide about the unusual Man who claims what no other can claim—that He is the truth. Throughout history many religious leaders have come and gone, but not one has claimed to be the truth and then proved it by rising from the dead. Millions of people down through the centuries have found Jesus’ life, His words, and His resurrection to be convincing evidence of His credibility. And they have concluded that knowing the truth must begin with a personal relationship with Christ. Not all roads lead to God, As many people claim; There's only one true way— Christ Jesus is His name. —Sper To know Christ is to know the truth. Oswald Chambers - “What Is Truth?” John 18:38 (BORROW God's Workmanship page 32) The Personality of Truth is the great revelation of Christianity—“I am . . . the Truth.” Our Lord did not say He was “all truth” so that we could go to His statements as to a text-book and verify things; there are domains, such as science and art and history, which are distinctly man’s domains and the boundaries of our knowledge must continually alter and be enlarged; God never encourages laziness. The question to be asked is not, “Does the Bible agree with the findings of modern science?” but, “Do the findings of modern science help us to a better understanding of the things revealed in the Bible?” Again, the Bible has much to say about truth of speech, e.g., “speak ye truth each one with his neighbour” (Ephesians 4:25 rv): but this aspect, important as it is, is not what our Lord means when He says, “I am . . . the Truth.” However, it is well, bearing in mind the deceitfulness and subtlety of the human heart, for us to remember that The truth that’s told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent. And none of us ever gets beyond the need of the warning that “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.” But we would not have needed the Bible, or the illumination of the Holy Spirit, or our Lord Himself to come and tell us about these things, our own human wisdom and ingenuity would have taught us. 1. Truth Incarnate “And the Word became flesh” (rv)—that means not only the expression of the Mind of God, but the expression of the Mind of God Incarnate. God gave His final revelation in Jesus Christ; then He set processes at work for the re-organisation of the whole of humanity. Jesus Christ is the Truth, an Incarnate Ideal; to be “in Christ” means that through regeneration and sanctification that Ideal can become a reality, so that in my mortal flesh there is manifested that which is easily discerned to be “the life also of Jesus.” We are to be incorporated into the truth. The ideal is not a vague end into which we evolve more or less blindly, we “grow up in all things into Him.” There is a danger of seeing the truth and the true clearly with our minds, while the life and character lag woefully behind. In Christian work who has not met with clearness in verbal doctrine, almost dictatorial clearness, and wrong, almost quite wrong, attitudes in life and conduct? “He that doeth truth cometh to the light” (John 3:21). “Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice” (John 18:37). “. . . that we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20). These passages make it clear that being “of the truth” refers to a condition of character. Much is written about our Lord speaking so simply that anyone could understand, and we forget that while it remains true that the common people heard Him gladly, no one, not even His own disciples, understood Him until after the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the reason being that a pure heart is the essential requirement for being “of the truth.” “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” 2. Truth Interpreted . . . no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20 rv) We are never left with a revelation without an interpretation of it. A revelation fact needs a corresponding revelation to interpret it. Just as Jesus Christ is the final revelation of God, so the Bible is the final revelation interpreting Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ (The Word of God) and the Bible (the accompanying revelation) stand or fall together, they can never be separated without fatal results. The words of the Bible apart from being interpreted by the Word of God, are worse than lifeless, they kill (2 Corinthians 3:6). But when a soul is born from above (rv mg) and lifted to the atmosphere of the domain where our Lord lives, the Bible becomes its native air, its words become the storehouse of omnipotence, its commands and prophecies become alive, its limitless horizons brace the heart and mind to a new consciousness, its comforts in Psalms† and prayers and exhortations delight the whole man. And better than all, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes the altogether Lovely One, it is in His light that we see light , it is in Him that we become new creatures. He who is the Word of God unfolds to us the revelation of God until we say in sacred rapture, “I hold in my hands the Thought of God.” What is needed is a final court of appeal, and this we have in the Bible. It is not a question of the infallibility of the Bible, that is a side issue; but of the finality of the Bible. The Bible is a whole library of literature giving us the final interpretation of the Truth, and to take the Bible apart from that one supreme purpose is to have a book and nothing more; and further, to take our Lord Jesus Christ away from the revelation of Him given in the Bible is to be left with one who is open to all the irreverent slanders of unbelief. “The Truth” is our Lord Himself; “the whole truth” is the inspired Scripture interpreting the Truth to us; and “nothing but the truth” is the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of truth,”efficaciously regenerating and sanctifying us, and guiding us into “all the truth” (rv). John 18:39 “But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?” have: Mt 27:15-18 Mk 15:6,8 Lu 23:17,20 release: John 18:33 James Stalker's classic Trial and Arrest of Jesus Christ - 6. BACK TO PILATE Matt. 27:15–23; Mark 15:6–14; Luke 23:13–25; John 18:39, 40. PILATE ATTEMPTS A COMPROMISE But - Term of contrast. Since he finds Jesus "Not Guilty" he seeks to appease the Jews with a compromise. He surely must have sensed their displeasure (that's speaking euphemistically) to his not guilty verdict. Like a sly politician, he quickly seeks to extricate himself from this tense encounter by proposing another plan. You have a custom (sunetheia) that I release (apoluo - to set free or pardon) someone for you at the Passover (pascha) - Pilate alludes to a custom, which is not known outside of this text, that he had the right to carry out a gesture of goodwill by releasing a prisoner held by the Romans at Passover.