“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth” (John 18:37a).
If I had asked you, “Why did Jesus come into the world?” what would you have answered? Maybe you would have said, “To redeem the world” or “to bring salvation” or “to die and rise again” or “to do the will of the Father.” All of these would have been correct. Maybe you’ve read this passage enough, though, that you would have said, “To testify to the truth.”
If you’re a follower of Jesus, then it stands to reason that you would want to know what is most important to him. If I told you, “This is the most important thing about Jesus. You need to know this. This was the reason he was born,” my hope is that your response would be, “Okay, tell me! I want to know!”
Well, this is it – the truth. And while that may seem a little vague and generalized, the implications are enormous. See, if testifying to the truth is the whole purpose and reason of Jesus’ life on earth, and if Jesus is, as he said, truly God, with all authority in heaven and on earth, then it means that there is nothing more important for us than to know the truth. And furthermore, if we are, as Paul writes, to be imitators of Jesus, then our lives also ought to testify to the truth.
So what is the truth to which Jesus testifies? Well, there’s the truth that we are all sinners. The truth that our sins separate us from God, and make us deserving of damnation. The truth that Jesus came to save sinners, and the truth that he is the only salvation for sinners. The truth that life as his follower is not easy, but that he has won the victory on our behalf. The truth that we are now his servants, remade in him to reflect him and to point to him.
And so much more. But you get the idea. We, as his followers, want to make truth – all truth, but especially the truth about who we are before God, who Jesus is, and what he has done for us – the core and the focus of our lives. Be imitators of Jesus, and let truth be the reason you were born.
Reflect
- Nothing was more important to Jesus than the truth, and nothing is more important to him than that his followers know the truth. Is knowing the truth the most important thing in my life? Does the way I prioritize my time reflect the importance of knowing the truth?
- The purpose of Jesus life was to testify to the truth, and we are to be imitators of him. Does my life testify to the truth? Do I allow falsehoods and half-truths to have a place in my life? How am I dealing with those?
- The greatest of all truths to which Jesus’ life testifies is that he is the Savior, and that through him we have freedom from sin, death, and the devil. How can I show the people in my life that this is true?