Truth in the Bible is the divine light shining on the facts of the Bible and televising a heavenly vision of these facts into our being; truth in the New Testament denotes a kind of “heavenly television” – the televising of the divine facts into us for our enjoyment and experience. Wow!
This week in our morning revival we come to the topic of, Being Sanctified by the Truth to Move out of Ourselves and into the Triune God for the Genuine Oneness.
What is truth? What do we mean by truth when we speak about truth?
We may have a natural concept of the truth; this word, truth, is simple, we all know it, we can look it up in the dictionary, but this won’t help us understand the meaning of the word truth in the Bible.
When we come to the Bible we need a different kind of dictionary – we don’t need the Oxford dictionary or the Webster dictionary: we need the Bible itself as the dictionary.
For us to discover the meaning of the biblical words, we need to take the whole Bible as the dictionary.
The natural thought concerning truth is that it is the opposite of falsehood or that it is true and reliable principles; such a thought is natural and doesn’t match what the Bible says.
The religious thought concerning truth is that it is doctrines, teachings, spiritual doctrines and teachings; such a thought is quite shallow – it is not wrong, but it is very superficial.
What is truth? Truth is the divine reality – it is the Triune God and His Word; truth is not just the Word of God but even more, the Triune God Himself and His word.
We should never separate the Person of the Triune God from his word; if we do that, we will end up with doctrines.
The Bible has two aspects, as seen in 2 Cor. 3:16, there is the letter and the Spirit; the letters are used to compose words and sentences, which are the contents of the Bible, but the Spirit is the person, the essence of what the Bible says.
The spirit of the Bible is a person, the processed and consummated Triune God; this is the spirit of the Bible.
We need to touch not only the letter of the Bible when we read the Bible; every time we come to the written word of God, we need to come to the person of the Triune God.
In John 5:39-40, the Lord Jesus told the religious persons, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but you’re not willing to come to Me, the person…
The Lord Himself is the eternal life, and He is the essence and spirit of the Word; when we come to the Word of God, we need to come to the Lord Jesus to take Him as our life and receive Him as spirit and life.
May we never separate the person from the word; may we have a continual prayer to the Lord as we come to His Word so that we may get spirit and life by contacting the person of Christ in His Word.
The Shining of God’s Light on the Facts in His Word Televises a Heavenly Vision into us
The Bible is not a book of history or a news report; the Bible doesn’t report to us the things that took place in the past. The Bible is televising what is going on in the third heavens right now; it is not historical but live.
If we touch the Spirit in the Bible we will discover that it conveys to us the very Triune God with all that He is; when we exercise our spirit to touch the spirit in the Bible, we enjoy a heavenly transmission of the divine facts in the word of God. Truth is the divine light shining on the facts of the Bible and televising a heavenly, spiritual vision of these facts into our being.
In the New Testament, truth denotes this kind of “heavenly television”, the continual transmission of what God in Christ as the Spirit is, has, has done, is doing, and will do.
First, we need to read the Bible and discover the facts; for this, we need to pay attention to the letter of the Bible, for the divine facts are recorded in the Word of God.
But then the Spirit has to shine on those facts so that they become a vision to us inwardly; what we need is not mere knowledge but a seeing of the heavenly vision of the divine facts in the Bible.
In book after book and chapter after chapter, we have a heavenly scenery being presented to us and infused into us as we come to the Lord in His word with a turned heart and an exercised spirit.
We shouldn’t come to the Bible merely to know God more; we need to come to the Bible with an unveiled face to see the vision of God and of all the divine realities.
For example, we may try to describe the amazing scenery of the Grand Canyon to someone, explaining this and giving that detail; but once we show him a live video of the Grand Canyon, he will truly be impressed.
All the divine facts are contained in the Word of God and are conveyed to us through the Word; when the Spirit shines upon the Word, we have the heavenly television.
We need to come to the Lord when we come to His word, for in the Bible we have the divine facts, and the Spirit needs to shine on these facts to make them real to us.
When the light shines upon the facts in the Word of God, we not only understand but also receive a heavenly vision of these facts into our being, and we know the truth (Acts 26:16, 19; Eph. 1:17-18).
This is why we need to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ; the light shines upon the facts in the Bible and conveys a heavenly vision of these facts into our being.
The Bible doesn’t merely contain facts; it conveys the reality of these facts into us.
What a book we have – what a treasure, not only containing the truth but also conveying it through the Word!
The visions that are conveyed are realities, not just some apparitions; they are realities contained in the Word and conveyed to us by the Spirit.
The Spirit is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality (John 14:17); the Spirit of reality guides us into all the reality of what God is in His word.
The Spirit of reality is the “heavenly electricity” by which spiritual things are televised into our being.
The Spirit of reality guides us into all the reality (John 16:13), making all that the Son is and has real to us (John 1:14, 17; 14:6).
We all had this experience and it is quite hard to describe it; apparently, we read something in the Bible, but actually, something else is happening: the Spirit of reality is guiding us into all the reality of what we are reading. How wonderful!
When the Spirit of truth shines upon the spiritual facts recorded and contained in the Bible, we receive the truth, the reality.
But if we read the Word without the shining of the Spirit, we may have doctrines or “news reports” but not the truth, the reality, or the vision (see John 42:5; John 5:39-40; 2 Cor. 3:6).
May we come to the Lord when we come to His word so that He may shine on us and guide us as the Spirit into the reality of what He is, and may we enjoy the “heavenly television” being transmitted into us for us to enter into the reality of the divine facts contained in the Bible!
Lord Jesus, we come to You as we come to Your word. Shine in us, Lord, and grant us the divine light so that the facts of the Bible would be televised into our being. Amen, Lord, grant us to be under the “heavenly television” of the divine facts in the Word of God as we come to You in your Word. Save us from merely coming to the word of God for knowledge. Grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ. Amen, Lord, may Your divine light shine upon the facts in the word and convey a heavenly vision of these facts into our being so that we may know the truth!
Truth is the Shining of Light to Impart Life into our Being as we Read the Word
The Lord Jesus is the light, the truth, and the Word of God; He came as the embodiment of the Word of God, and He Himself is the light of the world and the way, the reality, and the life (John 1:14; 8:12; 14:6).
God is light and in Him, there’s no darkness at all; when He as light shines, the expression of the light is truth.
Truth is light expressed; light is the source of the truth and truth is the issue of light, so when we walk in the light, we are practising the truth (John 1:4-5, 7-9, 12-13; 8:12; 14:6; 1 John 1:5-6; 2 John 4; 3 John 3-4).
For us to practice the truth is for us to walk in the light.
We may have the thought that to practice the truth, we need to learn the things recorded in the Bible and do them, but actually, practising the truth is walking in the light.
The Lord Jesus is the light, the truth, and the Word; the Word – which is also the truth – gives light, for in the Word there is light (John 8:12; 14:6; 17:17; Psa. 119:105, 130).
The opening of God’s word gives light, imparting understanding to the simple. We need to come to the Lord by coming to His word, and He will shine on us to bring us in the light and minister life to us.
Because the truth is the shining of the light – which is the light of life – truth, light, and life are inseparable; when the divine light shines into us, it becomes the truth in us, and it imparts life into our being (John 8:12, 32, 40; 12:35-36, 46; 14:6).
When God comes to us, He shines on us as the light, and what reaches us is the truth, the reality.
This truth is the televising of God with all that He is to us; it is not something static – it is live, continual, a transmission from God to us.
Everything of the truth in the Bible is a reality, and these realities are being televised into our being by the shining of light to impart life into our being and bring us into reality.
For example, we may have heard that the Lord Jesus came to die for us on the cross, shedding His blood for our redemption.
But when one day the Lord shines on us and impresses us with the truth concerning His redemption, we will enter into this divine reality and it becomes real to us.
The Lord’s death on the cross used to be a doctrine to us, but through the shining of light, it is being televised into us and we are saved.
We will even weep, thanking and praising the Lord, worshipping Him for such a reality.
The truth in the word of God is the divine reality, and this reality needs to be televised into our being through the shining of the divine light; the result is that we receive life, and we are brought into the reality of what the Lord is shining on us.
The shining Spirit is always within us; when we open ourselves to Him, the light shines, and as the light shines on the Word of God, certain things stand out and make a deep impression upon us.
In this way, we all can know the truth and together we can become part of the church, the pillar and the base of the truth.
From the youngest among us to the oldest one, we need to come to the Lord in His word to have the divine facts televised into our being with the shining of the divine light, so that we may receive light and life, and be brought into the spiritual reality of what we are reading and enjoying.
Lord Jesus, we open to Your shining today. Shine on us as we read Your word. May the divine facts in the Bible become a reality to us under Your divine light. Amen, Lord, we love to be under Your shining to be filled with the truth, be constituted with the truth, and walk in the truth. May the divine light shine into us to become truth in us and impart life into our being. Amen, Lord, keep us under the heavenly televising of the divine facts in Your word until we are fully brought into the reality of the divine facts we enjoy in Your Word! May we be under the heavenly television, watching and enjoying the divine facts in the Word of God being televised into our being, so that we may receive life, grow in life, and be brought into the reality of all that God is to us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 3, “Truth Messages,” chs. 2-3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing the Truth, being Absolute for the Truth, and Proclaiming the Truth in this Present Evil Age (2021 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 2, Being Sanctified by the Truth to Move out of Ourselves and into the Triune God for the Genuine Oneness.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Oh, send Thy Spirit, Lord, / Now unto me, / That He may touch my eyes, / And make me see; / Show me the truth concealed / Within Thy Word, / And in Thy Book revealed / I see the Lord. (Hymns #806)
– The Word reveals Thyself to me / And knowledge of Thyself imparts; / The Spirit is Thy substance true / Whereby I touch Thee as Thou art. / Thou art my life, my light, my way, / My food, my strength and guaranty; / By Word made known, as Spirit these / Become experience to me. (Hymns #802)
– Christ is the Word and Spirit too, / And as the Spirit in the Word; / And all the words He speaks to us / Are life and spirit thus conferred. (Hymns #815)
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