Well, if you've done any study in the Gospel of John, I hope you immediately notice that there's a massive difference in the way John presents the concept of truth versus the synoptics. Statistically, you can find that observation because John focuses on truth 55 times, whereas the synoptics cumulatively do so 17 times.

So even that statistic alone, 3 to 1 basically, gives you an insight that John is trying to accomplish something greater than what the synoptics are doing. That is not to say that the synoptics are not trying to present an untruthful account about the story of Jesus. Don't misinterpret me in that way.

They are presenting a truthful account, yet John uniquely, according to scholars, presents it theologically, whereas the truth statements in the synoptics are more factual statements. Yes, this statement is true. Whereas with John, it's a theologically rich presentation. You can also look at the weight and the value of truth in John beyond statistics.

I messed up on the numbers, let me say it correctly, 55 times versus 18 times. Let me just correct myself, 55 in John, 18 in the synoptics. But there's a second way you can identify that John is trying to feature truth, and that is through the I Am statements.

You know, we have seven of them. They become valuable and important to the structure and tapestry of John. Well, one of them is John 14 6, "I am the way and the truth and the life." So putting that concept into the I Am statement elevates it in its importance and value in the Gospel of John.

You can see it even appear in some of the strategic narratives, whether it's the introduction of the light for the very first time in the beginning, verse 9 of chapter 1, talks about the light and the truth that comes through that light. John the Baptist, of course, is going to be introduced as the witness, as the first witness to the light.

But then the story of Nicodemus, truth is at the core of it, regeneration and the focus of what it takes to actually enter the kingdom of God and be in the kingdom of God. And Jesus is leaning on the Old Testament to help John understand that. Or the story of the Samaritan woman, again, a very unique story, not repeated in the synoptic Gospels, but truth becomes the core of the worship discussion in verses 23 to 25.

Or the story in chapter 8, the Abraham dialogue, and the narrative surrounding that is focused on truth. That is the most concentrated passage in the Gospel of John on truth, John chapter 8. Or you can go into the Upper Room discourse, chapters 14, 13 through 17, again, truth is at the core of that discussion, we'll look at that in just a little bit.

John 17, one of the most precious and holy passages in Scripture, right, the holy ground of prayers. And yet chapter 17, verse 3, immediately says, "This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God." So now he's introducing God the Father as the true God, multiple times, but chapter 17 features that at the very beginning.

And of course, next to the last verse in the Gospel of John 21-24, multiple times repeats this idea that we are looking at a truthful presentation of the story of Jesus. So Stanley Porter says this, "The Gospel indicates that truth originates in the tripartite relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and it is realized in truthful relations between the Son and human beings." I want to develop that for us this afternoon, that for John, truth is triadic or trinitarian, whichever tri-word you like to use.

So you've got statistics, you've got strategic locations where truth appears in the Gospel of John, you also have the purpose for Jesus' coming being tied to the truth. There's only two places in John where Jesus speaks about why he came. We know chapter 10, verse 10, "I've come that they may have life," right, and have it abundantly.

And then chapter 17, and some chapter 18 rather, when Jesus is speaking to Pilate in verse 37, he says, "I am a king, and for this reason I was born, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice," and I'll link 10 and 18 in just a minute for us.

So you've got the presentation statistically, the strategic locations, and then you have this purpose for why Jesus came being tied to this idea of truthfulness, and as the deliverer, or as he's called by many, the revealer of the Father, the Father of truth. But here's a link I want to make for us between chapter 10 and chapter 18 before we get into some of the specific outline that I want to present to you.

In both chapter 10, and you're going to have to use your Bible, so if you don't have one, look it up on your phone please. If you do, we're going to start flipping. In chapter 10, Jesus is presented as the Good Shepherd, right? We know that as the Good Shepherd motif, and it's not just the Good Shepherd idea of Jesus giving compassion and care, and he'll give up his life voluntarily for his sheep.

That is at the core of the theology of this chapter, but you have to understand that Jesus is picking up a metaphor from the ancient world that was adopted by the monarchs and the pharaohs and the emperors, where the Good Shepherd was supposed to symbolize care and compassion, and it was used as a propaganda mechanism in the ancient world.

You have letters going back and forth between the Roman emperor and the pharaohs in Egypt where the emperor is encouraging the pharaohs to say, "Act like a shepherd to your people." Now we know what kind of shepherds they were. They slaughtered them. There was no love or compassion or care or sacrifice.

Jesus shows up and says, "I'm a Good Shepherd. I'm going to lay down my life for my sheep." He says that statement multiple times in chapter 10, as you know. So undergirding this Good Shepherd motif in the ancient context, you have an understanding that Jesus isn't simply speaking as a shepherd who leads and provides and protects, but he's a shepherd who is a royal shepherd, because that was the understanding of that ancient world.

You can see that in the Old Testament. David is a shepherd. He's a king. God is presented as a shepherd. He's the King of Israel. So you've got that even in the Old Testament scripture. In John 18, if you take a look, in verse 33, as Jesus and Pilate are conversing, they're in the Praetorium, and then Pilate says, "Are you the King of the Jews?" So the conversation begins focusing on the royal title or the royal status of Jesus.

And Jesus, of course, asks, "Who's telling you these things?" And Pilate says, "I'm not a Jew." Verse 36, "My kingdom is not of this world," is what Jesus responds. "If my kingdom was 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 world." And then the famous statement in verse 37, "So you are a king?" And then Jesus says, "Yes, I am a king." And then this is the reason I was born. In all four Gospels, that question is asked, and in all four Gospels, Jesus affirmatively responds, "Yes, I am a king." We know the differences in the details between the Passion narrative in each Gospel, the Resurrection narrative, but this is consistent.

In other words, every Gospel writer is trying to present Jesus as the king, but in the Gospel of John, it becomes front and center. Ten references in chapter 18 and 19 in the Passion narrative and the Resurrection narrative focus on Jesus as the king and the kingdom that he represents.

So now you have to elevate this whole discussion beyond simple truth or beyond the crucifixion and this, you know, unfair trial. You have to say, at the core of the discussion is Jesus as the king who is bringing truth into this world. Which now, in verse 36, when he says, "My kingdom is not of this world," we're not talking about what Andrew Lincoln, for example, says, "the cosmic battle." So now Jesus is trying to create a scene in the mind of Pilate that, "I am a king." That's a true statement.

I was born for that. However, we're talking about a cosmic conflict, and at the core of it is the identity of Jesus. It's God versus the world in that sense, and you can see this develop as you keep looking into chapter 18 and chapter 19. So the conversation continues, Pilate sarcastically says in verse 38, "What is truth?" In verse 4 of chapter 19, he brings Jesus out.

He says, "I don't have any, I can't find any guilt in him." In verse 5, he says, "Behold the man." They respond. In verse 6, "Crucify him, crucify him." He says, "Take him yourselves and crucify him." Verse 7, "We have a law. We don't have the right to crucify him because he makes himself out to be the son of God." So now you have another indication, and there is something supernatural taking place.

It's not just the kingdom of this world. Verse 8 says Pilate is even more afraid. Coming back to Jesus in verse 9, he's trying to figure out his identity, his origin. Where are you from? Jesus doesn't answer him. And then, Pilate says in verse 10, "You don't speak to me." And the way it's in the Greek, if you have that in front of you, or if you've studied this before, it's extremely emphatic.

"To me?" Do you know who I am? I'm the governor of Judea. I'm here on the authority of the emperor. And it was. Judea was an imperial province, which had protection, and uniqueness, and elevation. And so there was a direct relationship between the emperor and the governor of Judea, unlike other Roman provinces, the other 12.

And so Pilate is shocked, and disturbed, and annoyed, I would say, that Jesus refuses to answer his question. Verse 11 says it, or verse 10 says, "Do you not know that I have the authority to release you, and I have the authority to crucify you?" Twice he says, "I have authority over you.

How dare you not speak back to me and answer my question?" And Jesus continues this cosmic battle motif in verse 11 and says, "You would have no authority over me." Unfortunately, the translators did not say none at all. That is in the original. Twice Pilate demands and conveys that, "I have authority over you." And twice Jesus says, "You would have no authority over me, none at all, unless it came from above." So now Jesus elevates this.

We're talking about authority at the gubernatorial level. We're talking about something different here. So verse 12 says, "Pilate made efforts," and actually this is an imperfect meaning, "He needed to figure out a way," just kept thinking about a way, "to release him." And the Jews are crying out, "If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar." So now they're elevating this to the next level of authority.

You've got the governor, let's take it up a notch to the imperial level of authority. They're trying to bring as much as possible to pressure him, Pilate that is, to crucify Jesus. But what I think we need to be seeing is that Jesus goes back and says, "My kingdom is not of this world.

My authority is greater than your authority." Fine, elevate it, go from the governor level, go to the imperial level, my authority is greater than that even. So here we are talking about a conflict, a cosmic conflict of two kingdoms. If you remember the Gethsemane back in chapter 18, you remember what happened.

Look at verse 4 of chapter 18. So you have the Roman soldiers, you have the Jewish officers, a cohort, about 100 men showing up, chief priests and Pharisees and all that. And so they're coming to arrest him and Jesus asks, "Who do you seek?" And they answer in verse 5, "Jesus of Nazarene," and he says, "I am." And they fell down to the ground in verse 6.

You would assume that Jesus is the victim here, right? They're ready for a brouhaha. They brought as many soldiers as they could to contain this villain. And yet, he's got full control of the situation. Because back in chapter 10, we already knew that. He's going to lay down his life on his own initiative.

No one will take it away from him. In chapter 2, there was an attempt at a premature glorification. And he says, "The hour hasn't come." In chapter 7, his brothers say, "Well, if you are the Messiah, go and reveal yourself publicly at the Festival of Booths." And he says, "This isn't the time yet.

The hour hasn't come." That phrase repeats itself eight times in the Gospel of John. In other words, Jesus is moving in his own timeline. Not his brothers, not his mother, not his disciples a little bit later, not Pilate, not Judas in chapter 18. No one will prematurely move him towards the disclosing of the truth and the presentation of the kingdom of God.

And so here, Jesus is presented as the one in control. Whether Pilate knew how this whole thing went down and back in Gethsemane or not, is irrelevant to the presentation of Jesus in chapter 19 that he is in charge. And he's going to say, "This is how this is going to go down.

And I'm a king and you would have no authority over me, none at all, unless someone above you gave it to you." We need to see that because at the core of this conversation is truth. One author said it this way, "There's a clash of two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness." And you remember Luke 22 verse 53 when Jesus says, "This is the hour and the authority," the same terminology is being used.

The authority that Pilate is claiming in John 19 is actually being referred to in Luke 22. This is the hour and the authority of darkness. So yes, there's this conflict that is presented in John 18 and 19 as Jesus, the representer of the kingdom of God, versus Pilate, the representer of the kingdom of darkness.

Why this cosmic conflict? Go back to 1836 and 37. "My kingdom is not of this world, but I was born to testify to the truth." That's why he doesn't owe an explanation to anyone as we saw in verse 9. This is the last time Jesus will speak about truth in verse 37.

The conversation is over regarding truth and the answer that Jesus gives, you could imagine echoing in Pilate's chambers and the final words are, "What is truth?" And John answers that question from the very beginning. So as you kind of develop the narrative and the literary motif and the style and the content, the way John develops his gospel, you have to admit that that question being posed by Pilate, the greatest of authorities, human authorities in the gospel, John aims to answer, "I'm going to tell you what truth is.

I'm going to refer to it 55 times. I'm going to make sure you understand that by the time the gospel is over, you're going to agree with me in 21-24, this is the disciple who's testifying to these things and he wrote these things and we know that his testimony is true." And in 1935, "He who has seen has testified and his testimony is true and he knows that he's telling you the truth so you would believe." So whether it's in reference to the most important event in the gospel of John, the crucifixion and thereby salvation has come, or the very ending of the gospel of John, he wants you to walk away and say, "What I just read is truth, thoroughly true.

There is no doubt that this is the true presentation of the story of Jesus." And Jesus' words to Pilate before Pilate sarcastically says what is true, in verse 37, the very last sentence, "Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." So now you've got this supernatural presentation, something has to happen before you can actually hear my voice and understand that I'm telling you the truth.

That's the link back to chapter 10 that I was trying to make. There's this royal link that we can make between 10 and 18-19, but there's also this connection with the phrase, "You will hear my voice." In verse 3 of chapter 10, Jesus says, "The sheep hear my voice." In verse 4, he goes ahead of them and they follow him because they know his voice.

Verse 16, "I have other sheep," referring to the Gentiles, "that are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they'll become one flock with one shepherd." And then of course the most famous is verses 27-28, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them.

They follow me. I give them eternal life. They'll never perish. No one will ever snatch them out of my father's head." So the sheep hearing the voice of the shepherd or the one who is speaking in chapter 18-19, that is the link that we should make, that the truth resides in Christ, but it is received by those who can actually hear his voice and of course going back to chapter 3, you can link it back to the regeneration that we all experience.

So what John is trying to do is to say there is this objective truth, that's chapter 18 verse 37, propositional truth that we have to connect with and understand and we'll develop that in a little bit, but there's also this subjectivity to this truth, this incarnational truth that is in John 14-6, "I am the truth." That's unique to John.

You won't find that in the synoptics. So John is thoroughly theological in his presentation of truth. He's moving away from the Greco-Roman presentation, the Hellenistic presentation where truth was a concept that is factual. It's simply philosophical. He says, "No, there's a different approach that we should understand truth and that is it's incarnational and for John it is also an instrument to get you to believe." That's the whole point of the gospel, we read that at the end, and believe of course appears multiple times in the gospel of John.

And so another scholar said this, "In John, truth involves a mode of behavior and relationships toward God and within the new community." So there is a multifaceted presentation of truth. It's propositional, it's objective, it's incarnational, but then it's also missional. And I want us to think about truth in the gospel of John in that way.

Now, to understand it that way, we have to say that John is presenting truth in the person of Jesus Christ from the very beginning. In John chapter 1, we know that the incarnation statement in verse 14, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, glories of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth." So from the very beginning of the introduction of the Logos, he's trying to make sure that you tie his coming to the presentation of truth.

In verse 17, he repeats something similar, "Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." So for John, it is contained in the person of Christ. Before we look at it through the various theological categories, I want to make sure we understand John's vocabulary surrounding truth. He's got a very deep and rich and multi, you can say, synonyms regarding the presentation of truth.

So there's a little chart. It's not the most beautiful chart you've ever seen, but it is a chart that I hope helps you. If you can skip over to Gnosko and Oida chart that gives you the columns. There we go. I'm happy to send some of this information to you.

There's a discussion about whether Oida and Gnosko both meaning knowledge in the gospel of John are interchangeable, they're synonymous, they have different meanings. I would say based on those categories, Jesus' common knowledge is discussed and both terms are used for that, or his supernatural knowledge, or people's common knowledge, or their understanding of truth, or people's lack of understanding of truth, or of Jesus, or the disciples' knowledge of truth, or the disciples' lack of understanding of truth, or the disciples' intimate knowledge, or the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son, both of those terms are used in those categories.

In other words, the best synthesis is to say those two terms that are typically, you know, they appear all over the New Testament, are actually interchangeable in the gospel of John. I'm not saying that extends to the rest of the New Testament, but when we study the New Testament, we should study it within the authorial context.

And then you can extrapolate and say, "Okay, what are the differences with other authors?" Give the author the freedom to use a term within the context of what he's trying to convey to you. Knowledge could be the foundational meaning, but it could have nuances. For John, it is interchangeable.

Those two terms are interchangeable. But beyond that, if you look at the next slide, you can see John enriching this idea of how do I arrive at the truth? Well, it's through knowledge, and you can see multiple passages talking about knowledge and truth. Go back, go to the next slide, and you can see additional terms that John ties to this apprehension language.

How do I fully grasp who Jesus is? And you can see that list in front of you in the passages. These are just a sample. There's more passages connecting with that. So all to say, John is extremely complex and rich in trying to get the reader to understand what truth is, and then how do I grasp this truth intellectually, and ultimately, personally, as he demands a response?

So because John is so theological, I think it's good for us to look at six categories. I see a kaleidoscope of John's presentation of truth through the lens of theology. And let's begin with Christology. Let's just look simply at the Christological presentation of John and truth, beginning with the purpose statement at the end of chapter 20.

There are many signs that could have been performed that are not in this book. Verse 31 says, "But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you will have life in his name." So that's a simple purpose statement.

Most of you probably have studied it or memorized it, or you know exactly how that fits into the entire gospel, whether it's a gospel of perseverance or a gospel of evangelism. You can carry on that debate, as Fee and Carson have done for years. I would say it's more perseverance-oriented, and I can defend that statement privately if necessary.

But I do think John is trying to convey something unique, and that is there's a Christological foundation to all that happens in the gospel of John, which takes us back to 114 that I already read. The Incarnation is the second member of the Trinity, the Eternal Son becoming a man taken on human flesh and delivering to us grace and truth.

Definitely this takes us back to Exodus 33 and 34, where Moses asked for God to reveal himself uniquely, and God's response is simple, "I'm going to let my attributes be displayed before you. I'm going to speak." He does, and he says, "I'm a God," in verse 6 of chapter 34, "who is abundant in loving kindness and truth." So John quickly links us back to Exodus 33 and 34, and verse 17 reaffirms that link.

But he continues, and in chapter 7, John again refers to Jesus, and it says this, "He who speaks for himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him." In other words, he is true, thoroughly true, true and true and true, there is no unrighteousness in him.

So he'll repeat that idea of Jesus being the truth bringer or the one who contains truth in chapter 7. Chapter 16, look at verse 7, where he again refers to the truthfulness of Jesus. I tell you the truth. It's your advantage that I go away. It's a factual statement, believe me.

But again, Jesus is presented as the one who speaks the truth. That's why in chapter 1, verse 9, he is the true light. In 632, he is the true bread from heaven. In 151, he is the true vine. So all of those metaphors are intended to present Jesus as the one who is the true one, but in all of them, he is symbolizing and representing the relationship between us and God.

And you see that in multiple ways. Of course, 14.6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," meaning I'm the way, I'm the path, I'm the truth, I'm the means, and I'm the life, I'm the goal. The path, the means, and the goal is probably the best explanation of 14.6, and you can find all the discussions about that in various commentaries.

So now, in John's mind, truth isn't simply, there's the word of God, believe it, Psalm 119, Psalm 19, it's truthful, you should believe it and follow it. No, the objective truth of who God is has now been contained and presented in a person. And in chapter 8, that truth sets us free from sin.

Verse 32 of chapter 8, "You'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free." In verse 31, you see that if you continue in my word, so now there's an objective connection of this truth, my word, my teachings, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

So now you've got both being presented here. There's an objective understanding that's expected in 8.31, but there's a personal incarnational truth that you need to attach yourself to, to be set free from sin. Now what happened earlier in 8.13 is the conversation begins. Jesus declares, "I'm the light of the world." The Pharisees come back in verse 13 and says, "You're only testifying yourself, your testimony is not true." In other words, give us a second witness.

Now back in 5.31, Jesus already said, "I agree with you, I need another witness." And so in 5.31, all the way down into the 40s, towards the end of the chapter, he says, "I'll give you four." Remember that section? "I'm going to give you multiple witnesses. The Father's going to be my witness, John the Baptist is going to be my witness, the scriptures are going to be my witness as well." And I'm forgetting the fourth one, help me out here.

None of you know either, huh? The signs. No, my works, not the signs, but synonymous. So Jesus says, "I already said that, I get that, I've already given you multiple witnesses." So even the objection in 8.13 is gratuitous, even as the story develops. But John's approach is to say, "Make sure you understand that this person of truth, the Christology that is presented in the truth is a Christology of a person." So then, in verse 26 of chapter 8, Jesus says, "I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true.

And the things which I heard from him, these things I speak to the world." So now he's the representer of truthful statements, and you can believe me when I present them to you. Well, you know, the Jewish leaders quickly shift the conversation to origin, and in verse 33, they start speaking about, "We belong to Abraham," Jesus says, "No, you really belong to the devil because you're trying to kill me because he's a liar, has been a liar, has been a destroyer," verse 44.

So now this discussion of truth is elevated to spiritual origins. For them, it's physical, that's where it begins. But Jesus takes it back to this cosmic battle that no, we're talking about a spiritual war. But the climax of this whole section is in verse 36, where he already said there's a way to be set free from sin, verse 31, 32.

Verse 35, he says, "The slave doesn't remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, you'll be free indeed." So now there's a promise that whatever he communicated back in 31 and 32, if you continue in my word, you've got my disciples, you'll know the truth, the truth will set you free.

Verse 36, I'm the one who's setting you free. And in the original, you've got a chiasm formed between verses 31 and 37, accenting the idea that if you want to be truly set free, the truthfulness and the perpetual reality of that freedom is contained in the person of the son.

So again, John is trying to look at it from multiple ways to say we're talking about the truth that is incarnate, that ultimately sets you free. But it's based in his objective teaching back to verse 31. My word is what you are expected to fulfill. But in verse 31, there's a little nuance you should consider.

If you continue in my word, then you're truly my disciples. So you have to have this abiding language as part of your understanding. Menno, you've seen that word I'm sure before in John, unique to John, emphasizing this intimate, prolonged, or you can say eternal relationship. And for him to strategically use a word that's often used to refer to the relationship between the father and the son, and then the believers and the son, and the believers and the spirit, to use it now in relation to the objective word of God, now speaks to the value we should place on that relationship with the objective truth of John 8, 31.

Now moving outside of John for a second, in 1 John 3, 19, John says we are of the truth. So the application then, I believe John is written a year before 1 John is written, John just continues this discussion of truth into the epistles. And he makes it so intimate to the true follower of Jesus that he uses language of being.

We are of the truth. We're not standing in the truth. We're not sitting in the truth. We're not aware of the truth. We're not practicing the truth. No, we are of the truth. It becomes part of our being. That's the ultimate application, is that it has to be so intimate in your life that it's as if you embody yourself the truth of Jesus Christ, who he is.

Obviously in a different sense. I hope you understand that. But that's what John is expecting of every single believer who wants to grasp his presentation of what truth is. That's a Christological presentation of truth in John. There's also a second and that is in regards to theology proper. That's a second category of theology in John in regards to truth.

And that is in reference to the Father. And so in chapter 17, I've read this verse before, "This is eternal life that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you've sent." So now John is tying truth to God's character, eternal life, Jesus Christ whom you've sent.

And of course, if you know John, you know how loaded that is. Because they're always trying to define eternal life. And in John, it has a very nuanced meaning. Eternal life in John is not about living forever. That's resurrection in John. And he's 100% consistent in dividing those two.

Eternal life in John is about your relationship with God here and now that extends into eternity. But it's not something you anticipate one day. In the synoptics, it's different. So be careful mixing those terms in the synoptics versus John. But John nuances that because he wants us to understand there are phases in our relationship with God.

And eternal life is simple, 17.3, to know the true God. And of course, then Jesus Christ is the one who mediates that knowledge to us. So that's John's connection of truth to the Father. Now back in chapter 5, in that little paragraph regarding the four witnesses, verse 37 says, 5.37, "The Father who sent me, he has testified of me.

You've neither heard his voice at any time, nor have you seen his form. You do not have his word abiding in you, there's the man of language again, for you do not believe him who sent me. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and they testify about me.

And yet you're unwilling to come to me so that you may have life if I do not receive glory for men, but I know that you do not have the love of God in yourselves." Who's going to accuse you before the Father, verse 45? The one who accuses you is Moses in whom you have set your hope.

If you believe Moses, you'd believe me, for he wrote on me. If you don't believe his writings, how will you believe my words? So now John is trying to present this element of the Father is the one who testifies to Jesus. Of course, the works, the scriptures, and John the Baptist does, and Moses does toward the end.

But he is the one who is the witness. To God, the Father is true and now he's functioning as a witness to Jesus Christ. In 333, God is called true. So even in the beginning of the gospel, he's trying to present him as the one who is true. But for John, it's rooted in Psalm 31, verse 5, for example, "Into your hand I commit my spirit." John 19, right?

What's the ending of that verse? "You ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth." Isaiah 65, verse 15, "He who is blessed in the earth will be blessed by the God of truth, and he who swears in the earth will swear by the God of truth." So John has taken us back to the gospel, to the Old Testament as much as possible to tell us that this is the God that I am referring to who sent Jesus Christ, the God of truth.

And 728, Jesus Christ out in the temple teaching and saying, "You both know me and know where I've come from. I've not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know." So you have a couple places in John that specifically address God as the one who is true.

And we already saw that in 826 and 827, "I'm speaking the truth from the one who sent me, that is the Father." So you can develop some of that on your own. There's a third category, and that is truth and pneumatology, truth and pneumatology. That's the spirit language. So in the end of chapter 15, verse 26, Jesus says, "When the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me." So now the spirit is not just the Holy Spirit.

If you consider the Holy Spirit being presented in the rest of the New Testament, he's the Holy Spirit. We know that. In John, he's not only the Holy Spirit, he's the spirit of truth. So he's trying to add that quality to the third member of the Trinity to make sure that as you think about the Trinity through John's lens, it's always every member has truth qualitatively a part of their presentation.

All of them. And it's not to divide the Trinity in any way, but to say, "I'm going to present each one and the role that each member plays in your relationship as a disciple, but all of them are presented as true." And here, verse 26 of 15, he's presented as the witness.

Again, cosmic battle or cosmic trial is the language that's being represented here. Now in 1417, you can see that the spirit is also a spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. It doesn't see him or know him. You know him because he abides in you and will be in you.

And then in chapter 16, verse 13, he is the spirit of truth. He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. So between those three passages, you've got the spirit dwelling, he's permanently abiding with the believers, he's convicting the world, and he's guiding us into all truth.

But how does he do that? Verse 13 of chapter 16. He's not originating truth about Jesus Christ. He's simply taking what has already been revealed and he's now disclosing it to them. And of course, the last phrase most likely is referring to the writing of the New Testament. He will disclose in the future more of what is to come.

And so John's presentation of the spirit is he's a spirit of truth. And now we get into the cognitive element. It's incarnation on Christ. It's qualitatively true in the father. But now let's tap into the cognitive presentation of truth. He's trying to kind of close this loop around the Trinity and truth.

So the spirit uniquely fulfills the role of helping us actually understand, illumination, is that language, the word of God, as it speaks about Christ. That's the ending of chapter five. You search the scriptures, but they speak of me. So now the spirit is that agent who is activating our understanding and then applying it to us when it speaks about Jesus.

Cornelis Benema, who's a John scholar, said this, "The paraclete will lead the disciples into a more perfect knowledge of Jesus' teaching. The paraclete does not bring independent revelation, but interprets Jesus' revelation. He draws out the significance of the historical revelation in Christ." And of course, being cessationists, you understand what that means in the canonical sense.

We have a closed canon and now the spirit is activating and applying and illumining our minds in order to fully understand what is the scriptural revelation and application to us about Christ. So you can make these applications. The spirit's role, well, it's to be with us forever. It's to empower us.

That's chapter 14. That's chapter 7. Secondly, to teach us. That's chapter 16, verse 13 and 14. It's to remind us, 1426, of what we know about Christ. It's to testify, 1526, about Christ. It's 1613 to guide us into truth. In 1614, it's to glorify Jesus and ultimately to facilitate peace.

All of that is in the context of those passages. He's the one who brings peace to us, the paraclete does. So John is now saying there's an element that the second member plays in regards to truth, the Father and the Spirit. But there's also a connection that John makes between truth and bibliology.

That's the fourth category we should consider, truth and bibliology. So back in chapter 8, verse 31, continuing in his word makes us or demonstrates that we're true disciples and that is what lets us know the truth and then making us free. So now you have to understand it's dual, like I said a minute ago, it is a dualistic presentation or dual presentation rather.

It's Christ and his objective word and that would be a reference to Scripture. Back in chapter 5, 39-44, you search the Scriptures, objective reference, you will have freedom in them, they speak of me, incarnational reference. Carson writes the following about the Spirit's role in all of this and specifically the role of the Scripture as it activates itself in our lives.

He says this about John 17, "No one can be sanctified or set apart for the Lord's use without learning to think God's thoughts after him, without learning to live in conformity with the word that he has graciously given to us." And that is the point of 17-17, sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth.

So now we run to that verse all the time to talk about how to help somebody become more sanctified, right? How do you fight your sins? The word of God, there's no other means and that's true. But John is trying to say that word is not simply the means, it's the truth and there's no other option.

Even for Jesus, we know that from Matthew 4, from Luke 4, the temptations of Christ, he constantly leaned on Scripture even in his own demonstration of being separate from this world. Constantly, so there's only one means whether it's Christ as the example or us as those who are being sanctified.

So that's Bibliology. But there's a fifth category and that is mission. I read the last verse or the next to the last verse and all that is true is intended to bring about belief at the end of chapter 20 as well. This is why I wrote it so that you would believe at the end of chapter 19 verse 34-35.

This is true. This is the testimony so that you would believe. So John is trying to say in multiple places and multiple ways, my goal is missional. And that mission of belief is tied to the truth that I am presenting specifically, like I said, through the witnesses. I think it's a good way for us to divide the Gospel of John into two parts.

The witness of John the Baptist, chapters 1 through 12, and the witness of John the Apostle, chapters 13 through 21. And if you've considered that before, John 1, 6 through 19. This is the witness. He's not the true light, but he was a witness to the light. So from the very beginning, he's been presented as a witness to the light.

In 333, John the Baptist is a witness. 533, he is a witness. You've seen him. He testified to the truth. And then 1041 and 42, it says he didn't perform any signs, but everything John said about this man was true. And then the narrator says, "And many believed in him." And John the Baptist leaves the scene in the story.

So chapter 1 to chapter 10, the very ending, John the Baptist is that first John as a witness. And then it changes, and you get to 13 through 21, and John the Baptist never reappears. John the Apostle takes the scene over and over and over. He's in the bosom of Christ, or next to Christ, and all that.

So you know that presentation, meaning he's trying to present two witnesses to the truthfulness of the story. A Samaritan woman in chapter 4 is presented as a witness. She goes and tells the villagers of Sikar, "I think I found the Messiah." And they affirm that he is the Messiah.

The truthfulness of her statement, verse 42 says, "He truly is the Savior of the world." That's a factual statement, but you still have to understand that now they're affirming the truth of what she told them about Jesus the Messiah. And I think if you've done any research into John 4, you'd have read that there was a temple to Augustus in Samaria.

And it said, "Augustus, Octavian, is the Savior of the world." Son of God, Savior of the world. So it's strategic, I believe, for John to put that confession in that city. Because constantly she would be passing, or they would be passing, that kind of a Roman propaganda statement. And that's all it was.

It was just propaganda activated by him when he became the emperor, attaching himself to Julius Caesar, deifying him, and thereby becoming the Son of God. But I think it's important to understand that's what he's trying to convey to us. Yes, the Samaritan woman and the villagers of Sychar thought, or read, rather, that he might be, that Augustus might be the Savior of the world, or the Son of God.

But John says, "No, this one is the true Son of God." And the goal in all of this is to make sure that you believe that. Well, there's a final category, and that is truth and worship. And that does keep us in John 4, in the middle of this discussion between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

Verse 22, Jesus says, "You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers." The whole point is, it's not about the place.

It's actually about understanding that the Father demands that you worship truthfully. And even putting both of those substantive, spirit and truth, so closely together, without any kind of an article dividing the two, tries to link them as close as possible in the grammar. You have to have both if you're going to be a genuine and an accepted worshipper.

It has to be truth, and it has to be done in the spirit. Stanley Porter kind of points that out uniquely. So what is John's meaning behind that? I think Carson captures it the best when he says this, "It must be in spirit and truth, essentially God-centered, made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in personal knowledge of, and conformity to God's Word made flesh, the one who is God's truth, the faithful exposition and fulfillment of God and his saving purposes." So if he's already presented the spirit as the spirit of truth, and he will develop that of course beyond chapter 4, and now he says this is the true meaning.

I am the one who gives you the water of life. I am who's going to satisfy your thirst and your hunger. Ultimately then this is how God expects you to worship. So get this, this is the missional application of John. It's not just about the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, and Scripture.

It is missional, and ultimately it is to the point of worship. And I'm just trying to put out those, place those verses in front of you that are unique to John, not to create some kind of a feud between the synoptics and John, but to say John is trying to do something very different in the 90s, 30 or so years after the synoptics have been written, to show you need to think differently about the concept of truth in relation to every member of the Trinity, in relation to the Holy Scripture, and in relation to what God demands of you.

And it's Spirit-empowered, and it is truth-based. And you cannot elevate one over the other, hence the omission of the article in the middle. No, you have to have both if you are going to be an accepted worshiper. And I think the most appropriate way to end is to take us to the ending of 1 John 5.20.

Because if all of the gospel is intended to present Jesus as the Son of God, the one who brings eternal life, and then the first epistle is intended to develop some of those elements and ultimately say there is a conflict within the Christian community now. A simple way to find the difference between John and 1 John is to say John is about, it's outward facing, there's conflict from outside, and so he's trying to encourage the believers who are being persecuted.

1 John, there's conflict within, they went out from us. Remember that passage? So now there's a conflict from within, and he's trying to correct their theology about Christ, and in 5.20 he says this, "We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true.

And we are in Him who is true." There's that statement of being, and in His Son Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life. Why does that not sound like 17.3 or 20.30.31, proving that the same individual wrote both? As much debate as exists about that authorship issue.

But he's trying to tie all of those elements together at the end of this letter. He is true, He's communicating to us who is true so we may know Him, we are in Him who is true, He is the only true God and eternal life. And so as you think about John, and you develop those 55 references to truth in John, I hope you always make it theological.

Not factual, not philosophical, move away from the Gnostic books that give you commentaries, there's plenty of them, to try to Gnosticize John. That's not in any way what John is trying to accomplish. The best proof of that is look at the statements that have to do with truth in John, they lean on the Old Testament.

Understanding everything in the Holy Scripture to then say now here's the application in Christ. We have a couple of minutes, any questions? Alright, I was either very clear or completely unclear. There's one question, nope, no question, alright see, even that was a fake question, okay, no questions. Well man, enjoy the conference, have a great afternoon and hopefully you've enjoyed it so far.