What is truth?
This is not my question, this was Pilate’s question when he was standing in front of the Lord Jesus Christ deciding whether or not Jesus was guilty of anything. We read in John 18,
“Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” 38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.”
John 18:37-38
Jesus came to bear witness to the truth, and rather than acknowledge this Pilate simply responds exactly as a cynical politician with no need to look good for the cameras, or to shore up support from voters would respond, “What is truth?” Pilate lived in a world of lies.
Rome was a nation of false gods and was ruled by a corrupt political class that claimed to represent the people, but were really slaves to power and wealth. It claimed lordship over the whole world, yet was stopped at the borders of Germania, Parthia and Arabia by a combination of foreign powers and geography. Lying was not a crime in Rome. It was a method of attaining power, as it was in many other societies. But it was not unique in this way. The whole world of that day was laid under the power of the chief of liars, Satan himself, as does our world today.
Jesus on the other hand represents unrelenting truth. What is truth? First and foremost, it is Jesus, he is the truth, the way and the life. If you want to know what the truth is it begins with Jesus himself, who is the full representation of the Father, the Lord of all. For this reason, truth should be defined really simply: it is what is, whether we like it or not. God exists whether we like it or not, and as truth is one of the attributes of the creator of heaven and earth, truth has this same quality. Truth is unrelenting in presenting what is real, tangible and solid, whatever our thoughts or feelings on the matter. In other words, truth is what it is, and you cannot change it. You can deny it, but you cannot change. Truth cannot lie, just as Moses and Paul tell us that God cannot lie (Num. 23:19, Titus 1:2, Heb. 6:18).
It appears that many people including Christians and Christian leaders have not really taken on board just how significant this point is. For sure, no true Christian or Christian leader believes that God would or could lie. At least I have not met anyone who would teach or assert this. However, the corollary of this is that God, and in his inability to lie, is being contrasted with every other being in existence. This contrast between the truthfulness of God and the faithlessness of humanity is an important theme in the scriptures.
For instance, Paul notes in 2 Timothy 2:11-13, “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. 12 If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. 13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” God cannot be unfaithful. However, human and spiritual beings can be. Men lie, women lie and even angels, fallen angels, can lie, as is evident with the devil himself. In other words, many Christians and Christian leaders have not stopped to fully take on board just how much we live in a world of lies. Lies are far more common than the truth in this world, which is why God stands out as the lone source of complete truth.
Jesus and his Apostles tried to warn us about this. The Apostle John notes,
“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
1 John 5:19-21
John went to great lengths to warn us about the true nature of this world. It is a world of lies. This becomes abundantly clear when we note the below passage from John’s gospel and line it up with this one we just read from his first epistle. When speaking to the Jewish leaders Jesus said,
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
John 8:44
This whole world “lies under the sway of the wicked one” and the wicked one “is a liar and the father of it”, in fact, there is “no truth in him.” If you want to understand this world we live in, there is your baseline: this is a world of lies managed by the father of lies, in whom there is no truth. And who are his children? All who deny the truth, as in all who deny Jesus is the Christ, “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:22-23).
The first people to do this were the majority of the Jewish people themselves, but since then billions from all over the world have been added to the list of those who deny that Jesus is the Messiah. Most of the world currently denies Jesus is the Christ. This is, remember, a world of lies. A world of falsehoods, a world run by the chief liar himself, the devil.
However many Christians and Christian leaders have not taken what Jesus warned us about seriously. Pilate is not an exception among powerful political leaders or elites. He is not simply a product of a far-off day where things were done differently. He is an example of the archetype of the powerful elite in this world; the powerful are generally deeply corrupt, not often courageous, and they have a bad grip on the importance of truth; they are often liars, in other words. There are obviously exceptions to this, but putting them aside, virtually any political leader from any society in any age could have made that statement, “What is truth?” And it would not have been out of character for them, because they thrive in a hive of lies in this world of lies. Even good leaders, like say, King David, could have said it when he was asked about what happened to Uriah before Nathan challenged him.
Corruption, lies, and immorality are not the exceptions among the rulers of our world, they are the norm. They are part of the reason why we need a man like Jesus, who is also God, to come and rescue us. Precisely because of the corruption of this world which they help foster. There are good leaders, some better than others, but how often do they get near the real reins of power? Very rarely, because this is a world of lies. In such a world it is those who play by the devil’s game according to his rules that get granted access to power by the one who holds the whole world under his sway. In a corrupt system, corruption is a strategy to get promoted, not an outlier. In a corrupt system, the generally honest and earnest people are viewed more as threats to the way things are than assets, because they cannot easily be bought.
This is why for those of us who understand the level of the lies our society spreads, the USAID revelations of money being given to over 6,000 journalists and 1,000 media platforms worldwide[1] to present false news is exactly what we expected was happening. Because we know this is a world of lies, a corrupt world, and that money greases the wheels of corruption, and we know that corrupt leaders will pay off others to push their message. We know this because we have been paying attention to how much the media just straight-up lies. These lies speak of deep corruption. This is why we also celebrate this money being cancelled. It won’t stop all the lies of course, but it will help somewhat.
But for those Christians and Christian leaders who are not aware of how much our world is a world of lies, the cancelling of this USAID is an attack on a charity arm of a flawed but generous government agency. They have not caught onto just how easily the liars in charge were able to manipulate them because their danger radars are completely turned off, because they still look at the world through a high-trust perspective. The revelations that USAID was promoting degeneracy worldwide under the name of USAID is something they do not even have a framework for comprehending, even though this is something that USAID long admitted to being involved in, in fact it has bragged about it. And it has been known to be doing much worse as well. USAID is just one branch of how the American Deep state interfered in countries around the world, toppling governments and extending the US Empire across the globe.[2] Aid has long been a cover for foreign interference. But many Christian leaders have simply not recognized this, or if they knew, they have not openly admitted it.
The problem is that many Christians and Christian leaders just simply do not have a biblical understanding of how much our world is a world of lies. There are many reasons for this. For one, many teachers in the church are false teachers who do not present true Christianity in any way, but treat their pulpits as means for gain and so their congregations are at a deep disadvantage when it comes to discerning the reality of this world. Many Christians and Christian leaders also come from an era where Western society had a much higher standard for public figures and the truth, or at least appeared to. In other words, they still think we live in the high-trust society we did 50-60 years ago, but we don’t. Not even close.
Some people, genuine Christians, hold to an eschatology that says the devil is currently bound, even though it is best to see that as future tense[3], as Peter says he roams the world now looking to devour people (1 Peter 5:8), John says the world is presently under the devil’s power (1 John 5:19), and Revelation 12 agrees with this as well. Even if he were bound to some degree, these passages still stand anyway, but this kind of eschatology can make people underestimate just how much sway the devil still has on this fallen world.
Lastly, there is the simple fact that many Christians have simply not pondered over the implications of the fact that the father of lies has sway over this world. How many Christians even read their Bibles? How many of them that do really take things like this to heart?
You need to do so right now.
Recognise that when Jesus told us that the father of lies is the ruler of this world (John 8:44, 12:30-32)[4], he was warning us about how much this world is a world of lies. A world that lies under the power of the father of lies is not a world where you can take anything that those who deny Christ say at face value. It is not a world where you can act like everyone is deserving of trust until they prove otherwise. It is a world where you have to be on your guard to how you are being lied to and by whom. Otherwise, you are not facing the world truthfully as it is.
This is a world of lies. Take Jesus seriously when he tells us this. He is the true King, and he knows what he is talking about.
[1] Belle Carter, 2025, USAID’s funding of over 6,000 journalists, 1,000 platforms worldwide raises concerns over independence and transparency, https://www.newstarget.com/2025-02-08-usaid-funds-6000-journalists-1000-platforms-worldwide.html
[2] Kit Klarenberg, 2025, Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network? https://thegrayzone.com/2025/01/31/trump-executive-order-us-regime-change-network/
[3] Yes, he was bound during Jesus’ ministry. But that is the point. It is the direct presence of Christ that binds him and that is what the time of Jesus’ ministry, and the future Millennium have in common.
[4] It is best to read the fact that he will be cast out, as he was cast out of heaven, to roam on the earth, as Revelation 12 shows us.
