“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” (Ephesians 4:15).

Introduction

Truth has become an increasingly sensitive topic over the course of the last year. However, rather than producing a positive spirit of discovery or a much-needed course-correction, skepticism and despair have grown in every quarter. We are ready to say with the same cynical, dejected spirit of Pontius Pilate, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38).

It is right to see this attitude towards truth as part of a larger historical narrative. It did not leap onto the scene spontaneously. In a way, it appears that Hume’s skepticism finally won out, and we are now fighting off, as best we can, the impending darkness of absolute uncertainty. Still, as intriguing as this development has been historically and philosophically, that is not what I seek to address.

As Christians, we believe something quite different about the nature of truth. Consequently, Christians have reacted against untrue conceptions of truth – with all the bad ideas that attend them – in a variety of ways. We have taken to blogs (like this), podcasts, pulpits, books, and even the streets – all in an effort to declare the truth and denounce the lies. In that, we stand in line with our tradition: Christians of the past often felt it was their duty to clarify, proclaim, and defend the truth. Each generation faces new challenges, and each generation must rise to the occasion and with the help of the Holy Spirit defend the truth as it has been revealed to us in the canon of Scripture. This is the way it should be. As another has so aptly put it, “there is no virtue that is more valuable in a Christian than the love of simple truth.”1

What I propose to address here is the manner in which this must be done.

“Truthing in Love”

In the text above, the phrase “speaking the truth in love,” could literally be rendered, “truthing in love.”2 While it includes the idea of speaking, it is wider in its meaning. We might call it sincerity: “doing and acting the truth, as well as uttering it.”3 This sincerity is to be marked by charity, and it is this relationship between “truthing” and love that I wish to address.

Much could be said by way of introduction to this text. Indeed, we are jumping in haphazardly if we fail to consider the context in which Paul makes this statement. It comes in the larger context of a clarion call to unity (Eph 4:1-6); a unity made possible by and established on the work of Christ (Eph 2:11-22; Gal 3:26-28; Jn 17:20-23). It comes in the context of a clearly acknowledged telos: what Paul calls “mature manhood,” or “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). The call to unity serves and cooperates with the call to maturity. In a word, unity is not the final goal – Christlikeness is. We might say that unity both serves and expresses progress in sanctification, and the person and work of Christ are both the means by which this is made possible and the end to which we are proceeding.

In sum, “speaking the truth in love” is a fruit of the Spirit and evidence of ongoing sanctification – and sanctification, as another has succinctly defined it, is a “growing realization of a full Christ-like life.”4 That is what Paul meant when he wrote, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (emphasis added).

A Necessary Union

Often, truth and love are so distinguished from each other that we begin to suppose they can exist independently from one another. This is not the case in God, not only because he is simple (as in divine simplicity), but because he is the source and fountain of truth as well as the source and fountain of love. In Him, Scripture reveals, love and truth necessarily complement each other. Truth requires love – for “God is love,” (I Jn 4:8). Love requires truth – for Christ has said, “I am the…truth” (Jn 14:6). This does not mean we cannot distinguish truth from love, rather it demonstrates that the two must abide together. To neglect the one is to neglect the other. To fail the test of truth means you ultimately fail the test of love, and vice versa.

To be good students of truth, which many are keen to be (because it appears virtuous and noble – and indeed it is), means we must also be dedicated students of love. If we would know the truth we must also know what it is to love, which also requires, that we apprehend love: “We love because he first loved us” (I Jn 4:19). Therefore, in speaking, which is the most natural way of communicating truth (but not the only way of doing so), we must unite truth with love. It is, as Paul suggests here, a mark of grace in the soul of a Christian to know how to speak the truth in love. This stands in sharp contrast to the confusion and deceitful scheming of the world (Eph 4:15).

We may think of truth as the object, and love as the medium used to communicate it. Without its object, the medium has no end. In other words, contrary to the spirit of the age, there is no such thing as love for the sake of love; there is only love for the sake of truth. Similarly, without its proper medium, truth is not really communicated. You can say something true, but that does not mean you have been “truthing” in love as Paul describes it here.

Paul makes this point most vividly when he writes to the Corinthians – who, among other things, were dealing with divisions in their local body. He writes, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (I Cor 13:1-2).

Notice, Paul does not say, “If I speak the truth, but have not love…” because this is not really possible. “Truthing” suggests sincerity, and without love, the truth becomes insincere and self-serving. One may possess great knowledge and insight, but if they lack love, they fall short of communicating the truth. In other words, to have not love is to have not the truth. We know this because it is well-established by John. “Whoever says, ‘I know [Christ]’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” To which he then adds, “but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (I Jn 2:4-5).

The one who does not obey is a liar and does not possess the truth. The one who does obey, in that one, love is perfected. This accords well with God’s standard for obedience – the moral law – which calls us to love God and love our neighbor (Mt 22:38-39). To say that we have not loved is to say we have not obeyed, and to say that we have not obeyed is to say that the truth is not in us. To fail to love our brothers and sisters is to be lost in the dark (I Jn 2:9-11).

A Christian Way of Communicating

Therefore, we might say that speaking the truth in love is the Christian way of communicating. The Christian cannot merely communicate truth or communicate love and fulfill his duty – he must communicate the truth in (or with) love. To fail to do this is either to be untruthful or unloving. Both are unacceptable. It is as if communicating without charity is telling a kind of lie – again, not that you actually lie with your mouth, but that you speak the truth in a dishonest or insincere way, in a way that betrays the truth. As God spoke of his people through the prophet Ezekiel, we express love with our mouths, but our hearts pursue dishonest gain (Ez 33:31). The absence of love is the absence of truth – again, of such a one, John says “the truth is not in him.”

For example, when I come to speak the truth to someone, it is naturally assumed that I have come to love them. Since speaking the truth calls for love, when I do not love, but wield the truth hatefully, I have betrayed the very grounds on which I am presumed to have come. Many, even among Christians, seem to operate under the notion that merely speaking the truth is the sum of love. This is a conflation of truth and love wherein the whole of the second table of the law (to love your neighbor as yourself) is absorbed under a single, convenient heading: say true things. But love is more than merely speaking true things. To say, “I have come to tell you the truth,” but to do so without love, appears then as a lie; it is contrary to the very nature of the truth (see Phil 1:17).

Similarly, to speak as one who loves but neglects the truth is actually like being hateful. It is common in our world today to absorb the concept of truth into superficial expressions of love. This is the antinomian’s version of love – a lawless love – and love without a point of reference is not love. Rather, “love is the fulfillment of the law,” and the law requires that we speak the truth (Rom 13:10). Any attempt to love without truth is mere flattery – it is not loving. As the writer of Proverbs warns, “A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin” (Prv 26:28). To come saying, “I am here to love you,” but to leave off speaking the truth to you, is really to come to you in hatred.

Ultimately, the failure to speak the truth in love means that we appear as liars and murderers – like Satan, who was “a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth” (Jn 8:44).

Rather, we must come with both – with truth as our object and with love as the medium by which the truth is communicated. We can either come speaking the truth in love, or we will come speaking deceitfully in hate. There is no other option. It is impossible, as some would flatter themselves as so doing, to honor the truth in hate or speak a lie in love, as though they managed to do half the job. We speak the truth in love as we have been instructed, or we violate God’s law by breaking the 6th commandment (Ex 20:13; I Jn 3:15) and the spirit of the 9th commandment (Ex 20:16). There is no middle way.

“Truthing in Love” in Action

We could take this discussion further of course. We could ask, for example, what it looks like to love. If Christ is our model, we might say it is defined by self-denial. As Paul exhorted the Philippians, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Phil 2:3). As Calvin observes, Paul prescribed humility as the cure for both selfish ambition and vain conceit. Humility leads the way to “truthing in love.” Of course – this is easier said than done. Calvin goes on to say of humbling ourselves, “if anything in our whole life is difficult, this above everything else is so.”5

If Scripture is our guide, we should also look to the practical definition that Paul supplied in I Corinthians 13:4-7 – “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” We might look to Peter also, who wrote those simple but powerful words: “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (I Pt 4:8).

Furthermore, it would do good to ask: what should we do on matters where the truth is not yet certain? When we are thrust into situations that exceed the limits of our knowledge, how do we proceed? How do we keep “truthing in love?” In the briefest terms, the answer to that is: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger” (Jas 1:19). Those who are so willing to hastily cast off their brothers and sisters over a disagreement on uncertain or tertiary issues have not championed the truth, they have championed themselves. Are our brothers and sisters of so little value that we would cast them off to uphold our own opinions, rather than submitting to one another in love? May it never be!

Lastly, we might ask as hearers: how do we respond to those who fail to speak the truth in love? When you are on the receiving end of what is essentially a kind of miscommunication, where either the truth or love – or both – have been neglected, how should you respond? The answer to this is similar to the answer to the previous question: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger” (Jas 1:19). Two thoughts here: first, just because a person does not speak the truth in love, does not mean they have said nothing true. One person’s failure is not another person’s license to disregard the truth. As I said before, “truthing in love” requires that we honor the truth by expressing it in love. When we fail to love we essentially betray the truth, but that does not damage the integrity of the truth because the truth is objective – it is independent of our own experience. So as listeners, if we love the truth, we must honor it even when it is not spoken in love. Paul provides a case study for this in his response to those that spoke the truth “out of selfish ambition,” as opposed to those who did so “out of love,” where he concludes, “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that, I rejoice” (Phil 1:15-18). Second, as to those who claim to love, but do not speak the truth: such ones we must avoid. Scripture everywhere warns us of the dangers of flattery, “For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive,” (Rom 16:18; c.f. Ps 5:9; Prv 29:5; 26:24-28).

What we absolutely must not do is leave off the truth or leave off charity depending on what suits the moment. Looking at the disunity that abounds in the church today, it is dishonest to conclude that the only deficient cause is a lack of truth. Such a notion is too self-aggrandizing for those of us who labor to defend the truth. Yes, truth is essential for unity. As Bishop Ryle once argued, unity without truth is a false unity. In his own words: “Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell. Let us never be ensnared by those who speak kindly of it.” However, it is also true, as Paul expresses here in Ephesians 4:15, that love and truth together promote unity and maturity in the church. As Paul wrote elsewhere, we are to “put on love, which binds everything together in perfect unity” (Col 3:14). Therefore, when we look around and see disunity, division, and a party spirit (I Cor 1:10-17), we ought to wonder whether or not we have been speaking the truth in love. In the face of error, we should not put all our efforts into truth-telling and forsake the need for charity. If we do, we will not only be unloving, we will ultimately fail at telling the truth, truthfully. Simply stating facts is easy. Learning to speak the truth in love is a discipline of grace, and grace, as Thomas Manton once put it, “is nothing else but the introduction of the virtues of God in to the soul.”6 It makes sense to expect truth and love to come together because, in God, they are indivisibly so, and in the person and work of Christ we see the perfect illustration of that reality. With the help of the Spirit, we can and should model Christ in this regard.

I leave with these words from the Particular Baptist pastor Daniel Turner (1710-1798), taken from his sermon, Charity the Bond of Perfection.

“Some… distinguish themselves by a violent zeal about their own party-peculiarities, and abuse those who differ from them, and call it a zeal for God. Dangerous mistake this! True zeal for God is tempered with divine love, and acts under its control; and is, therefore, though firm, resolute, active; yet mild, gentle, and ready to hear the voice of reason and the Word of God….There is such a uniting power in true Christian Charity, that wherever it reigns, the spirit of discord, yea even bigotry and superstition, the two greatest and most fruitful sources of dissension and wrath, and the two worst enemies of the gospel, and the peace of the world, that ever hell itself produced, fly before it, and mankind learn to love one another.”7

Footnotes

  1. Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament Explanatory and Practical, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, ed. Robert Frew (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980), 82.
  2. Barnes, 81-82.
  3. Robert E. Pattison, A Commentary, Explanatory, Doctrinal and Practical, on the Epistle to the Ephesians, (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1859), 143.
  4. Ebenezer Dodge, Lectures on Christian Theology, (Hamilton, NY: E. D. Van Slyck, 1875), 337.
  5. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, trans. William Pringle, 500th Anniversary ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), 52-53.
  6. Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, D.D., vol. 4, A Practical Commentary, or an Exposition, With Notes, on the Epistle of James, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 349.
  7. Daniel Turner, Charity the Bond of Perfection, (Oxford: J. Buckland, 1780), 5-8.