Aletheia #42

Aletheia is the ordinary Greek word for truth. It is built from a negative prefix and a root often connected with concealment, and some scholars therefore describe it as “unhiddenness,” though how much that etymology shaped everyday use is disputed. In the New Testament, the word is also colored by the Hebrew emet, which means reliability and faithfulness, so truth is something to be relied on as well as something that is factually correct.

Biblical Usage

The word is most frequent in John. Jesus tells those who believe in him that they will know the truth and the truth will make them free (John 8:32), prays that his followers be sanctified through the truth and says “thy word is truth” (John 17:17), and identifies himself as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Before Pilate he says he was born and came into the world to bear witness to the truth, and Pilate replies “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38) without waiting for an answer. John also calls the Spirit the Spirit of truth (John 15:26).

Paul uses the word for the gospel message (Galatians 2:5, 14) and, in Ephesians 4:15, urges believers to speak the truth in love, using it of honest speech. It is often set against falsehood and wrongdoing, so truth has a moral side as well as an intellectual one.

Theological Significance

Since John presents truth as a person, Christians have generally understood it as more than a set of correct statements. John 14:6 has been read as exclusive, saying that access to the Father is only through Jesus, and other readings emphasise its invitation and its identification of the way with a person. The relationship between God’s truth and reason, revelation, and Scripture has occupied Christian thinking from the early church on. The Hebrew background also gives the word an ethical direction: to know the truth is to walk in it, and John links truth to love and obedience throughout his letters.