“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
We live in a day of aberrant subjectivity in which objective standards for truth are stringently denied. At the top of the subjectivist hit list is the Bible, which claims to be the standard of objective truth for all human beings. When it comes to the Scriptures, many people either deny that they are the Word of God—this is called liberalism—or they weasel their way around the issue by agreeing that the Bible is the Word of God but its meaning differs for whoever reads it. This extremely subjective approach to Scripture is called Neo-orthodoxy.
Karl Barth, considered the father of Neo-orthodoxy, said that the Bible is not a book of divine revelation but only becomes revelation when the Holy Spirit applies it to each person in a unique way. Orthodoxy would agree that the Spirit is active in illuminating the Scriptures to us, but He does so through the objective truth of the Bible as the very Word of God. Barth didn’t like the idea that the Bible was filled with objective doctrines that acted as a standard for all men. He maintained that knowing something objectively is not fully grasping the truth; instead, it must be personalized.
While most Christians would agree with this idea on the surface, we must understand what Barth meant by this statement. He did not mean that the Bible is the objective, revealed truth that must be applied to every individual whatever their situation. Barth went way beyond this kind of subjective application of objective truth. He believed that the interpretation of historical events is left up to the individual. As a result, truth is found in personal interpretation. For example, the Cross no longer satisfies atonement for sinners; it is merely an event that people interpret for themselves. If you think Christ died only as an example, then that’s true for you—that’s what God has revealed to you through His Word.
Contrary to Neo-orthodoxy, the orthodox tradition maintains that the Bible is not merely a compilation of events to be subjectively interpreted, but it contains God’s own interpretation of the meaning of those events. The truth is not just left up to your own subjective ideas but is an objective standard for all people, which means that the statements of Scripture are inherently true no matter how we respond to them.
Read Luke 23:44–49. What historical event is described in this passage? Read Romans 5:6–20. What do you learn about the meaning of Christ’s death from this passage that you did not receive in the historical account? Is your own interpretation of the event the truth, or does God provide His own interpretation as being the truth?
