Truth is a relating, or a recital.  Truth is not the utterance of

sounds, or the speaking of words.  'Sing, grass, black, paper', are words,

but they do not together express truth, for they do not 'relate' anything.

Before such an odd collection of mere words can be spoken of as truth there

must be a 'relationship' expressed, and if that relationship is real, then

truth will have been uttered.  If no such relationship is possible then the

words remain isolated and no truth has been uttered.

The thinking man without knowledge or belief of the Scriptures, who

approaches the question 'What is truth?' is obliged to ask another question.

Not only must he ask 'What it is' but he must question 'That it is', for in

many cases the baffling quest has led to scepticism and doubt not only as to

the nature and content of faith, but whether Truth exists at all.  All doubt

is not deadly or to be reprobated:

'There is a healthy agnosticism which antidotes that overweening

intellectual presumption which would soar to the heaven of heavens with

every confidence, only to share the fate of Icarus'

(R. B. Perry).

Icarus was a mythological hero who attempted to fly, but mounted too

near the sun, so that the wax which cemented his wings melted, causing him to

fall and perish in that part of the Aegean Sea, now called the Icarian Sea.

At the very forefront of our enquiry we desire to recognize the

necessary limitations under which it must be conducted.  God has not taken us

down to the bedrock of all reality, for even if He had done so, there are no

terms understandable by the human mind that comprehend infinity; of

necessity, while we are in this life the very Scriptures must present a

limited revelation.  This is indeed taught by the apostle when he said:

'At present we only see the baffling reflections in a mirror, but then

it will be face to face; at present I am learning bit by bit, but then

I shall understand, as all along I have myself been understood' (1 Cor.

13:12, Moffat).

There is an allusion here to Numbers 12:8:

'With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark

speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold'.

In both 1 Corinthians 13:12 and Numbers 12:8 the word 'enigma' is

found, 'darkly' and 'dark speeches'.  The word translated 'apparently' is the

Hebrew mareh meaning 'sight' as opposed to the vehicle of faith which is in

force today namely 'hearing'; or as 1 Corinthians 13:12 has it, not direct

vision but the enigmatic reflection seen in a mirror.  Even though the vision

that was so signally granted to Moses was more than that given to any other

man, Moses never pierced the veil of symbol to see the base of reality.  The

'similitude' of the Lord he beheld, but this word means 'likeness' or 'image'

and is so translated.  The highest conception of what unseen reality is, is

limited, even the ultimate revelation of truth in the Person of Christ finds

its fullest expression in Him Who is 'The Image of the invisible God'.

Christ Himself dwells in light unapproachable, Whom no man hath seen nor can

see (1 Tim. 6:16).  When we believers in Christ attain to the zenith of all

truth, we shall see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; we shall