Can a command be called true?
Think about it. Almost everyone would logically answer no. We all agree that a statement such as, “I love my wife” might be called true. So might the statement “I prayed to God today.” These are statements about what’s true (what have been termed “propositions”). They are claims of fact. They can be deemed true or false.
But what if we turned these statements into commands? Most people would say we cannot deem the command “Man, love your wife” to be true. The same goes for command like “Pray to God.” Commands, we think, cannot be true. They may be good or right. But to most of us they cannot logically be true.
“All Your Commandments Are True”
Yet the biblical authors say that God’s commands are true. They don’t only see God’s commands as good or right; they see his commands as true.
Notice how the psalmists describe God’s commands with the adjective “true”:
- “The rules of the Lord are true” (Psalm 19:9)
- “Your law is true” (Psalm 119:142)
- “All your commandments are true” (Psalm 119:151)
And more could be cited. The inspired biblical writers say all God’s rules, laws, and commandments are true.
How can this be? Are they being illogical?
C.S. Lewis’s Insight
C.S. Lewis helps us here. He writes,
“[The psalmist] asserts that the Law is ‘true’ or ‘the truth’…A modern logician would say that the Law is a command and that to call a command ‘true’ makes no sense; ‘The door is shut’ may be true or false but ‘Shut the door’ can’t. But I think we all see pretty well what the Psalmists mean. They mean that in the Law you find the ‘real’ or ‘correct’ or stable, well-grounded, directions for living…There are many rival directions for living, as the Pagan cultures all round us show. When the poets call the directions or ‘rulings’ of Jahweh ‘true’ they are expressing the assurance that these, and not those others, are the ‘real’ or ‘valid’ or unassailable ones; that they are based on the very nature of things and the very nature of God…
Hence His laws have emeth ‘truth’, intrinsic validity, rock-bottom reality, being rooted in His own nature, and are therefore as solid as that Nature which He has created.” (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 70-71)
So are the psalmist’s being illogical in saying God’s commands are “true”? Lewis says no. But let’s dig further into what he means.
“True” Commandments
We begin with asking: What do we mean when we say something is “true”? We’re saying that it is a fact, meaning, it is in accordance with reality. Something that is false is the opposite—something that is not in accordance with reality. If the door is actually open, then “The door is open” is true as it is in accordance with reality. If the door is not actually open, then “The door is open” is false as it is not in accordance with reality.
So what if we apply this “in accordance with reality” definition of truth to commands? If we do this, we start to see why we should say certain commands are true while others are false.
Why? Because there is in reality a certain way this world was designed and purposed to work. Meaning, in reality we (and this whole world) were made to operate a certain way. Therefore, certain commands can be in accordance with this designed reality (“true” commands), while other commands can be not in accordance with this designed reality (“false” commands).
The only reason we logically would say that a command can’t be in accordance with reality (“true”) is if we assume that there is no in-reality way things work. But there is a way things are designed—a “real and correct” way, as Lewis says above. There is a God-designed way things work, which is “rock-bottom reality…rooted in [God’s] own nature.” And so, commands which align with who God is and how he in reality designed us and this world to work should be deemed not only right or good, but true.
In brief, commands which are in accordance with reality—in accordance to how this world and us in it were truly designed to work by God—must be deemed true commands. Commands against this reality must be deemed false.
Living in Light of Reality
Why, though, does this matter? Is there just philsophical speculation?
Far from it. This helps define what we as Christians believe about morality. We don’t just believe God commands us what is “right” in the Bible, nor do we just agree that we’re doing what is “good” for us—we do believe both of these to be wonderfully true, but there’s more. We also believe that Christian morality is the “true” way to live—it is the avenue that is most in accordance with Reality.
For example, the command for me from God to “love my wife” (Ephesians 5:25) isn’t merely a good idea, or just the right thing to do. It’s true. God designed marriage to be a loving relationship between a man and a woman, and personally he has given me a wife. So, his command for me to love my wife is not merely a good, right thing to do, it is in accordance with reality of how I am designed to work as a man in my marriage. Therefore, “love your wife” is true. If somebody were to come and command me “Do not love your wife,” the command would not merely be hurtful and wrong, it would be false.
We don’t live in a chaotic, undesigned, purposeless world. We don’t live in a world where what we do morally doesn’t matter or is neutral, or that what we do doesn’t have any connections to how we were designed to work. We instead are human beings made in the image of our Designer, and we live in a world specifically designed by our Designer.
A great tragedy of Naturalism is how we lose this. We lose meaning and purpose, but we also lose the ability to discern that certain actions may be false for us. And false actions are lead to us grinding up against the way the world works—the way we work—which will necessarily bring hurt.
May we as Christians, therefore, see God’s commands in the Bible not only as right and good, but also true. And may we then live morally in accordance with what God has revealed to be Reality—for our good and his glory.
