By veracity and faithfulness we mean the transitive truth of God, in its twofold relation to his creatures in general and to his redeemed people in particular.
Ps. 138:2—“I will ... give thanks unto thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name”; John 3:33—“hath set his seal to this, that God is true”; Rom. 3:4—“let God be found true, but every man a liar”; Rom. 1:25—“the truth of God”; John 14:17—“the Spirit of truth”; 1 John 5:7—“the Spirit is the truth”; 1 Cor. 1:9—“God is faithful”; 1 Thess. 5:24—“faithful is he that calleth you”; 1 Pet. 4:19—“a faithful Creator”; 2 Cor. 1:20—“how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea”; Num. 23:19—“God is not a man that he should lie”; Tit. 1:2—“God, who cannot lie, promised”; Heb. 6:18—“in which it is impossible for God to lie.”
(a) In virtue of his veracity, all his revelations to creatures consist with his essential being and with each other.
In God's veracity we have the guarantee that our faculties in their normal exercise do not deceive us; that the laws of thought are also laws of things; that the external world, and second causes in it, have objective existence; that the same causes will always produce the same effects; that the threats of the moral nature will be executed upon the unrepentant transgressor; that man's moral nature is made in the image of God's; and that we may draw just conclusions from what conscience is in us to what holiness is in him. We may therefore expect that all past revelations, whether in nature or in his word, will not only not be contradicted by our future knowledge, but will rather prove to have in them more of truth than we ever dreamed. Man's word may pass away, but God's word abides forever (Mat. 5:18—“one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law”; Is. 40:8—“the word of God shall stand forever”).
Mat. 6:16—“be not as the hypocrites.” In God the outer expression and the inward reality always correspond. Assyrian wills were written on a small tablet encased in another upon which the same thing was written over again. Breakage, or falsification, of the [pg 289]outer envelope could be corrected by reference to the inner. So our outer life should conform to the heart within, and the heart within to the outer life. On the duty of speaking the truth, and the limitations of the duty, see Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 386-403—“Give the truth always to those who in the bonds of humanity have a right to the truth; conceal it, or falsify it, only when the human right to the truth has been forfeited, or is held in abeyance, by sickness, weakness, or some criminal intent.”
(b) In virtue of his faithfulness, he fulfills all his promises to his people, whether expressed in words or implied in the constitution he has given them.
In God's faithfulness we have the sure ground of confidence that he will perform what his love has led him to promise to those who obey the gospel. Since his promises are based, not upon what we are or have done, but upon what Christ is and has done, our defects and errors do not invalidate them, so long as we are truly penitent and believing: 1 John 1:9—“faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins” = faithful to his promise, and righteous to Christ. God's faithfulness also ensures a supply for all the real wants of our being, both here and hereafter, since these wants are implicit promises of him who made us: Ps. 84:11—“No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly”; 91:4—“His truth is a shield and a buckler”; Mat. 6:33—“all these things shall be added unto you”; 1 Cor. 2:9—“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.”
Regulus goes back to Carthage to die rather than break his promise to his enemies. George William Curtis economizes for years, and gives up all hope of being himself a rich man, in order that he may pay the debts of his deceased father. When General Grant sold all the presents made to him by the crowned heads of Europe, and paid the obligations in which his insolvent son had involved him, he said: “Better poverty and honor, than wealth and disgrace.” Many a business man would rather die than fail to fulfil his promise and let his note go to protest. “Maxwelton braes are bonnie, Where early falls the dew, And 'twas there that Annie Laurie Gave me her promise true; Which ne'er forget will I; And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee.”Betray the man she loves? Not “Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi'the sun.” God's truth will not be less than that of mortal man. God's veracity is the natural correlate to our faith.