F
“Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth”; being girded with the truth is for the strengthening of our entire being—Eph. 6:14a.
G
We can testify to the divine truth because we know the truth by being in the true One—1 John 5:20:
１
The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has come and has given us an understanding that we might know the genuine and real God—John 1:14, 18; 1 John 5:20.
２
First John 5:20 twice speaks of “Him who is true,” the true One, the True:
ａ
The term the true One refers to God becoming subjective to us, to the God who is objective becoming the true One in our life and experience.
ｂ
The true One is the divine reality; to know the true One means to know the divine reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
ｃ
Verse 20 indicates that the divine reality, which is God Himself, has become our reality in our experience; the God who was once objective to us has become our subjective reality—v. 6.
H
Because we know the true One and the Spirit of truth (v. 20; 4:6) and because Christ, the truth, is living in us and the Triune God is operating in us to make us God-men—the reproduction of Christ, the first God-man—we can testify to the truth as the Lord Himself did when He said, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I would testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37b).
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 6:14 Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
For us to gird our loins is to strengthen our entire being. Our whole being needs to be strengthened with truth. This strengthening is not for sitting, but for standing.
According to the way the word truth is used in Ephesians 4 (vv. 15, 21, 24, 25), truth in 6:14 refers to God in Christ as reality in our living, that is, God realized and experienced by us as our living. This is actually Christ Himself lived out by us (John 14:6). Such truth, such reality, is the girdle that strengthens our whole being for spiritual warfare. Our living must have a principle and a standard. This is nothing less than God Himself expressed in our living in a practical way. When such a truth girds our loins, we are made strong for the purpose of standing. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 537-538)
Today’s Reading
Suppose, however, that your daily living is far below the standard of the truth as it is in Jesus. Instead of being able to stand and to withstand in the evil day, you will flee. Because in your daily walk there is no testimony and no expression of God, you do not have the strength to stand against the stratagems of the devil. If our daily living is loose, we are not able to stand against the powers of darkness. In order for us to stand, our daily living must be according to the principle of the truth and up to the standard of the truth….This truth is God Himself expressed as the principle of our daily walk, as the standard of our daily living, and as the pattern of our life.The truth with which we are girded for spiritual warfare [in Ephesians 6:14] is actually the very Christ we experience. In Philippians 1:21 Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ.” This Christ whom Paul lived was his girdle of truth. This Christ was God expressed and revealed in Paul’s daily walk. Because Paul’s daily living was conformed to the pattern of Christ, he had the strength to face all opposition and adverse circumstances. Because Paul had been girded about with truth, he had the strength to stand. (Life-study of Ephesians, p. 538)
[In 1 John 5:20] the Greek word translated “true” is alethinos, genuine, real (an adjective akin to aletheia, truth, verity, reality—John 1:14; 14:6,17), opposite of false and counterfeit. Actually, the true One is the reality. The Son of God has given us an understanding so that we may know—that is, experience, enjoy, and possess—this divine reality. Therefore, to know the true One means to know the reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality. First John 5:20 indicates that God has become our reality in our experience. The Son of God has come through incarnation and through death and resurrection and has given us an understanding so that we may experience, enjoy, and possess the reality, which is God Himself. Now the God who once was objective to us has become our subjective reality.
When John says that we are in the true One, he is making a crucial point. Not only do we know the true One, and not only do we experience, enjoy, and possess Him as the reality, but we are in this reality. We are in the true One. If we are not in God, we cannot say from experience that to us He is true. Of course, He would still be true in Himself, but we could not testify that in us He is true. But since we are in the true One, to us He is the true God. Furthermore, Christ is eternal life to us. If we were not in Him, Christ would still be eternal life in Himself, but He would not be eternal life to us. Because we are now in Him, to us Jesus Christ is eternal life. (Life-study of 1 John, pp. 351-352, 355)
Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 20, 47, 64