Both the Bible and general revelation make it clear that, in many respects, truth is a communicable attribute. God’s rational and moral creatures can be true, honest, reliable and faithful. God’s creatures can exhibit these qualities, but only in finite, temporal and changing ways. By contrast, the truth of God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. Paul reflected on the incomparable quality of God’s truth in Romans 3:4 when he said:

Let God be true, and every human being a liar.

Theologians have highlighted this attribute of God in two main ways. God is the faithful source of truth, and he is faithful to his promises.

On the one side, God is extolled as the faithful source of truth. In Psalm 119:43, the Psalmist spoke of the Scriptures as God’s “word of truth.” In this same Psalm, he confidently declared, “Your law is true” (119:142). Psalm 25:5 is a prayer for God to “Guide me in your truth and teach me.” In John 8:32, Jesus explained to his disciples that if they held to his teaching then they would “know the truth, and the truth [would] set [them] free.” In these and other ways, the Scriptures make it clear that when God discloses truth, it is fully reliable because it is his very nature to be faithful and true.

On the other side, God is also infinitely, eternally and unchangeably truthful, or faithful, to his promises. God can be relied upon to fulfill all of his promises. Now, we have to be careful here. Many times in Scripture what may appear to be a promise from God is actually an offer or a threat from God with implicit conditions. If the implicit conditions aren’t met, God’s offer or threat is not fulfilled. But as Paul wrote in Titus 1:2, “God … does not lie.” If God makes a promise, he will fulfill it.