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“Godly” Lying? |
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Is There Such a Thing as a “Godly” Lie? |
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There are people who teach that it is sometimes right to lie. But is it? Consider the following propositions. 1. The Bible clearly condemns lying. 2. The Bible never commands us to lie. 2.1. While the Bible condemns killing, it also commands killing in certain circumstances. 2.2. There are no such commands with regard to lying. 3. The Bible never commends lying. 3.1. The Bible does commend people who have lied, but never explicitly for their lying. 3.1.1. The Bible commends the Hebrew midwives. 3.1.2. The Bible commends Rahab the Harlot. 3.1.3.
The Bible also commends “righteous” 3.1.4. The Bible also commends Naaman the Leper who practiced an ignorant and evil casuistry with regard to idolatry. 4. The Bible commands and commends the use of military stratagems. 5. God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass. 5.1. God has ordained everything in history, including all manner of human barbarity. 5.2. In the sovereignty of God, he has given people over to all kinds of evil, using various means, natural and supernatural to accomplish his ends. 5.3. God has not only given people over to lying, he is also ultimately the one who has judged the West through the dreadful outpouring of sexual perversion that we now witness. 6. Are we forbidden to lie to people whom we judge not to be our neighbors? 7. Rather than planning to sin in response to hypothetical situations, we are commanded to trust our sovereign God who will never allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to withstand it. Here is the biblical basis for these statements. 1. The Bible clearly condemns lying. We are told this explicitly in not a few places, such as Leviticus 19:11 and Colossians 3:9. “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you SHALL NOT LIE to one another.” (Leviticus 19:11.) “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9.) In 1 Timothy 1:9-10, where we are told implicitly that the law was given to restrain the human tendency to lie: “Understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine . . .” Furthermore, inasmuch as God’s
commandments are not arbitrary but reflect his own character, it is of
note that we are told that God never lies.
To cite a few examples: “God
is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he
not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers “And also the Glory of “In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2.) Faithfulness reflects God’s own character. That is one reason why we are told without qualification: “A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.” (Proverbs 14:5.) 2. The Bible never commands us to lie. Where is such a command explicitly given to us in the Word of God? 2.1. While the Bible condemns killing, it also commands killing in certain circumstances. The Bible also condemns killing, but this command is explicitly qualified by explicit instructions to kill on certain occasions. For example, prior to the giving of the Law, God instructed in Genesis 9:6: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” We are warned in Numbers 35:33: “Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” The Scripture gives the power to civil governments to enforce justice with deadly force as necessary, (Romans 13:4.) and God specifically instructed Israelite rules to engage in war many times, e.g., “Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.” (1 Samuel 15:17.) 2.2. There are no such commands with regard to lying. I have read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation literally scores of times in English; I have read many portions of the Old Testament in Hebrew, and I have read the New Testament through in Greek almost a dozen times. But I have yet to discover one place where God ever commands us to lie. I have never found one place that offers the kind of qualification to God’s command against lying, that Scripture offers with regard to killing. 3. The Bible never commends lying. Where in Scripture is anyone ever commended explicitly for lying? 3.1. The Bible does commend people who have lied, but never explicitly for their lying. 3.1.1. The Bible commends the Hebrew midwives. “So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” (Exodus 1:20, 21.) For what are they explicitly
commended? Lying?
No, nowhere are they commended for lying.
They are explicitly commended for disobeying Pharaoh and protecting
innocent human life out of fear of God:
Shiphrah and Puah “feared God and did not do what the king of Did they lie? We simply do not know whether they ever did or not. Here is what they said when they were questioned by Pharaoh: “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” (Exodus 1:19.) Whether that statement is true or false, they are never commended for it; they are only commended for disobeying Pharaoh’s command: “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” (Exodus 1:16.) 3.1.2. The Bible commends Rahab the Harlot. It commends her for her faith and the actions that grew out of her faith. What actions are explicitly commended? “She welcomed the spies.” (Hebrews 11:31.) “Rahab the prostitute . . . gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction.” (James 2:25.) Nowhere is Rahab commended for the sinful aspects of her obedience. We can say that the very fact that she ran a public house, with all that this entailed in the Ancient Near East, is an “essential” element in her act of righteousness—after all, it is the reason why the Israelite spies came in contact with her—but that does not mean that God ever approved of her prostitution. We may also infer that the lying of this neophyte was used by God further to protect these spies, but we may not conclude from that either that her lie was necessary—there may have been another way to have protected them which we cannot know—nor may we conclude that God approved of her lie. Again, there is no statement in Scripture where God explicitly commends someone explicitly for lying. 3.1.3.
The Bible also commends “righteous” The parallel between Rahab and In following the way of righteousness,
“No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” (Genesis 19:7, 8.) As with Rahab’s lying, we know that
this specific element in ‘The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.” But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.’ (Judges 19:23-26.) 3.1.4. The Bible also commends Naaman the Leper who practiced an ignorant and evil casuistry with regard to idolatry. There are some remarkable parallels between the story of the neophyte Naaman and that of the neophyte Rahab. While both respond to God’s grace in general obedience, the actions of both included wicked elements: Rahab’s lying and Naaman’s superstition and casuistic dichotomy between idolatry of the heart and idolatry of the body. And while Rahab’s general obedience is commended in other places, God’s prophet pronounces his benediction on Naaman. Naaman’s obedience, like that of Rahab, is an obedience that is morally bankrupt without Christ. A lying harlot acts within her own cultural and ethical milieu, lying through her teeth as an act of faith in the God of Israel, and Naaman’s general obedience is accepted as true obedience, his works accepted as good works, even though they are defiled with sin and foolishness. But receives the prophetic benediction: ‘“Go in peace,” Elisha replied.’ (2 Kings 5:19.) 4. The Bible commands and commends the use of military stratagems. While the Bible never commands or commends lying, it does command and commend the use of military stratagems. Such acts are explicitly commanded by God on more than one occasion. For example, in Joshua 8:1, 2, we read, ‘Then the LORD said to Joshua, “. . .Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai . . . Set an ambush behind the city.” As part of this stratagem, the Israelites are instructed to deceive their enemies, making use of the feint: “They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them, you are to rise up from ambush and take the city.” (Joshua 8:6, 7.) Is there a difference between a stratagem and a lie? Yes, there is: God commands the one and forbids the other. Are they similar? Yes, but so is sexual intercourse with one’s spouse similar to adultery. They are similar, yet one is godly and the other ungodly. And they are godly and ungodly for the reason that as God’s own character is refracted into commandments for humans, God declares that the one is godly and the other wicked. 5. God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass, including people lying. Scripture is replete with affirmations of the sovereignty of God over everything that has ever happened in history. “In him also we have obtained an
inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him
who works all things according to the counsel of his will,”
(Ephesians “All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; he does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35) God’s providential care, rooted in his immutable decree, extends to the tiniest minutia of life: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Matthew 10:29, 30.) 5.1. God has ordained everything in history, including all manner of human barbarity. God asks in a question that demands a positive answer: “When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?” (Amos 3:6.) God sent the eighth century before
Christ, Nazi, Assyrian Empire to kill and torture the citizens of “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.” (Isaiah 10:5, 6.) Did the holocaust of African-Americans under European and American slavery, European Jews under Hitler and Armenians under the Turks take place outside of God’s eternal, immutable decree? 5.2. In the sovereignty of God, he has given people over to all kinds of evil, using various means, natural and supernatural, to accomplish his ends. No angel or demon, and not even Satan himself, can act apart from God’s authorization. God himself authorized the activity of Satan against Job; this includes the brigandage and murder that Satan accomplished through human beings: In Job 1:12, Yahweh authorized Satan to do these very things against Job, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.” What was he authorizing? ‘A messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”’ (Job 1:14, 15.) ‘While he was still speaking,
another messenger came and said,” The Chaldeans formed three raiding
parties and swept down on your camels and carried them off.
They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has
escaped to tell you!”’ (Job God authorized the spirit of deception, murder and paranoia that afflicted King Saul: “But the spirit of the LORD departed
from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.” (1 Samuel
16:14.) This evil spirit from
Yahweh was the major motivating factor in Saul’s acts of deception,
attempts at murder—including his attempted murder of his own son—and
the anxious depression and paranoia that would come over Saul.
(1 Samuel 16:23; God authorized the spirit behind the “Bosanthropic Personality Disorder” that afflicted King Nebuchadnezzar: “You, O king, saw a messenger, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump, bound with iron and bronze, in the grass of the field, while its roots remain in the ground. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven; let him live like the wild animals, until seven times pass by for him.’ “This is the interpretation, O king,
and this is the decree the Most High has issued against my lord the king:
You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals;
you will eat grass like cattle and be drenched with the dew of heaven.
Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he
wishes.” (Daniel The eschatological outpouring of idolatrous, lying spirits that promote false religion and persecution of believers, spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2 and in the book of Revelation, come through divine authority. It is Christ, earth’s mediatorial King, who opens the sealed scroll, unleashing ferocious violence, including the persecution of his own people. “And I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals . . . they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also.” (Revelation 6:1, 11.) “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” (Revelation 16:1.) “The sixth angel poured out his bowl
on the great river 5.3. God has not only given people over to lying, he is also ultimately the one who has judged the West through the dreadful outpouring of sexual perversion that we now witness. “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:24-28.) 6. Are we forbidden to lie to people whom we judge not to be our neighbors? Some have put forward the idea that
we are only forbidden to lie to our neighbors.
But one should be very cautious when he limits God’s commands by
rejecting certain persons in this fashion.
Do we not run the danger of becoming like that casuistic lawyer who
was looking for a loop-hole? “But
he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus . . .” (Luke “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke
10:29.) But Jesus banishes his question with
his Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in Luke 10:30-37.
Our Lord’s response cuts through all of the specious casuistry of
Pharisaical rationalization. He
cites an example of a man who rescues an enemy
from death. The man who
acts righteously is a despised Samaritan, and this enemy of God’s people
is the only one who acts righteously in the parable. John Bright’s comments are
enlightening: ‘b. Particularistic Tendencies:
the Ideal of the Holy People. The very nature of the Jewish community
made a stringent separatism inevitable. The fact that it was founded on
the law, and committed to the ideal of showing itself the true Israel
through adherence to the law, put limits on tolerance. Such an ideal could
never be realized if Jews began to mix with foreigners or became too
tolerantly ready to assimilate them. . .
Nor is it surprising, in view of what they had suffered, that there
were Jews who hated Gentiles and looked upon them as the enemies of God
and religion. ‘. . .Matching their aversion for
foreigners was the contempt in which Jews held fellow Israelites who had
departed from the law. These are the “wicked,” the “ungodly,” the
“scoffers,” with whom one ought to have no dealings (e.g., Ps. 1);
they are the “lawless” ones who have compromised with Gentile ways
(e.g., I Macc. 1:11). Godly Jews looked on them with hot indignation
mingled with grief (e.g., Ps. 119:53, 113, 136, 158) and regarded them as
men accursed (e.g., Ecclus. 41:8-10); some even declared that charity
should be denied them (Tobit What is so truly radical about the
teaching and example of our Lord is the nakedness and vulnerability to
which we are exposed when we walk in his footsteps.
We are Christ’s slaves who are called upon cheerfully to take up
our cross and follow in his footsteps, and the way we do this most
practically is to lay down our own rights, needs and desires for the sake
of others, even for our enemies: “Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat
you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If
someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to
you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
. . But love your enemies, do
good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High,
because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your
Father is merciful. (Luke 6:27-36.) The true Christian life is
ultimately modeled not even on the Moral Law, but on a life of self-denial
that, while consistent with the Moral Law, goes far beyond it—it is the
very imitation of Christ himself, who made himself a doormat for us. As John Calvin wrote:
“For when Scripture bids us act toward men so as to esteem them
above ourselves [Philippians 2:3], and in good faith to apply ourselves
wholly to doing them good [cf. Romans 7. Rather than planning to sin in response to hypothetical situations, we are commanded to trust our sovereign God who will never allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to withstand it. Against the truth of God that we must never lie, people often raise objections based on hypothetical situations. However, Scripture admonishes us to trust God to deliver us without our having to resort to sin: “For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity.” (Psalm 125:3.) “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13.) Our Lord Jesus Christ, who never told a lie, admonished us about anxiety producing situations: “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not become anxious about how or what you should speak in your defense, or what you should say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 11:11, 12.) I have known the Lord for over forty years and during those years, I have seen him deliver me time and time again. I have seen him physically heal people, sometimes literally in seconds: one evening after our mid-week service, a woman who had been diagnosed with degenerated disks and was awaiting surgery as the only solution, was instantly healed as a group of elders laid hands on her. That was over twenty-three years ago, and she is still healthy and free from pain today. I have seen the effects of God causing people to conceive after all human efforts had been exhausted: on one occasion, nine months after our elders anointed the couple with oil. Most did not give birth nine months later; sometimes it was a year or more. But we have almost a dozen such folk in our congregation. These are not naive rubes; two of the fathers are physicians; a third is the director of the cardio-center at a local hospital. Time and time again, I have prayed for money, and God has sent it to me. I’ll pass on two memorable situations that I have often shared with people. More than fifteen years ago, the transmission went out in our only vehicle; it was going to cost $900, and I simply did not have the money. I told no one about it, but cried out to God on my knees. Several days later I found an envelope that had been pushed under my door. Inside were nine, one hundred dollar bills. I certainly praised the Lord, but I didn’t understand just how special this gift was at the time. When I received the anonymous gift, I had assumed that someone had learned about my transmission from the mechanic and had chosen to bless me in this way. However, some years later a young man came to see me. He was a Baptist from another parish (county) and hardly knew me. He asked me, “Several years ago did you find an envelope with nine, one hundred dollar bills in it?” “Yes,” I replied. Then he told me
that he had been praying, and the Lord had told him to go to On I will trust such a God to rescue me
without my having to disobey his Word, and I will obey this God even if it
means disobeying earthly authorities. (Acts I pray that by God’s grace, I will never lie. And, should I fall into that dreadful sin, I pray that God will give me the grace to repent of it and trust his grace in Jesus Christ. If you have questions as a result of reading this, please feel free to write me. |