Should Christians Sometimes Lie?

I have heard people in the Church sometimes say that it is ok to occasionally lie for a good reason.  One person I heard recently said that there are times where there is a conflict and decisions have to be made.  He gave the example of someone hiding a Jew in their home when Nazis were in power during World War II.  A Nazi official comes to the person's door and asks, are you hiding a Jew?  Should the person say, yes, I am. The Church member said, I don't think so, implying that it is better to lie than give the Jew to death.

I disagree.

Yes, there can be conflicts between principles and laws that God teaches us, and in those cases we may have to make judgments about priorities.  But clear teachings of God should override and interpret what the world might call, "situation ethics".

Some of you in Worldwide when Mr. Tkach was changing doctrine may remember this.  He was starting to change the doctrine that we should not work on God's Sabbath.  He said it was all right for a man to work on the Sabbath to support his family because the Bible says, "if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (1 Timothy 5:8).  He said that keeping a job to provide for your family was more important than resting on the Sabbath because the importance of providing for your family was emphasized in the Bible.  I am paraphrasing, I don't remember Mr. Tkach's exact words. But his reasoning was wrong.  God's command to observe the Sabbath was clear. Mr. Tkach ignored the principle of obeying God first and trusting, in faith, that He would provide a way to work and feed your family even if obeying God regarding the Sabbath costs you your job.

I remember thinking at the time, if we can break God's law for a good reason, how about stealing to provide food for your family?  If you can break the commandment against working on the Sabbath to feed your family, why can't you break the commandment against stealing to feed your family?  The same God who said, do not steal, also said, do not work on the Sabbath.

God, in the ten commandments, says we are not to bear false witness against our neighbor (Exodus 20:16).  Paul says, do not lie to one another (Colossians 3:9).  Revelations says, all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). Jesus said of Satan, when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it (John 8:44).

So if you think that it is ok to tell a lie "for a good reason", what some might call a "white lie", consider this.  God is reproducing Himself in us, in all mankind, but starting with us in the Church.  We are to become like God in holy, righteous character, as much as possible in this life, and perfectly when we are resurrected to immortal life to be in the kingdom of God.

We are to be like God.  We are to live like God lives, in truth, in holiness, in righteousness.

And God cannot lie (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18).

It is because God cannot and does not lie that scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35).

If we say, under certain circumstances in which a greater need or good is involved, it is ok to lie, then where is the limit?  How can a person who believes that be trusted in anything they say?  Anyone can decide, in their own judgment, that their reason for lying is good and based on Bible principles, just as Mr. Tkach said it was ok to work on the Sabbath if you needed to do that to support your family.

If God said He sometimes lies to us for a good reason, how could we ever trust His word in tough times?

As far as I can remember, it has always been the teaching of the Church of God when Mr. Armstrong was alive that it is always wrong to lie.  For the Church of God to say that it is sometimes ok to lie would be a change in the doctrines of the Church, a wrong change I think.

I have posted in this blog before that one of the keys to avoiding deception in the years ahead, especially when the beast and the false prophet have rule and Satan steps up his work of deception, is to make sure we have God's protection against deception.  To do this, we must, at all costs, avoid deceiving others.  We must never lie, unless we want God to teach us a lesson about the fruits of lying and deception by letting us be deceived and only wake up in the great tribulation.

I think, based on the importance of avoiding Satan's deceptions in the years ahead for those who will have an open door for doing work of warning the world and preaching the gospel and then going to a place of safety, that not lying is an important characteristic of true Philadelphians.  For if we lie to others, God may apply the principle of what you sow you shall reap, and He can remove His spiritual protection and allow Satan to deceive us.  If we lie to others and deceive them, God may let others lie to us and deceive us to teach us that the consequences of lying are bad.

God says in the Bible, "Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked" (Exodus 23:7).

Maybe this is something God is testing us on.  Maybe we all have to make a decision about this.

Let's be like God in character.  Let's never lie.

In the situation of the example of the person hiding a Jew from a Nazi, he can simply not answer the door, or refuse to answer the question, no matter what the consequences, trusting God to work a miracle in the mind of the Nazi, to turn him away from the house, according to God's will.  And if it is God's will that both the person hiding the Jew and the Jew be killed, then it is better to submit to the will of God than to tell a lie.

If God cannot and will not tell a lie, then neither should we.

When we read of examples in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, we can find examples of righteous people who told lies, and God does not rebuke them for it in scripture, such as the midwives lying about Hebrew women in Egypt, or David on some occasions perhaps lying, or Rahab lying about the Israelite spies in the matter of Jericho.  I think God does not address that issue because He focuses on more important matters - the midwives fear of God, the faith of Rahab, etc.  But a careful study of God's word and His example will reveal that we should build in our character the principle that we will never lie, that we will strive to make it impossible for us to lie as it is impossible for God to lie.

Don't use "good reasons" to justify doing what God will never do and cannot do: tell a lie.