Does God Lie?
Posted By MSH on March 15, 2010
This has been on my list of things I really want to dive into (having taught ethics for a number of years).
We know that there are specific statements asserting very clearly that God does not tell lies (e.g., Num. 23:19; Titus 1:2). However, God does use deception. Some of you no doubt will want to define lying so that it includes deception, but that is not only unwise, it puts you (and God) in a theological pickle. Here’s the passage (1 Samuel 16:1-13) I always used in ethics class to get us into the subject:
1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” 2 And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 And invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you.” 4 Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, “Do you come peaceably?” 5 And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. 6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.
Did you spot the deception? Here are some questions to consider:
1. How do we define lying so that God is cleared, since he uses deception? (And some of you can provide other examples).
2. What relationship is there to this and the ninth commandment?
3. Does the ninth commandment actually forbid all lying? Is its purpose to give full, detailed answers in truth-telling regardless of context?
4. Why did Jesus demand deception (withholding the truth) on occasion? Why is that permissible? (See e.g., Luke 5:14; 8:56; 9:21)
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Very interesting post! I’ve been following your site for a while now, but haven’t commented. Your insights into the text we follow are beautiful, and quite honestly most of it flies right over my head! I’m gonna jump in with this one though.
1. In my opinion, a definition of lying must include some sort of “motivation clause” or something. I realize the subjectivity of that, but when I hear “lying”, I hear someone either attempting to avoid consequences for their actions, or intentionally misleading in order to fulfill some selfish desire. Deception *may* fit into that definition of lying, but deception can also be used outside of that definition. I can think of those who operated the Underground Railroad using deception for the good of the least, or those in Europe during WWII who hid and helped Jews escape the Nazis. In those cases, deception was used as a valuable tool in order to bring rescue to those who needed it. One could make the argument that God uses deception in those terms, thinking about the long-term health of the nation of Israel.
2&3. It seems to me that the ninth commandment has more of a legal connotation, as a rule that would be specifically for the judicial system. One should uphold the entire body of commandments that God has handed down, and you cannot do that if you treat the judicial system based on those commandments flippantly, as you would if you gave false testimony. In that context, the ninth commandment would forbid someone from using the judicial system as a personal weapon against those around you, and not neccessarily pertain to lying in the sense that we are accustomed to thinking.
4. I think Jesus’ goal was not to neccessarily be deceptive about these events, but simply use the acts as testimony themselves. Instead of people going around saying, “Look what Jesus did!”, they would simply show themselves to their community. In the case of the leper, it took a visit to the priest to be declared clean. Word would have spread from there, because that is quite a significant happening, to suddenly be without leprosy. As for Jarius’ daughter, there already was a crowd around, and Jarius was in the synagogue, so his community would have been well aware of the situation.
In Luke 9 the situation is different, but I think that all through His ministry, Jesus endeavored not to keep His ministry a secret, but to keep the focus on God redeeming Creation, not on this man who does many signs.
jj
I would agree that intent (“motivation”) is important, and a necessary part of a coherent definition of lying. Notice that what I wrote before can divide “lying” and “lying that breaks the ninth command.” In the case of the Nazis and hiding Jews, I would argue that both lying and deception (note that I distinguish the two) are not only biblically allowed, but biblically virtuous. I’ll explain in a future post.
The ninth command (hang on to your hats) does, like every other passage in Scripture, have a context!
Jesus does ask people to deceive — his words presume that people will ask — so he says, if they do, don’t tell them what you know or have seen. In other words, he demands people withhold information. I don’t think he sinned (!) when commanding that.
I find John 7:8-10 interesting. Was Jesus mistaken about not going up to Jerusalem, was he being deceptive or was he simply stating that he wasn’t going up at the same time as his brothers? It seems funny to say he wasn’t going up and then to go up.
8 You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee. 10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.
good one; I don’t think he was mistaken at all. A plain reading of the text is that he intended to go up the whole time but did not want to tell them. So he did deceive them. Again, I don’t think we can say Jesus was morally wrong for this.
This one has a textual variant ??? (not) {C by Metzger} vs. ???? (not yet). It is dubious to make a case for this particular example on such a textual difficultly as this. If the later is the correct, Jesus never even deceived anyone.
As far as John 7:8 is concerned: This one has a textual variant ??? (not) {C by Metzger} vs. ???? (not yet). It is dubious to make a case for this particular example on such a textual difficultly as this. If the later is the correct, Jesus never even deceived anyone.
I gotta feeling….that this is gonna be an interesting series
I think lying has to include empty words ,false witness, etc. God’s words in this passage were not empty so while it was deception it wasn’t lies. The sacrfice was carried out and was legitamate. In a negtive example the serpent’s words to Eve were not empty either however it was illegitamate for the serpent to call the shot and for both Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit. I don’t think decepetion necessarily requires lying .
agreed — I also think deception and lying are two different, but perhaps at times related, things.
God has also used lying spirits from his divine council to set a death trap for a king….i will look for the verses..
1 Kings 22. God had decided / decreed it was time for Ahab to die, and then essentially allows the divine council to “handle it” (“It’s time for Ahab to go — now let’s hear some suggestions for carrying out my decree”).
I’m not so sure what to input here, but let me throw this in:
- We must be clear on what deception and lying is
- Is withholding the truth a lie? I don’t think so. Lying is transgressing the truth to hide something true or use it as deceit. Withholding the truth to keep something secret is not lying.
Pay attention to this:
How about killing? What is to kill or murder? When God takes away the life of someone either by taking away his or her breath, or using an enemy to slay that person, or incurring a disease on that person or whichever other means God would intentionally use to take away the life of someone, is that killing?
I do not think so! Or at least, it’s not the same category. Why? Because God owns our souls and he gave us life in the first place and because he own us, he has the full right in his judgment to take away the life of anyone. BUT, for us, taking away the life of someone whose life we do not own (like God does), we cannot kill or murder without God’s approval to do so, since we do not have the life ownership that God does have.
Jamie mentioned John 7:8-10, but I think one needs to read its full context, that is John 7:1-24. Jesus’ time was not yet come to be sought to be killed by the Jewish leaders in Judea AND Jesus was not going to follow his brothers to show his power openly to the world. Why do you think he wanted to keep things on the low?
yes – definitions of both lying and deception are very important.
I agree that withholding information is not the same as a lie.
As with the ninth command, there are also “exceptions” (really “other contexts”) where taking life is permissible — and even expected. Most of the commands have biblical “exceptions” of some type — because they have contexts and other things in the Bible are exempted (by the Bible). Maybe we’ll get into some of those as well.
The context you give for John 7 doesn’t undo the fact that Jesus withheld his true intent — it just gives us insight as to why he was justified in doing so.
Many years ago, I was part of a Messianic group in which I was taught that G-D is master over BOTH good and evil. He is Lord of ALL (total inclusion). Therefore, only He can determine when and how to ‘use’ evil when it becomes necessary for the ultimate good. Such as when in 1 Kings He allows a ‘lying spirit’ to go forth and entice Ahab. In fact, we are even told that the spirit was ‘enabled’ by the Lord to do this.
Yes, I agree that motivation (G-D looks at the heart, etc.)is vital in when deceit is involved. I believe it was Paul who asked “Shall G-D only do good and not do evil”. (I would cite the passage, but cannot find it at the moment, sorry). This again tells us that He is G-D and Lord over both. G-D, the trinity, (and by extension [to a lesser degree, possibly], the divine council) are they which do have ability to exercise judgement in when and how evil can and should be used. For us, for humans, the ‘use’ of evil is, as it should be, very restricted. It should be used only at G-D’s instruction (and with much prayer for discernment). At least, this is what I think with my very limited knowledge.
I understand Jesus was trying to keep His miracles quiet as He had given the elders of Israel plenty of direct evidence of His claim to be Messiah and they inspected him and followed Him around to check the claims out, but in they eventually committed the unforgivable sin and no more signs were given to them, They had rejected the Messiah but Jesus continued to help people but this was not for the sake of convincing Israel that He was the Messiah and wanted to keep these miracles hidden from the elders of Israel. my 2 cents
I’m waiting for someone to tell me the difference between a lie and a deception this could help me out no end. I tend to be a very black and white kind of guy so would like to find out more about the grey.
Mike, thanks for the clarification. Context is important, and yes there may be exceptions for each context
Everyone else thanks for the participation.
Mike should make another post with a generic definition of a lie and a deception both with exemplary passages to be crystal clear. Then perhaps we’ll move on with agreements and disagreements.
How about these two brief definitions:
Deception: (1) to mislead (2) to trick — It may involve a lie but not by necessity
Lie/Lying: (1) Intentional Inaccurate or false statement (2) State an untruth or falsehood —- It may be to deceive and/or to hide/contradict the truth for XYZ reasons.
*NOTE: Ignorantly being misinformed and spreading that misinformation is not a lie per se. A lie is always intentional to (1) hide (2) trick/deceive whether for good (to save someone for instance) or bad (XYZ reasons; you name it).
“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. ” Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lie or deception?
http://img.moronail.net/img/8/3/683.jpg
On a serious note. A nonbeliever could look at this conversation and try to remark that ‘context’ is just another word for moral relativism. I don’t believe that, of course. It would make for another good discussion sometime though, if it hasn’t been covered already…
I dont get the connection with the examples given by Dr Heiser in point 4. I do not see how keeping things secretive is deception. No doubt i’m showing my lack of education in ethics but as a simple reading i dont get deception from these texts at all. I see Jesus keeping the cards close to His chest that to me is not deception.
If i play poker with you and you want to know what i have its not unethical for me not to show you what i have, it may be unethical for me to say i have something which i don’t (lie), but it wouldn’t be unethical for me to represent like i have something if i don’t expressly say it, that requires judgment/discernment on your behalf to evaluate what i have based on your knowledge.
Is it possible to lie without speaking ?
wow, this is really veeeeery interesting…. GREAT POST
i’m still trying to get my head around this hehe:
“As with the ninth command, there are also “exceptions” (really “other contexts”) where taking life is permissible — and even expected. Most of the commands have biblical “exceptions” of some type — because they have contexts and other things in the Bible are exempted (by the Bible). Maybe we’ll get into some of those as well.”
can’t wait for the follow up