What does the Bible say about integrity?

It is not only unworthy devices in trade, or a self-exalting spirit, that we need to watch against, but perverseness in our heart and ways. Christ could designate Himself as "the truth." He was absolutely what He also spoke. His ways and His words perfectly agreed. Are we begotten by the word of truth, and sanctified by the Spirit? Let us follow Him, finding it is our sin and shame if we turn aside in aught. How blessed to be truthful in love! "The integrity of the upright shall guide them; but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them." A tortuous path ends in ruin.

Wisdom is manifested in lowly obedience (vv. 8, 9). "The wise in heart receives commandments; but the foolish of lips (the marked contrast) shall fall." Man's true elevation is in looking up to Him who deigns to guide the needy by His counsel. The foolish of lips proves that he neither knows whence wisdom comes, nor distrusts his own emptiness; and therefore shall he fall. But wisdom of heart does not stop at hearing, but receives to obey, and is blessed in his doing; and so we are told here, "he that walks in integrity walks securely; but he that perverts his ways shall be known." He may be sly, and hope to lie concealed; but He who sees all discloses the evildoer even in the dark day or night.

To walk in integrity is the fruit of divine grace. Faith alone can thus enable anyone in a world of vain show and with a nature corrupt or false, and vain or proud, either way given to self-complacency and open to self-conceit. If ever so poor, how much better is the upright walker than the man however rich that talks crookedly and is a fool (v. 1).

Two characteristics of a believer are seen here as preserving him, integrity and uprightness (v. 21). God is the Author of these. Integrity is the simplicity of honorable motives, and this will guard against the duplicity of evil spirits. Uprightness is a contrast to underhandedness, the firmness of decision in acting rightly. This will not be swayed one way or the other, for one who stands upright does not lean either way. "For I wait for You." Thus, there is no forcing of oneself, but the faith that waits on God to manifest things as they are.

The question is plainly a question of congruity. Let God's grace be all that He has shown it to be, yet He cannot dwell with those who are alien to His nature. Grace itself can only avail to bring us nigh to God by bringing into His likeness also those it brings nigh. Thank God that it really does this, and we have now the character of those who thus are fitted by grace to dwell with Him.

The answer has, brief as it is, four parts, the first of these being necessarily that integrity of heart which manifests itself in the walk and ways, the doing of righteousness, the speaking of truth with the heart. These three things are plainly but manifestations of the same spirit governing the whole practical life.

But it is exceedingly beautiful to see this integrity of heart brought into the full light of God's presence (once shrunk from as searching all). Now it desires the thorough searching of God, that it may get rid of the evil that it hates. Note too mere integrity will not suffice without God to find out evil. An honest natural man may use his conscience, but as the natural eye must have light to search with, so we the presence of Him who is light. He who had kept the commandments for his own conscience from his youth up shrunk from that which searched his heart and its motives. So we, even if desirous of knowing the evil of our hearts, bring God into the work, and seek Him to do it. If not, there is not integrity.

The way integrity of heart is produced is by grace, and by grace alone. In the beginning the psalmist trusts God. At the close of the psalm, after he is brought to know God, after he looked at himself as made by God, his whole desire is to be searched out.

It is very important that the Christian should be thoroughly clear and above-board in all his ways. There should be nothing questionable in any of his transactions — nothing hidden. We should not put our hand to a single thing which would not bear the strictest scrutiny. Hence, if this person “who works for a large firm in London” is doing anything which she would not wish the firm to know; if she is receiving anything which she wishes to hide from their knowledge, it is evident she is not acting uprightly. If she is perfectly clear in what she is doing, why send this question to us? Can she with a good conscience take the discount from the person who supplies her with the things? Should it be termed “discount” or “bribe”? “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” And again, “If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” If it is an understood thing on the part of the firm that discount is given, it is all plain and right, but anything underhanded is utterly unworthy of one who is called to walk in the light of the divine presence.

In Genesis 20, then, we find Abraham again, after the lapse of many years, falling into the old error, a suppression of truth, for which he has to suffer a rebuke from a mere man of the world. The man of the world, in this scene, seemed, for the moment, to possess a more refined moral sense than the man of God. "Said he not to me," says he, "'She is my sister'! and she, even she herself said, 'He is my brother': in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this." But mark how God enters the scene for the purpose of vindicating His servant. He says to Abimelech, "Behold, thou art but a dead man." Yes, with all "the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands" — with all his fine moral sense of right and wrong, he was "but a dead man," when it came to be a question, for one moment, between him and even an erring child of God. God, in His grace, was looking at His dear servant from quite a different point of view from that adopted by Abimelech. All that the latter could see in Abraham was a man guilty of a manifest piece of deception, but God saw more than that, and therefore He says to Abimelech, "Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live." What dignity is here put upon Abraham! God himself vindicates him before the world! Not a syllable of reproof! — not a breath of disapprobation! — no, "he is a prophet and he shall pray for thee and thou shalt live." How truly consolatory it is for the poor, weak, and harassed believer to remember that His Father is ever viewing him through the medium of the Lord Jesus Christ. He sees nothing whatever upon His child but the excellency and perfectness of Jesus. Thus, while a man of the world may have to rebuke a child of God, as in the case before us, God declares that He values that character which the believer has received from Him more than all the amiability, integrity, and innocency that nature can boast of.

"A false balance" is much more than an act of dishonesty; it implies the pretension to integrity, and withal deliberate purpose to cheat. It is therefore an abomination to Him whose eyes behold, whose eyelids try the children of men, as a just weight is His delight. Trickery in trade is a corroding evil, most of all fatal to such as gain a sullied or a seared conscience.