What does the Bible say about lying?
Few sins are so easy to excuse and so widely practised, yet Scripture treats falsehood as a mark of Satan's family and a direct contradiction of God's nature. The Bible's teaching on lying runs from the proverb that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, through the command to put away falsehood because believers are members of one another, to the final scene where all liars are shut outside.
God's Own Judgment on Falsehood
Proverbs sets lying alongside the gravest offences, and one commentator explains why God takes every single lie personally.
William KellyThe Lord concerns Himself about every lie. Lying lips are an abomination to Him, just as an idol is that is set up to rival and ruin His glory. So those who not only speak but deal truly are His delight. How precious to Him was the One who, when asked, "Who are You?" could answer, "Absolutely what I also say to you" (John 8:25). He is the truth.
Where Lying Comes From
Colossians grounds the command "do not lie to one another" in the old nature having been put off. That grounding tells us something about human beings as they now are.
William KellyThe old man is supposed to account for lying; the old man is false, full of deceit. There is not, there cannot be, thorough truthfulness in nature as it is now. We see this from the first; Adam was false directly he sinned. Cain was false also. There may be other evils, such as violence, shown at times in some and not in others; but all are false — lying one does see in all.
Wider Than Spoken Words
The word Paul uses in Ephesians 4:25 is not simply the act of telling an untruth. It covers a whole quality of behaviour.
The Christian's Friend"Lying," or "falsehood," means everything that has the character and nature of falsehood... This should be much remembered, because in its application it might search many of us who would never be caught telling positive untruths. On this reading, a look, a gesture, one's manner, ambiguity of speech, evasion, compliments, and many other things might fall under this sense of lying.
A statement can be accurate in every word and still be a lie, as one commentator shows from the Samaritan woman's reply to Jesus.
J. N. DarbyWhen the woman of Samaria said, "I have no husband," it was true; but the object of it was to conceal the truth all the same. It was legally true, but ethically false; true in fact, but truth told to conceal the truth all the while.
The Small and Kindly Lie
Many lies are told to spare feelings rather than to gain anything. Commentators refuse the category of the harmless lie.
Arthur PridhamMen (and especially women) lie out of kindness perhaps as often as out of fear or self-interest or malice; but white lies turn black as night under the searching eye of the Father of lights.
Motive does not decide the matter, and honest mistakes are not in the same class at all.
William KellyBut it is intolerable to compare or class with lying any mistakes made carelessly or from hearsay, especially when there is care to correct them once the facts are better known. The essence of lying is the wish to deceive, whatever the motive; which may be to exalt self or to injure another, to escape through fear or to gain a desired end.
Why Christians Are Held to Truth
Ephesians does not argue from honour or social usefulness. It argues from what a Christian now is.
The Christian's FriendMoral philosophers have discussed the question why men should not lie, and wide differences have existed among them on the subject. But moral philosophy never gave a reason anything like the one given here... Who can imagine falsehood from the lips of Him whose words were the words of God, and whose truth was the truth of God?
Lying Told in God's Presence
The first recorded sin after Pentecost was a lie about money, and Peter named it as something worse than deceiving people.
William KellyWhy was there in that lie something altogether beyond an ordinary lie, bad as a lie always is in a Christian, indeed in anyone? ... It was not merely the general moral feeling against a person saying what was false and deceiving another, nor merely that it was against God's will and word — it was an affront done in the very presence of God.
The End of the Road
Revelation's list of those shut out of the city closes with liars, and the placement is deliberate.
F. B. HoleThe list finishes with "all liars," for lying is another characteristic of the devil, and deceit takes a variety of subtle forms. The overcomers of verse 7 are sons of God. The damned of verse 8 proclaim themselves sons of the evil one. They share his doom.
Getting Out of It
Where a lie has already been told, one writer, tracing Jacob's deception of his father, is specific about what repair looks like.
A. T. SchofieldToo often, sadly, one lie leads to another, as in Jacob's case; and once launched on this fatal course, who can tell what the end will be? ... There can be no real restoration until that lie is confessed not only to God but to man.
Summary
- Source. Falsehood is native to the old nature and traced to the devil; truth belongs to God, who takes every lie as an affront to His glory.
- Scope. Lying is not only the false sentence — a look, an evasion, a flattering compliment, even a technically accurate answer meant to conceal, all carry its character.
- Test. The measure is not the size of the lie or the kindness of the motive, but the wish to deceive; a mistake honestly corrected is not lying at all.
- Ground. Christians are held to truth not by honour or social convention but by what they have become — members of one another, remade on the model of the One in whose mouth no deceit was found.
- End. Deceit unrepented ends outside the city with all liars; deceit repented is broken by confession made to God and to the person deceived.