The Bible opens with a picture of the first pair in Paradise, to whom God tells the simple truth, and to whom the enemy of man tells a lie; and it shows the ruin of mankind wrought by that lie, and the author of the lie punished because of its telling.[1] The Bible closes with a picture of Paradise, into which are gathered the lovers and doers of truth, and from which is excluded “every one that loveth and doeth a lie;"[2] while “all liars” are to have their part “in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."[3] In the Old Testament and in the New, God is represented as himself the Truth, to whom, by his very nature, the doing or the speaking of a lie is impossible,[4] while Satan is represented as a liar and as the “father of lies."[5]

[Footnote 1:  Gen. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 2:  Rev. 22.]

[Footnote 3:  Rev. 21:  5-8.]

[Footnote 4:  Psa. 31:5; 146:6; John 14:6; Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18; 1 John 5:7.]

[Footnote 5:  John 8:44.]

While the human servants of God, as represented in the Bible narrative, are in many instances guilty of lying, their lies are clearly contrary to the great principle, in the light of which the Bible itself is written, that a lie is always wrong, and that it cannot have justification in God’s sight.  The idea of the Bible record is that God is true, though every man were a liar.[1] God is uniformly represented as opposed to lies and to liars, and a lie in his sight is spoken of as a lie unto him, or as a lie against him.  In the few cases where the Bible narrative has been thought by some to indicate an approval by the Lord of a lie, that was told, as it were, in his interest, an examination of the facts will show that they offer no exception to the rule that, by the Bible standard, a lie is never justifiable.

[Footnote 1:  Rom. 3:4.]

Take, for example, the case of the Hebrew midwives, who lied to the officials of Pharaoh, when they were commanded to kill every Hebrew male child;[1] and of whom it is said that “God dealt well with the midwives;... and ... because the midwives feared God,... he made them houses."[2] Here it is plain that God commended their fear of him, not their lying in behalf of his people, and that it was “because the midwives feared God” not because they lied, “that he made them houses.”  It was their choice of the Lord above the gods and rulers of Egypt that won them the approval of the Lord, even though they were sinners in being liars; as in an earlier day it was the approval of Jacob’s high estimate of the birthright, and not the deceits practiced by him on Esau and his father Isaac, that the Lord showed in confirming a blessing to Jacob.[3]

[Footnote 1:  Exod. 1:  15-19.]

[Footnote 2:  Exod.  I:  20, 21.]

[Footnote 3:  Gen. 25:  27-34; 27; 1-40; 28:  1-22]