When can a Christian lie? Can he lie to protect people as Rahab did? We are here to discuss this issue in the book When to Disobey, Case Studies in Tyranny, Insurrection, and Obedience to God, written by Pierre Viret. Today we are discussing Chapter 12: Truth, Tyrants, and our Responsibility Before God. This is a fascinating chapter about lying for a good cause, including Viret’s commentary on the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And I have with me Jason Dome, again, so grateful for that, and Jeffrey Johnson. Hello, Jeff. Hey guys, it's good to be with you guys.

So good to see you. Thanks for joining us on this. Jeff is a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas, and he's the director of academics at Grace Bible Theological Seminary and publisher of Free Grace Press, which is pumping out some really good books. What's the web address for Free Grace books? FreeGracePress.com.

There you go. Yeah, really good titles coming out. I might have all of them. It's possible. That's awesome.

So I'm really, really glad for what you're doing there. Well, we're here to discuss a chapter of the book, When to Disobey, Case Studies and Tyranny, Disobedience and obedience to God, insurrection and disobedience to God, from the writings of Pierre Viré. Today we're discussing chapter 12 of the book, which is entitled Truth, Tyrants, and our responsibility before God. This is a fascinating chapter about lying, about how you represent yourself. It's an interesting moment for us to be engaging this subject when people are trying to figure out whether they're going to have fake vaccine passports and how they're going to answer questions about things that they're doing.

This section comes out of Vire's commentary on the Ninth Commandment. It's a little section. It's in an interesting format. He liked to put truth, biblical truth, in a dialogue format. This is one of those chapters that's in a dialogue format.

And you have Timothy, who's the disciple, and you have Daniel, he's the one who's doing the instruction. And Verre states the question very, very clearly. I'll just read it right out of the book. Whether it's lawful to withhold the truth from tyrants who demand it that they can persecute good men and what difference there is between lying, telling a lie, and withholding the truth, and on what condition truth can be smothered. And he starts right off with Timothy asking the question, you know, what if a tyrant wants to force you to reveal to him someone who's done something which is good that the tyrant hates.

So that's pretty simply the whole discussion that he engages in. So let's try to capture what he's saying, and then let's discuss some of our thoughts about it. Well, he starts by defining terms, lying, telling a lie, and then withholding the truth. So in the way he defines it, lying, you know you're lying, it's intent to deceive, you know you're doing it when you do it. He says telling a lie is potentially different in that sometimes you accept something is true, but it's not true.

You didn't know it wasn't true. You had no intent to deceive, but you tell a lie because you pass it along. And then withholding the truth is just either refusing to say all that you know or just refusing to answer at all. Yeah, he makes that distinction. He distinguishes between outright lies and withholding information.

Give some great examples from the Lord Jesus. Yeah, you know, he gives the example of sometimes when Jesus was questioned and he didn't feel like he had to tell the truth, or at least didn't have to tell everything that the question was asked. Sometimes he would just ask another question and turn the tables on him and really never answer the question. Let me ask you this, and the Lord would say, well, before I answer that, or if I answer that, let me ask you a question. It kind of diverted the conversation back around, if you would.

You know, he also talks about, we're not obligated to be indiscriminate in our telling of information, and he brings up Matthew 7-6, you know, don't give what is holy to dogs. I thought that was a really interesting way to frame that. Yeah, I thought the real strength of the chapter, the best part of the chapter to me was the examples of Jesus. Jeff, you already started us down that track. The advantage of the examples of Jesus is they're perfect examples, executed perfectly.

It's God doing it, and so you know for sure that all that was done is right. And then he also mentions Paul's, the way that he answered questions or the way that he refused to answer questions at point, and I thought that was really helpful also. I'll quote him here, either keep silent on everything or speak the truth in what you say, you have the example of Jesus Christ in this matter." And then he gives a bunch of examples. So maybe we could just walk through a couple of the examples that might be representative here. Representative here.

Here's one, Paul before his enemies, and he recognizes that he has Sadducees and Pharisees before him, and that they're disagreed about some fundamental things. So he actually exploits the disagreement by saying, because of the resurrection of the dead, I'm on trial today. And then the Pharisees say, we find no fault in this man. So, it's not exactly why he was on trial, but what he said was actually truthful, and he used the truth actually to confound wicked men. Yeah.

Yeah, and the example I gave before that was with the Lord, you know, he's on trial for his own, he was arrested, and he kept asking these questions, and for the most part, the Lord just kept silent. He didn't answer. He just kind of kept himself from answering. And my position, probably if he would have answered, he might have got out of it, and he was not seeking to get out of his own crucifixion. But at the same time, the point is well taken that he didn't lie, he just kept his mouth shut.

Pete Yeah, yeah, he kept his mouth shut. One of the things that Verre brings out that I thought was interesting is that Christ didn't answer clearly or openly like that, Jeff, in one occasion because they sought to catch him in his words. And Verre says, you know, Jesus was dealing with people in the moment, in the context. Their motive was to catch him at his words. So, he recognized what they were doing, and his response was crafted according to their motive.

I thought it was a really interesting section when the teacher, Daniel, says, sometimes the best option on the table is just to die. I mean, sometimes your enemies, they'll kill you if you won't tell the truth, but the truth would hurt good men. And so, the best option on the table is to die. And Timothy, the pupil, then says, well, nobody does that. And Daniel responds to that by saying, I'm not answering what people generally do, I'm answering what we should do to honor God, because it is actually worse to offend God than it is to give up your life to your enemies.

Yeah. Yeah. That section was my favorite part. And in fact, I underlined it and highlighted it, and then I wrote in the book, and I wrote the big amen. And He says this, the truth or the glory of God's worth more than life.

Now that is capturing a whole lot that that God's glory is worth more than my life. And if we really believe that it will shape how we respond in situations where we're willing to die and lay our own life down so that the glory of God is not sacrificed. And so that's where We have to stand up for God's glory at no matter what cost, even if it's over a secondary issue. This is the thing that strikes me about the Reformation period is there are primary truths, and we all know that we can't deny any of the primary truths such as the death, resurrection of Jesus Christ. But what if it's a secondary truth such as does the elements in the Lord's Supper turn into the physical body of Christ?

Now, to me that's on the verge of being a primary truth, But let's say it's on a secondary truth that we all know that, hey, you can be a Christian and not necessarily hold to the right position. But when it comes to your conscience, you've got to be willing to uphold what you believe to be true, even if it's imprisonment, even if it's death, because that's your understanding of the Word of God. And many of the reformers and the Puritans would lay down their life or be imprisoned, not just for primary truths, but for secondary truths, because they saw the link to, you know, I cannot deny God in my conscience. And I think that goes back to seeing that God's glory is more worthy than my comfort, more worthy than my health, more valuable than my own life. And that has to be our commitment if we're gonna be able to face potential crying days ahead of us.

You know, I was struck by the sharp distinction he made on the matter of taking an oath. Now, the three of us subscribe to the Baptist Confession of 1689, which addresses oaths and vows pretty distinctively. So he rests a lot of his weight on the matter of an oath. If you're bound by an oath, then you must come clean. And I think, you know, he would say, well, you don't always have to take an oath, but if you've taken an oath, you're bound, you're duty bound to tell the truth and not deceive in any way.

What are your thoughts about that? Yeah, I thought that was helpful. He, Verre, through the teacher Daniel, is encouraging us to keep control of the situation early on so that you don't get caught downstream in a position where you're having to decide if you should tell the truth and harm someone else. So in other words, if you're facing a kangaroo court, for lack of a better term, then his counsel to be to us, don't take an oath to tell all that you know in that case. Refuse to take the oath and what the consequences might be bad, take the bad consequences.

Otherwise you're going to end up downstream where you're in this hard position. So he's encouraging us to keep control by not taking oaths when we shouldn't, when it could put us in harm's way. 05 You know, he uses the language of regulation in this. He says, and how we are required to use no other means than those commanded by God. He drives us to the Scripture and the Scripture alone, to not step out of the bounds of Scripture, but only use the means that are commanded by God.

And of course, previously, he's spun those out. Here's what Jesus did. Here's how Peter violated it. Here's how the Apostle Paul used it. But I, you know, virae is going to drive us to Scripture and to be regulated by it.

I think it's a very unhelpful practice to start with hard corner cases. That's not where you start, that's where you end. The tendency when you undertake a topic is to go to highly complex, very nuanced, charged, controversial, and then try to sort that out, or really what you ought to do is zoom out and establish the core principles. In this category, I think the core principle is Jesus is the truth. The devil is the father of lies, and When he lies, he's speaking his own language, and then you just sort of work down from that.

00.00 I mean, and he... We don't have time to do this, but he deals with David and Abraham and Isaac. Regrettably, he doesn't talk too much about Rahab, but he does mention... When you get a chance to read the book, you'll notice he does deal briefly with lots and lots of examples that we don't have time to do. But Scott, he does...

Just to go back to my last point just for a second, he does start the chapter by talking about how dear the truth should be to the people of God, and then he works from there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's a commitment to upholding God's Word, God's truth at the expense of your own, at your own expense. Right.

So let's just talk practically about this, what this means. I've had brethren say, well, I think I'm just going to get a falsified vaccine passport so that I can go the places that I want to go. And I'll just tell you what I've been telling them. I, you know, my preference is that they would tell the truth. And if they end up in court, then we can try the matter in America.

That's how you try matter is by challenging it. So I I'm in telling my friends, I'd rather you just disobey and not be found to be a liar, not to be found with a falsified document in your pocket. Because you may not be able to go everywhere you want to go, but at least you'll have your integrity. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hey, that's an awful testimony if Christians start showing up with falsified vaccine passports. Awful. Amen. Yeah, I agree. In the news, it's all over the news today, People are being caught with falsified vaccine passports.

Are they really? Huh. Yeah. No, I think it's important to, you know, when you look at the Tink commandments, to understand three things about the Ten Commandments that should God our understanding and interpretation of them. And one is that they're a reflection of who God is.

The Ten Commandments are not just arbitrary laws, they're not just arbitrary rules. And so it's not like they're, if they were, they would be somewhat subjective, but they're rooted in the very nature of who God is. And here when they come to us, they come authoritatively and they come objectively. And here we are, we're not free to kind of shape it mend it and go well this is a situation that the Word of God doesn't apply or that this commandment doesn't apply so we have to be very careful because there's reflection of who God is and God is a God who does not lie you know he cannot deny himself and word called to be like God in all areas of our life. So that's one thing to consider.

Another thing to consider is that the Ten Commandments are put in, they're stacked vertically, which is important, and they're not horizontal, which gives us some helpful distinctions because when we think about lying, we go, well, what about murder? Is it okay to murder? It's never okay to murder, but what if you're in the army? Can you kill someone? Or what if you're at your house?

Can you protect your family? So all of a sudden, you got Rahab and her lie and she's lying, but is this okay? And I think one of the ways of helping, in my mind, helping differentiate this is like you got these laws and you got God at the top and they're stacked. Because what is the most important law? It was like you can't say all laws are equal.

There has to be a most important and there has to be a second most important law. And Jesus makes it clear that love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. That is it. That's the, That's the, you can't get any higher than that. And you can't put love of your neighbor above that one.

If you put the six commands that come underneath the first four above the top four, you've inverted the law and you're making, it's idolatry. And so you love your neighbor best when you love God the most and you have to have them in that order and then in that law you have a role you have a role for for for self-protection but it's it's God neighbor yeah I love myself but I love myself less than I love my neighbor. So it's God self me. And you know, that there that thou shalt not still have some protection, thou shalt not kill that protects myself. So in loving my neighbor, I have self-protection, but it's in that order.

And so I think when we think about these things, it's never, never do anything that robs God of His glory. There's never a scenario that we can deny the truth that defames God's truth, God's glory, to save my life or even the life of my neighbor. It may be by defending God's glory, it's not only a detriment to me, it may be a detriment to my whole church. But God's above my church, and He's worth it. He's worth it above my family and my children.

But I also have to put my neighbor above myself. And so, you know, in that case, I see Rahab putting those spies above herself. And what she did was an act of treason to her own nation. And she put her own life in jeopardy. If she would have told the truth, She would have been on the side of the enemy, but she chose the side of God.

And in a sense, she protected God's glory. She protected her neighbor that was in the right, and she put herself in the position of dying. She jeopardized her own safety. And I think that's the order in which we obey God, is God, neighbor, and I put myself last on every occasion. And it's the devil that wants to reverse that order, self-first, self-preservation first, but that's not God's order.

Maybe that's why the commandment is, you know, don't bear false witness against your neighbor, you know, for his harm. Rahab, she did lie, but she did it for the benefit of the spies. I think that's what you're saying. I'm just saying it's like war. There's even God, when he told Caleb to do this, it was an act of deception in the battle.

Do this, and then you'll act like you're going to do this, and then you turn around in war, you're going to do this. It's an art of deception. It's not, you know, it's, you're not telling your enemy, hey, I'm about to do this. And then you do it to your own demise. So here we have, You know, you have to have, to me, the Ten Commandments have to have, who are you seeking to please?

It's God, your neighbor, and self. And then, you know, that allows for a just war. That allows for me, if it's a just war, it allows me to go to war and protect what's right, to what to protect justice. In that case, in a just war, it allows deception, you know, and to bear false witnesses in a court of law where truth is necessary for justice to take place. And if I bear false witness, justice is going to be perverted, and that is what's against God's nature.

And that's different than being a spy and actually lying about your identity. So I'll take the other side of this debate. I mean, I don't think it was right for Rahab to lie, but I think if she would... She was clearly a Christian. She appears in Hebrews 11, the chapter of faith.

And so, I mean, I think you see a Christian who's... Is it right to use that term Christian in the Old Testament? Sure it is. Who is just learning the ways of God and is under a lot of pressure. Narrative is not normative.

We see lots of things that work out well, even that are done for God, but might not have been the right thing, not commended by God. So I'm not confident Rahab did the right thing, but God used it in His providence. And that happens in our lives all the time. So... I preached on that text a few months ago, and that's exactly what every commentator says pretty much, that Rahab in the weakness of her flesh, she did lie, and God was kind to everybody in the process.

That's really what the weight of orthodox commentary is on that issue. Yeah, I respect that position because it's safe and you sure don't want to start getting in this like, okay, well, this justification of lying because that puts you in a situational ethics which we don't agree with. Right. But here, I look at Hebrews as looking at that actual moment as her moment of faith, not like she… It's counting that moment, that moment where she told her own people, go look that way. And while she hid the spies, that was her faith on display.

This is her faith had worked by her putting her own life in jeopardy. She's committing treason and it's an act of war. I mean, basically she's diverting to her own people's enemies. She's going, I'm gonna side with God and the people of God against my own people and they're at war. We're at war with one another and I'm committing treason and in acts of war, deception is required and actually justified And so she's in an act of war, so she's saying, hey, I'm going to be with God's people, and she's putting God, God's people, and herself at the very bottom.

And by doing that, she's literally, if she's caught, she's, it's the death sentence for her. That's faith. She could have easily, if she would have said the truth, she'd go, oh, they're right here. Here are these spies. She's siding against God, against God's people, and she's siding with her own people.

And she's choosing the wrong side. I think that's the question though, the dilemma is when you're in active war, if you're a soldier and you're facing the Nazis, is it okay to lie to the Nazis? Is it okay to have deception and war? And I think deception has a place, like when I leave town, I turn the lights on, act like I'm home when I'm not home. You know, why do you do that?

It's not because you're trying to pervert justice, you're protecting justice. And you're not seeking anyone's harm, you're not seeking to pervert justice in any form, you're just trying to prevent from some injustice from taking place. But I understand my position is very delicate and could be abused. One of the principles that keeps coming to mind, I think, has a direct bearing on really the whole chapter is, wise as serpents, innocent as doves. I think the phrase that keeps coming to mind is, lead down the garden path.

Well, what does that mean? That means by your enemies, led one step by the other unwittingly to your own destruction. Veré is bringing us into circumstances where you can give ammunition to people who only want to harm God and His cause and His people. And we need to be wise as serpents so that we're not led down the garden path to the destruction of God's cause. Amen.

Well, these are great thoughts. So, I'm just going to read the last few sentences in this chapter. These really are difficult matters. I pray that God would give us all wisdom to think like our Lord Jesus about these things. Here's what he says, For seeing that lying is of the devil, who is called the father, who is called its father, just as truth is from God, and he is the father of it.

Whoever seeks help from lying seeks the help of the devil and takes him as protector instead of God, disguising himself in order that no one can see the mark of God on him, which he exchanges for the mark of the devil. For by speaking the truth we retain the mark of God, which we renounce when we take up lying instead, which is the mark of the devil, in order to counterfeit and disguise ourselves by his mask, which cannot be pleasing to God. So I think the force of this is that Christians ought to tell the truth, but they don't have to tell everything. And, you know, He's instructing us to look to the way that the Lord Jesus and the apostles at their best have navigated these kinds of waters. And pray for all of us that we would find ourselves obedient to the Lord and loving our neighbor in the ways that you are advocating, Jeff.

So thank you so much, brothers. Appreciate the discussion. See you next time at the church and family life podcast.