Christian Ethics pt.2	Truthtelling 	

Cocky knew the bone-chilling bang on the door had been inevitable, but it set her heart racing in fear nonetheless.  Trembling in fear, she opened the door only to have her worst fears confirmed – Nazi soldiers. They demanded to know if she was hiding her brothers.  She was.
     Cocky Ten Boom (Corrie Ten Boom’s niece) believed all lying is wrong.  But she knew if she gave up her brothers they would go to a forced labor camp. After doing as much evading and dissembling as she could get away with, she finally said, “They are under the kitchen table.”  The Nazis looked, found nothing, and angrily left.  They didn’t notice the trap door under that table under which her brothers were hidden.
     The whole thing turned out well, and the brothers were protected, and Cocky took that as divine vindication for her decision to tell the truth.  Her aunt, Corrie, believed that what she did was foolish.  All she did was needlessly endanger the brothers.  Corrie’s argument is that she really want being honest.  In engaging in their rescue activity they were doing a lie – regardless of what they were saying.
     Who was right?  Is it ever permissible to lie?   There is no question truthfulness is a virtue, but is there ever a time when a lie is justified?
     Is Koby Bryant sinning every time he gives a head fake and deceives the defender into thinking he’s going to shoot when really he’s going to drive to the basket?  Are you sinning when you tell your wife she looks beautiful when at that moment she actually looks kind of ordinary?  Are you sinning when you leave a light on in your house to deceive thieves into thinking someone is home?  Was Corrie Ten Boom sinning when she deceived the Nazis by hiding Jews in her house?
     And if some of those lies can be justified, what’s to stop us from lying whenever we want and just saying, “It’s for the person’s own good”?
     Last week I made the case for what is known as Absolutism, as opposed to Relativism.  
     If God says something is bad then it’s bad – period.  If you believe the Bible is God’s Word, it follows that you must be a moral absolutist.  
     The big problem for absolutists is what to make of situations where the absolutes seem to conflict?  There are three different ways of handling that question among absolutists.
1.	     Assume that there are no moral conflicts.  The ones we think we see are only apparent.  This view is called Unqualified Absolutism or Non-Conflicting Absolutism. 
     According to this view, lying is just always wrong and ought never to be done.  Failing to save a life is not always wrong – it’s only wrong if it’s in your power to do it without sinning.
     Therefore Corrie Ten Boom was wrong to hide the Jews.
2.	Assume that when we discern moral conflicts, violating either one is wrong, but the best we can do is choose the lesser of two evils.  So when morals conflict, you have to sin.  This view is Conflicting Absolutism. 
     According to this view Ten Boom was sinning by hiding the Jews, but she would have been sinning even worse if she hadn’t.
     There is a third view:
3.	Graded Absolutism or Hierarchicalism.   This view says that moral absolutes can conflict, and when they do it is righteous, not sinful, to follow the higher of the two moral laws.
     By this view, Ten Boom was acting righteously by lying and hiding the Jews, because the moral law that calls for protecting people in that circumstance is higher than the moral law that forbids lying.
     Each of these views has significant problems.

Unqualified Absolutism 
I think this is the best of the three views, but it doesn’t seem to fit with certain actions in the Bible that are commended. 
     In Exodus 1 the Hebrew midwives disobeyed the government and then lied about it.  
     You need to be careful with something like that, because just because a good person does something in the Bible, that doesn’t mean what they did was good.
     David was a man after God’s heart, but that doesn’t mean it was OK for him to steal, commit adultery and murder.
     So just because someone does something doesn’t mean it’s right – unless Scripture presents it as being right.
Ex 1:15-21  The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives …16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 
     It’s not just that the text is reporting that they disobeyed the government.  It implies that they did so out of a fear of the Lord.
     18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive." 
     That was a lie.  V.17 clearly says that they intentionally let the boys live – it’s not just that they couldn’t get there in time.
     The unqualified absolutists will argue that they were wrong to tell this lie.  But look at v.20.
     20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. 
     I think it’s quite a stretch to construe v.19 as a report of a terrible sin.  “They lied, and so God rewarded them…” 
     Now look at Josh.2
     God had promised the Israelites they would inherit the Promised Land, and they are finally making their move to take it.
     The very first city they encounter is Jericho.  So they send spies in to check the place out, and Rahab takes these spies into her home. 
     Josh.2:1-16
2 The king of Jericho was told, "Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land." 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: "Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land." 
     4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, "Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. 5 At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, the men left. I don't know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them." 6(But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) 7 So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. 
     The passage goes on to show that Rahab’s life was spared because of her doing this. Not only that, but she is praised in the NT for this very event. In Hebrews 11, the chapter that praises all the famous people of faith, we read about Rahab:
     Heb.11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.   
     She was acting against the law and was a traitor to her country, and yet she was rewarded by God for that. Unqualified Absolutists will argue, “Her attitude is what is commended, not her lying.  It was good for her to side with Israel, and that’s what she is commended for, but she was wrong to lie.” The problem is the Bible doesn’t distinguish between her actions and attitudes.  In fact, if the focus is on anything, it’s on her actions:
     James 2:25 was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction?
     She was considered righteous for what she did.  And what she did was deceptive.  James even specifies the fact that the particular action for which she was considered righteous was the sending of the spies on a goose chase. Sending them off like that was a lie.
     When God sent Samuel to anoint David as king, God instructed Samuel to deceive Saul.
     1 Sam 16:1-4 The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king." 
2 But Samuel said, "How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me." 
The LORD said, "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.' 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate." 
     The reason he was going was to anoint David.  If the reason you are going is to anoint David, and you tell Saul the reason you are going is to offer a sacrifice, you aren’t telling the truth.
     In Joshua 8 God tells the Israelites to take the city of Ai by means of deception and ambush.  The instructions to Gideon also involved deception.
     So Unqualified Absolutism doesn’t fit the moral judgments that are praised in Scripture.
     Unqualified Absolutism is hard to life out, and ends up with some kind of strange standards.
     You end up saying it’s OK to leave your light on to deceive a burglar, but if that burglar knocks on your door and says, “Is your wife home?  I would like to rape and kill her” you would have to say, “Yes, she’s home.”

Conflicting Absolutism 
     This is the lesser of two evils view (Sometimes your only choice is between two sins, and you should choose the lesser sin).
     This view flatly contradicts 1 Cor 10:12-13  No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. 
     God will provide a way out of every temptation.  There is never a time when we have to sin.
     If there were, then we have some serious problems.
     *  It leaves us with a moral obligation to do evil, which is self-contradictory.
*  It leaves God desiring us to sin and leading us into sin and makes God into a moral lawgiver that commands evil. (Contradicting James 1:13.)
     And think about the implications for Jesus:
*  It requires either that either Jesus did not experience the moral dilemmas common to us, or that Jesus sinned by choosing the lesser of evils. Both concepts are explicitly unbiblical (Heb. 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21). 
     For this reason, more and more people are flocking to the third major absolutist view:

Graded Absolutism 
     There are higher morals and lower morals, and in each situation it is righteous to follow the highest law.
     Truthtelling is a medium law, saving a life is a higher law, therefore it’s better to lie to save a life than to tell the truth and allow someone to die.
     The big problem I have with Graded Absolutism, is that it seems to me to come too close to Relativism (and even closer to Generalism – the view that there are general guidelines, but no absolute guidelines).  
     Moral Relativism is a system where you decide what is right based on what seems right to you.  If it feels right to have an affair – go for it, it’s right for you.
     Graded Absolutism doesn’t go that far.  But it seems to me to commit a similar error.  It’s anyone’s guess which moral laws are higher than others.  
     What’s too keep a 10 year old daughter from from saying, “I realize I’m supposed to obey my parents, and they are against my idea of leaving tomorrow to go hitchhiking across America to share the Gospel with the people who pick me up…”
     “ – but the Great Commission and the importance of winning the lost is a higher law than children obey your parents.”
     You might argue that obeying parents is a higher law, but on what basis?  Is it because it’s impractical for a Jr. High girl to think she will have much fruit in a ministry like that?  
     Do we really want to make practicality the standard?  Then we are not only relativists, but we are getting into Moral Pragmatism – whatever works is moral.
     In all the sources I read those were the only three kinds of Absolutism that I could find, but I’m not happy with any of them.
     Each of those views comes essentially from philosophy.  But isn’t there some guidance we can get from the Bible on this?
     Isn’t there some passage in Scripture that teaches us how to handle apparent conflicts of moral laws?
     Yes!  Jesus taught on that in Mt.12.
     Jesus and His disciples were traveling on the Sabbath day, and the disciples were walking along picking some heads of grain and eating them.
     Some Pharisees saw that and accused them of violating the Sabbath, because by doing that they were technically farming, which means they were working on the Sabbath.
     Jesus responded in v.3.
"Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread-which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 
     In the OT God gave a strict law that no one but the priests were to eat the showbread.  Why?
     God made that law, because He wanted the people to regard the Temple and everything in it as holy.
     If someone just casually walked in and started snacking on the showbread, he would be violating God’s will by taking lightly God’s Temple and treating it as common.
     But it wasn’t wrong for David to eat that bread.  Why?
     Because when God made that law, His intention was for the people to regard the things in the Temple as holy.  He did not intend that law to be applied in cases where someone would die if he didn’t get some food.
     Was David violating God’s law?  No.  He and his men purified themselves and showed great honor and respect for God’s Temple.
     Then Jesus gave another example.
5 Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? 
     When God made the law about not working on the Sabbath, He never intended that law to apply to the priests.
     Each law that God makes has a context, and that context gives an idea what the intention of the law is.
     When there is a special circumstance that falls outside that intention, then it’s inappropriate to apply that law to that circumstance. 
     Jesus applies what He is teaching to the deal with the Pharisees in v.6.
     6 I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."  
     When God made the Sabbath law, He never intended it to apply to a case like this – to make it so the disciples of the Messiah can’t grab a bite to eat when traveling with Him.
     The ethical system Jesus is teaching here is different from all three of those views we looked at.  Let’s call it Limited Application Absolutism. 
     All of God’s commands are absolute, but apply only within the sphere appropriate to the context of the command.
     In our laziness we always want to reduce principles to rules.  It’s so much less work.  But that’s when we run into rules conflicting with rules.
     What God wants us to do is pay attention to the context and spirit of a command, so we know what He was getting at with that command, and then be careful not to apply it in an unfitting way.
     Suppose my kids are in a big fight, and so I come in and say, “No yelling!”  
     The next day one of them wakes up in the middle of the night to a house full of smoke.  What should that child do?  
     Do you think it’s my will that she quietly tiptoe out of the house all the while whispering “Fire!”?
     No, I want her to scream at the top of her lungs and wake everyone up.
     Is that a case of conflicting absolutes?  No, not really.  When I gave the no yelling command, I intended it to be applied to cases of fighting, but not to emergencies. 
     Obviously, God isn’t going to list every exception to every command – the Bible would be a billion pages long.
     He expects us to pay as close attention to context as I would expect of my kids in a fire after I made a no yelling rule.

Application

* God commanded that we be submissive to the government, but we are to be submissive only in cases where we can do so without violating another law of God.
     If an authority requires you to sin, that is an instance to which the “obey your authority” principle does not apply at all.
     It’s not that the two commands conflict.  One command is applicable and the other is not.
     * Is it a sin to speed?
     To answer questions like that, go to passages like Ro.13 that call for submission to government and ask yourself what would be a valid application of the intended principle.
     God doesn’t want us to be rebellious.  He wants us to follow basic law and order, and to be favorable toward government, and not to create problems for them.
     If I drive right around 55 when the speed limit is 55, I know that in moments when I’m not paying attention I might get up to 60.  Am I being rebellious against the government by doing that?  I don’t think so.
     But if whenever I drive I break whatever traffic law I want as long as there are no police around, I am being rebellious.  That’s exactly the kind of thing the law was intended to punish.
     Traffic laws are a result of a society striving for order and safety.  If I violate the intention of the law, I am in violation of Ro.13.
     But if I’m on I25 during rush hour, and for a little while all the lanes are going 10 miles over the speed limit, by driving the speed limit you could actually create more chaos and a danger.
     In that case I suspect that the very people who made that speed limit law would hope that you would just keep up with the flow of traffic, and not create a traffic jam behind you.
     * What about deceiving a murderer or criminal to hinder their evil?   
 
Based on Ex.1 and Josh.2 I think Scripture is clear that God’s command about lying was never intended to apply to cases like that.
     So it’s not a conflict of moral laws.  It’s a case to which the lying law doesn’t apply at all.
     * What about oaths?
     Mt.5:33  "Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, and keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 
     Does that mean it’s wrong to swear on a Bible in court?  
     Let’s look at the intended purpose behind the command.
     The law about oaths in the OT had two basic purposes: 1. be honest and 2. Be faithful.  
     When you make a promise, mean it, and when you have made a promise, keep it.
     Ps 15:1-4  LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?  2 He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart…4 …who keeps his oath even when it hurts,
     But just like we tend to do, the people of Jesus’ day ignored the intended purpose of that law, and turned it into a rule.
     They developed a complex system of vows and oaths.  The Mishnah devotes an entire treatise to the discussion of oaths.  
     Why chapters and chapters on oaths?  To determine which ones were binding.  Some formulas were binding for oaths and not for vows, etc. 
     To make an oath binding, one had to invoke the name of God.  We might say “I swear to God,” they would say, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely…”  or “God is my witness” etc.
     But they had a problem – they couldn’t say the name of God.  So they used substitutes (for example, in place of God they would often say “heaven”).
     So, which substitutes are legally binding?  If you swore a non-binding oath, you didn’t have to keep it.
     Mt.23:16-18  "Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.'
17 You blind fools!…
18 You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.'
     You see why Jesus is upset?  They were ignoring the intended purpose of the law about oaths.
     In fact, it got to the point where the purpose of the oath was to deceive (by the creation of loopholes).
     They were like kids with their fingers crossed.  “I don’t have to keep my promise, because I had my fingers crossed.”
     Don’t laugh – that’s exactly the same as our system with contracts.  
     Often in the business world a contract is considered well written if it deceives (if it sounds like it is binding but is not).  
     If you told the person you would pay, but there is a loophole in your contract, you can go to court and the judge will say you don’t have to pay.
     It’s exactly the same thing – the purpose is to deceive.
     The less trustworthy people are, the more they use oaths (“I swear…”).  That’s why we don’t let our kids promise.
     If you have to promise to be believed, that means your word by itself is not reliable.
     That’s why Jesus said, Don’t swear at all.  Simply let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no’. 
     You should have to promise or swear or anything else for people to trust what you say.
     One day when some of my kids’ friends were over and trying to get them to make these promises, especially “pinky promises.”  
     For those of you who are not part of the elementary culture, let me tell you what that is.  It’s a contract for 10 year olds.  If it’s a pinky promise it’s binding.
     I sat them all down and explained that we don’t make promises, because our yes means yes.
     In other words, if you are a Christian, everything you say is a promise.  
     The world makes a big deal about lying under oath.  Remember when everyone kept saying, “If Bill Clinton lied about things, that’s no big deal.  But if he lied under oath, that’s serious”?
     If you are a Christian, you are always under oath.  Every word out of your mouth is a binding contract.
     You see, by making that the law against oaths and vows, Jesus’ intention was to get the people to be honest.
     Now, is it appropriate to apply that command to every circumstance?  No.
     Does it apply to courtroom situations?  No.
     Courtroom oaths were commanded in the OT.  
Num.5:19  Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say…
     Jesus testified under oath.
Matt 26:63-64  But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." 64 "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 
     What about at a wedding?  Is it a violation of Jesus command against vows when we make wedding vows?
     Should you interrupt the next wedding you attend when they get to the part where they vow certain things and say, “Just let your yes mean yes!”?
     No.  Jesus did not intend this command to apply to cases in which you just want to make a statement in an especially solemn way.
     According to 1 Pe.3:21 you are making a vow or pledge to God when you get baptized. 
     What about in a situation where you are a truthful person, but you just want to make it easier for someone to believe?  
     Again, that’s fine.  Paul routinely use oaths
     Ro.1:9,10 God…is my witness how constantly I remember you 10 in my prayers
2 Cor 1:23  I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return 
Gal 1:20  I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
Php.1:8 God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
1 Thes.2:5 You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed--God is our witness.
     Even God the Father has sworn oaths
     Ps.110:4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."
     Heb.6:13-20  When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. 16 Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. 
     The intention of Jesus’ command was not to eliminate all oaths and vows.  It was to eliminate those that were designed to deceive, and so it would be inappropriate to apply it to those other circumstances. 
     ****************
     Another aspect of Limited Application Absolutism is to realize that some commands are more generalized than others.
     The command against adultery is very specific.  There is no circumstance in which adultery is permitted.  
     On the other extreme is a command like “Be generous.”  
     How generous?  Sometimes it’s appropriate to be more generous and other times less generous.  
     So each command should be analyzed as to how specific or general it is.

Does God lie?
If I say, “Ok God, I’m going to flip a coin.  If you make it come up heads, that means the Lakers will win the championship this year.  If it comes up tails, that means they won’t.
     If it comes up tails and the Lakers win, does that mean God lied?
     Why not?
     Because if I infer something from what God does, if my inference is incorrect, that is a mistake on my end, not a lie on God’s part.
     If I look up and see the sun move across the sky, and conclude that the sun travels around the earth, does that mean God has lied?
     No.  It would only be deceit if God said, “You can tell whether the sun moves around the earth or not by how things appear when you look up from earth.”
     The lie comes from an intent to deceive, not just an awareness that someone will draw a wrong conclusion.  
     Next week: self-defense

Review Questions:

1.	Is there ever a time when God’s laws conflict?

2.	Is it ever permissible to lie?  Why? 

3.	If you believe it is sometimes permissible to lie, how does your system protect against abuse (someone rationalizing whatever lie they want)?