Dispelling the ‘Gray’

We have seen that truth is such an integral part of the divine nature that Scripture can refer to God as “the God of truth” and Jesus can refer to Himself as “ ‘the truth.’ ” We’ve also seen that God encapsulates His character traits in His law, and truthfulness is no exception, for He desires that His people be truthful and therefore commands that we speak truthfully. While this sounds simple on paper, it becomes exceedingly difficult as the devil, as well as the world and the flesh, oppose our efforts to tell the truth. We may be sorely tempted to lie or shade the truth.

Almost always, we must resist such temptation and speak the truth. But ethical situations do arise when a lack of candor or outright deception seems to be proper. European Christians who hid Jews from the Nazis during World War II faced such a dilemma. In this extreme situation, two different ethical principles came into conflict: the sanctity of truth and the sanctity of life. Should they lie to the searching Nazi soldiers or tell the truth and give the Jews away, condemning them to probable torture and eventual death? Would it be a sin to say there were no Jews hidden in the basement walls?

Conservative Christians are often accused of seeing things in black-and-white terms, of minimizing the confusing “gray areas” of moral uncertainty. The truth, however, is that everything is black or white ultimately. In God’s sight, all things are acceptable or not. But in our finitude, we cannot see all the factors bearing on a particular situation. We cannot know precisely how a given course of action will affect those who are involved. Thus, we cannot always predict whether a truth or a lie will have the better outcome, all things considered.

Here then is a reason for our confusion as to the propriety of Rahab’s lie. We understand that she, like all human beings, was commanded to be truthful. She was not truthful—but she was not condemned; indeed, she was blessed. Why is that? A great many factors have to be considered as we evaluate her protection of the Israelite spies. As in all such situations, we must go to the principles of righteousness God has given in His Word to guide our daily lives. In tomorrow’s study, we will look at other principles that were in play in Rahab’s situation.