Today, from the hallowed halls of TEDS, I bring you the following Scripture: (John 14:1-7,15-17)
1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
15“If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
Today, I have another obvious thing for you to consider as you follow after Jesus Christ. In the passage I have quoted above, and indeed throughout the entire book of John, much is made of truth. Here, in John 14, Jesus talks about truth and trust repeatedly, reaching its pinnacle as Christ teaches His disciples that He IS the truth. I’m going to leave aside for today the discussion about the nature of this claim, and assume that, as a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ, you believe this is true. If you’re reading this and you either don’t believe in Jesus or claim to be a Christian and don’t believe Jesus is the truth, I’d love to have a chat with you. (No, seriously. Send me an email, drop me a line on Twitter.) As a Christian (e.g. Christ-follower, one is trying to be “Christ-like,” one who acknowledges that Jesus is what the Bible says He is), you are also being conformed to Christ-likeness. When you put these two pieces of information together what it means is that YOU must represent the truth: in one very important sense, you are God’s truth, wearing flesh and bone around covering God’s spirit (the Spirit of Truth as noted in verse 16-17 above). It is your divine responsibility and privilege to be the truth to a world prone to believing in lies. In plain language, it means we need to be truthful in all that we do. If we were in a logic class, we might say it like this.
1. Jesus Christ is the truth.
2. Disciples of Jesus Christ are being conformed into His likeness.
3. Therefore, disciples of Jesus Christ are being conformed into truth.
The ramifications of this simple proof are enormous in nearly every aspect of our Christian life. In future posts, I will explore some of these ramifications. But for today, I want to point out just one: what it means when people who purport to follow Christ lie.
Throughout the Scriptures, lying is soundly condemned. There is no place in the Scriptures where lying is condoned, encouraged, or otherwise given a pass. Uniformly, from Genesis to Revelation, lying is ruled out for followers in Jesus Christ. In the book of Exodus, as part of the Ten Commandments, is a strong prohibition against bearing false witness–saying something about your neighbor which is untrue. In the prophets, God’s people are repeatedly condemned for being “false.” In the New Testament, lying is listed on all the lists of prohibited behavior. In 1 John, John reaffirms that there is nothing false in God at all, and that those who follow him should strive to “do the truth.”
Most people think of lying as one of those harmless behaviors, but anyone who thinks that couldn’t be more wrong. When you lie, you become an apostate and blasphemer–you claim simultaneously that God is truth, and that you are in Him, and then violate the nature of God. When you tell the truth, you participate in God’s nature–He is the truth. When you lie, you deface God, you take that which is completely true, and you willfully corrupt it. Lying never happens accidentally. In order to tell a lie, you have to know what the truth is. People who tell other people things which do not conform to reality because they don’t know what reality is aren’t lying, they’re wrong, or ignorant, or misinformed, or whatever else you want to call that. Lying requires intent to deceive, which is therefore also a statement on the part of the liar that the person being lied to isn’t worthy of the truth. There are no people who deserve that treatment. As Christians, we are called to represent Jesus Christ as His ambassadors. When we lie, we represent our own kingdoms, not His.
Let’s take the standard example from the world of subjective ethics, where people would assert that it’s moral to lie when it will spare someone’s feelings. The person who asserts such a thing must first believe that there are people who are not worthy of the truth. Such a person must believe that there are two classes of people: those who can handle the truth, and those who cannot, and they qualify themselves as the absolute judge of which kind of person any other person is at any given time. This is usually accompanied by the belief that the liar knows what is best for anyone they wish to lie to, which is a claim dripping with egotism and obvious logical problems. Another more common example would be the “fish story” or all the other similar strands of “little white lies.” In these cases, people exaggerate one part or another of a story in order to make themselves look good. The problem with such a behavior is that while you may succeed in making yourself look better, you simultaneously make God look worse. Your abilities might look greater, but God looks smaller. That’s a heck of a bargain for a temporary bit of respect from another person.
You see, all lies are temporary. There is no such thing as a permanent lie–there are only lies which haven’t been brought to light yet. Experienced liars are used to change: they can never stay in one place, or with one group of people, for long. The reason? Because all lies are exposed eventually. If you lie frequently, you better keep one foot in the figurative stirrup–you’re going to be running for cover when you’re found out. To be honest, that’s no way to live.
One more thing. In order to tell a lie, you have to believe one first. As a Christian, you must first swallow that your behavior doesn’t matter, or that God doesn’t care if you lie. That’s flatly untrue. What you do has potentially eternal significance, and so my advice tonight if you struggle with lying is that you go to God and confess your sin and repent. You will have to examine your life and try to keep track of your lying habit, working hard to try and bring it under control. You must go to those who have believed your lies and confess and make reparations. And, above all, you must pray that God will give you strength and conform your character to the Truth incarnate–Jesus Christ himself.
Telling the truth is one of the foundational principles of the Kingdom, and one which will make your entire life more fulfilling. You’ll live in the freedom that comes with not having to worry about your lies being found out, and with other people trusting what you say (even if they don’t always like it). In case of life, represent Jesus by telling the truth.