Is It Ever Right to Lie?

The short answer: Ordinary lying is wrong. On that every Christian agrees, because God is truth and He calls His people to be truthful. But there are rare, extreme cases, like hiding refugees from people who want to kill them, where faithful Christians genuinely disagree about whether deceiving is right. This chapter sets out the views without picking one.

This is one of the questions where faithful Christians reach different conclusions. Before we get to the hard cases, though, let’s be clear on the easy ones, because that’s where most of our lies happen.

Where Christians agree

God is completely truthful. “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). Paul calls Him the God “who cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). Jesus called Himself the truth, and called the devil “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). So truthfulness isn’t just a rule. It’s part of being like God.

That’s why the ninth commandment says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16), and why Paul writes, “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25). “Lying lips are detestable to the LORD, but those who deal faithfully are His delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

Every Christian tradition agrees that lies to get out of trouble, to look good, to hurt someone, or to cover up what you’ve done are wrong. That includes the “small” ones: the excuse to a teacher, the story to your parents about where you were, the exaggeration that makes you look better online.

The hard cases

But the Bible itself contains some puzzling stories. When Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill every baby boy, they “feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live” (Exodus 1:17). When Pharaoh asked why, they said the Hebrew women “give birth before a midwife arrives” (Exodus 1:19), which sounds like a cover story. Yet “God was good to the midwives” (Exodus 1:20).

When soldiers came looking for the Israelite spies, Rahab hid them on her roof and said, “the men went out, and I do not know which way they went” (Joshua 2:5). The New Testament praises her: “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies in peace, did not perish” (Hebrews 11:31).

Then there’s a modern version. During the Second World War, Christians across Europe hid Jewish people from the Nazis. When soldiers knocked and asked, “Are there any Jews here?”, what should they have said?

Where Christians differ

Never lie. Some Christians, including Augustine long ago and many since, hold that lying is always wrong, even to save a life. They say God praised the midwives and Rahab for their faith and courage in protecting life, not for their words. They believe you should find another way: stay silent, refuse to answer, or tell the truth and trust God with the result. Corrie ten Boom’s sister Nollie took this view during the war.

Deception can be right to protect the innocent. Other Christians believe that someone seeking to murder has no right to the truth, so deceiving them isn’t “false witness against your neighbor” in the sense the commandment means. They point to the midwives and Rahab as examples to follow, and to Peter’s words, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Many who hid Jews in the war, Corrie among them, acted this way.

A tragic choice. A third view says that in a broken world you can face a clash where every option involves some wrong. Lying is still not good, but saving a life is the greater duty, and the person humbly asks God’s forgiveness for the lesser wrong.

These are serious believers who love truth and love life. This book won’t decide between them.

What this means for you

Notice what all three views share: lying is never casual, never convenient, never for your own benefit. The hard cases are about protecting someone innocent from deadly harm, not about protecting yourself from a detention or an awkward conversation. If you ever find yourself thinking, “Rahab lied, so I can lie to my mum,” you’ve missed the point by a mile.

Most of us will never face a soldier at the door. We face a hundred small chances every week to be honest or not. That’s where truthfulness is learned. “Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices” (Colossians 3:9).

Think about it: What kind of lie are you most tempted to tell? What would it cost you to be honest instead?

Go deeper: Portraits of Courage – Corrie ten Boom — this chapter tells how the ten Boom family supplied ration cards and false papers to Jews in hiding, and how Corrie and her sister Nollie disagreed about whether lying was right; it sets out the midwives, Rahab, Augustine and Bonhoeffer fairly and doesn’t claim to settle the question. Start with chapter 10, “Ration Cards and Lies”.