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April
Loving Motive Solves Moral Dilemmas
Dear Friends,
We are all familiar with those hypothetical situations that are posed to us entailing an apparent clash of Commandments in God’s Moral Law. Who has not pondered whether it would have been right for Christians, during World War II, to deceive Nazis as to the whereabouts of Jews the Christians were hiding? Rarely, if ever, do such Christians who actually were in a position to help protect Jews from Nazis concern themselves with such hypothetical questions, for they by their actions have answered the question in one way or another.
Reality has a sobering effect upon our moralizing and costless casuistry. I have had occasion to learn of a real situation where a man acted out his conviction at the cost of his own life but at the intentional gain of the lives of his brothers. In his book, War and Grace, author Don Stephens tells of a series of incidents involving Christians in World War II. One such incident involved a work detail of British POW’s forced to labor on the railroad that the Japanese were building to use for their planned invasion of India. At Chungkai, Thailand, near the River Kwai, as this work detail was preparing to return to their prison camp, the Japanese guard declared that a shovel was missing and demanded to know who was responsible. When no one confessed, he became enraged and declared that he was going to kill all of the workers. A Scottish believer stepped forward and declared that he was responsible for the missing shovel. He was immediately killed, but with him the killing stopped. When the work detail returned to camp, it was discovered that no shovels were missing. Two things were clear to all involved in this incident: that the Christian had lied and that he had done so to save the lives of his fellow POW’s. Not only did the deceiving believer’s act save lives, it also sparked a revival among the prisoners at the camp, and bore testimony to the Japanese guards of the saving love of Jesus.
Here was an apparent clash of two of God’s Commandments, namely, the Sixth, which forbids killing and enjoins loving regard for the lives of others, and the Ninth, which forbids lying. I have shared this incident with others, asking them whether the man who lied had sinned in his doing of his loving and life-saving deed. Some not only asserted that the self-sacrificing brother had sinned, but also that if they had been in his place they would not have done anything like what he had done. On the other hand, others responded that the man’s deed was good, loving, and noble and that if they were in such a situation, they would only hope and pray that their fear of death would not stop them from doing such a life-saving action, however formally imperfect it might have been.
What does the Bible say about the Ninth Commandment, not only in its statement, but more importantly, in its meaning as we can gather it from a consideration of the whole counsel of God? In 1 Samuel 16, God appears to employ equivocation when He tells fearful Samuel to state the reason for his appearance in Bethlehem as his having come to sacrifice and not to disclose his true mission of arriving there to anoint the king to replace Saul. God also employs a stratagem of deceit when He tells Joshua to set an ambush for Ai (Josh. 8:2). Then there is the case of Rahab, who lied to protect the Israelite spies (Josh. 2:3-5). We know we cannot accuse God of sinning in His misleading directives, yet many censure Rahab, despite the fact that there is no condemnation of her in Scripture, but rather repeated commendation (Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25).
These examples suggest that there are instances when deception is not in itself a sin. The practice of deception involves two aspects: the communication of something false and an intention to mislead. While it is undeniable that God, Samuel, Rahab, Joshua, and the Israelites at his command, all communicated something less than or other than the truth, we cannot rightly say that they did so because there was a clash between any of God’s Commandments when rightly practiced. God, Samuel, Rahab, Joshua, and the Scottish POW all did what they did with good, holy, and loving intention. They misled threatening enemies in order to save lives. The whole truth in all of these examples is that God and His godly people loved others, and were determined to save others. In fact, our Savior misled others when He, by His silence at His trial before Pilate, allowed Himself to be regarded as guilty and deserving of execution. Jesus so delivered Himself up (an apparent violation of the Sixth Commandment, too) because He loved His people and was saving not only their lives but also their souls. He characterized such self-immolation as the greatest love and truest fulfillment of the Law (Jn. 15:13; Mt. 22:36-40).
I am far from saying that love gives us license to lie. I am, however, inclined to feel the force of common sense that accepts within universally understood and accepted conventions that judicious and necessary deception is allowable as a shield in war, as a tool in police work, and as a device used in sports and even in chess. I also know it is best that we allow Scripture, and not our own faulty logic or misinformed consciences, to guide us rightly to understand and to follow our God, His godly ones, and our Lord Jesus, who, incidentally, did good work on the Sabbath even when His opponents thought he was violating the Fourth Commandment. May our minds and hearts grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, so that whatever the situation, we may speak and live the truth in love, to God’s glory and for the good of others.
Faithfully yours,
William Harrell
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Sunday
Morning Worship 10:30 AM
Evening Worship
6:30 PM
Wednesday
Christian Education
7:00 PM
Saturday
Congregational Prayer Meeting
7:00 PM |
