You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. (Ex. 20:16)
The LORD who took the people out of the land of slavery and the house of bondage is one of unity and wholeness. His creation order sees how different elements have all come together to display His glory in the supreme kind of harmonious melody. Nothing is without purpose in this creation and it works because it is true to the purpose for which it is created. It is not a mechanical logistical entity devoid of spiritual intent – its very basis is spiritual intent. So effective functioning true to its type in line and in symphony with the other is crucial to created order.
Night and day, moon and sun, cold and heat – all working together, all serving to ensure the balance and harmony. You can see this even in human relations – a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh. From that oneness children are born and grow in a loving environment seeing the qualities that marked humans out in the image of God and following the example and developing their own relationship with God for themselves before perpetuating the cycle once more.
At the heart of the spiritual intent that divinely put all things to be is truth. God’s Word is truth – when He speaks it is and it is in such a way that compliments everything else and more importantly is in line with the glory of the one who speaks. There is no discrepancy or hint of error – it is all right, it is all true.
As a basic functioning part of our lives if things are not right or true that brings about a lack of completion and a lack of wholeness to any situation. That gap between what is and what should be can be detrimental to all kinds of level including the fatal one. Relationships can be broken, families torn apart and unsurprisingly the best efforts of people can easily be dismantled by a deceptive word, discord sowed among people through erroneous and harmful reports being spread.
Yet it’s all well and good endeavouring to be noble and pious with a commitment to truth, but often circumstances are faced where it is not as straightforward to be as open with the truth as would be desired. Those awkward times when information is known about someone or something that could be damaging were it to be revealed and a dilemma then follows. Sometimes it is excused as being economical with the truth or telling relatively harmless white lies in order to protect people or keep some state of being going. What is not known cannot harm anyone.
These rationalisations appear to rescue us from this Word that is given and further examples are given of being in deadly situations where the truth could be jeopardise someone else, especially a loved one. The classic is the situation where you are hiding those being persecuted by ruthless oppressors only for them to come and asking questions about the location of those being oppressed.
These quandaries are very real and the maze out of these issues whilst remaining true to the spiritual intent of the author of the Word are not always obvious. The narrative of God’s relationship with His people as seen in the genealogy of Jesus is the true and holy God working through messed up people in messed up situations as they contribute to reflecting the glory of His Kingdom of Shalom built on the principles of love and truth. When such concerns are at the heart of decisions in these tricky situations as well as those less tricky and its a case of fighting standards of the duplicitous world or even ourselves, then the primary relationship that motivates all others draws us ever closer through the complexity of the decisions life demands from us.
This is also re-emphasised in the Son of the LORD who brings us out of darkness into His marvellous light, who knows that the Father is looking for those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 