The Truth About Lying
“YOU liar!” Have those stinging words ever been hurled at you? If so, you no doubt realize the emotional wallop they carry.
Just as a cherished vase may shatter if knocked to the floor, so a precious relationship can be ruined by lying. True, over a period of time, you may be able to repair the damage, but the relationship may never again be quite the same.
“Those who learn that they have been lied to,” says the book Lying—Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, “are wary of new overtures. And they look back on their past beliefs and actions in the new light of the discovered lies.” After deception has been exposed, a relationship that once flourished with open communication and trust may be stifled by suspicion and doubt.
With all the negative feelings associated with lying, we must ask, ‘How did such a devious practice get started?’
The First Lie
When Jehovah God created the first human pair, Adam and Eve, he placed them in a beautiful garden home. Their home was free of any sort of deception or fraud. It was truly a paradise!
Sometime after Eve’s creation, however, Satan the Devil approached her with a tempting offer. Eve was told that if she ate “the fruit of the tree,” which God forbade, she would not die as God had said she would. Rather, she would “be like God, knowing good and bad.” (Genesis 2:17; 3:1-5) Eve believed Satan. She took the fruit, ate it, and then gave some to her husband. But instead of becoming like God as Satan had promised, Adam and Eve became disobedient sinners, slaves of corruption. (2 Peter 2:19) And by telling that first lie, Satan became “the father of all lies.” (John 8:44, Today’s English Version) In time, this sinful trio learned that there are no winners when one lies or puts confidence in a lie.
Death-Dealing Effects
Jehovah wanted all his creation—in heaven and on earth—to know that willful disobedience would not go unpunished. He acted swiftly by condemning the rebellious spirit creature to live the rest of his life outside God’s holy organization. Moreover, Jehovah God will eventually see that Satan is destroyed completely. This will occur when the “seed” that God promised to provide inflicts a fatal head wound.—Genesis 3:14, 15; Galatians 3:16.
For their part Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Eden. God sentenced Adam, saying: “In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” In time, both he and Eve died, even as God had foretold.—Genesis 3:19.
As descendants of Adam, the entire human family have been “sold under sin.” All humans have inherited imperfection that leads to death. (Romans 5:12; 6:23; 7:14) How appalling the consequences of that first lie have been!—Romans 8:22.
A Deep-Rooted Practice
Since Satan and the angels who joined him in rebellion against God have not yet been executed, we should not be surprised that they inspire men to “speak lies.” (1 Timothy 4:1-3) As a result, lying is deeply rooted in human society. “Lying has become so institutionalized,” noted the Los Angeles Times, “that society is now largely desensitized to it.” Many today closely associate politics and politicians with lying, but did you know that religious leaders are among the most notorious liars?
Religious opposers of Jesus spread lies about him during his earthly ministry. (John 8:48, 54, 55) He denounced them publicly, saying: “You are from your father the Devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. . . . When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.
Do you recall the lie that was propagated when Jesus’ tomb was found to be empty after his resurrection? The Bible says that the chief priests “gave a sufficient number of silver pieces to the soldiers and said: ‘Say, “His disciples came in the night and stole him while we were sleeping.”’” This lie was spread widely, and many were deceived by it. How wicked the religious leaders were!—Matthew 28:11-15.
Religious Lies Today
What is a prominent lie that is told by religious leaders today? It is similar to the one that Satan told Eve: “You positively will not die.” (Genesis 3:4) But Eve did die, and she returned to the earth, to the dust from which she was made.
Did she, however, only appear to die and actually live on in some other form? Is death just a doorway to another life? The Bible gives no indication that some conscious part of Eve lived on. Her soul did not survive. By disobeying God, she had sinned, and the Bible says: “The soul that is sinning—it itself will die.” (Ezekiel 18:4) Eve, like her husband, was created a living soul, and her life as a living soul ceased. (Genesis 2:7) Of the condition of the dead, the Bible says: “As for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) What, though, do the churches commonly teach?
The churches often teach that humans have an immortal soul and that death releases it to experience another life—either of bliss or of torment. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, says: “The Church expressly teaches the eternity of the pains of hell as a truth of faith which no one can deny or call in question without manifest heresy.”—Volume 7, page 209, 1913 edition.
How different that teaching is from what the Bible plainly says! The Bible teaches that when a person dies, “he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish.” (Psalm 146:4) So, according to the Bible, the dead cannot suffer any pain, for they have no consciousness of anything whatsoever. Therefore, the Bible urges: “All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [mankind’s common grave], the place to which you are going.”—Ecclesiastes 9:10.
Need to Be on Guard
Even as many were misled by the lies of the priests in Jesus’ day, so there is a danger of being deceived by the false teachings of today’s religious leaders. These people have “exchanged the truth of God for the lie,” and they promote such false teachings as the immortality of the human soul and the idea that the souls of humans will be tormented in a hellfire.—Romans 1:25.
In addition, today’s religions commonly put human tradition and philosophy on an equal footing with Bible truth. (Colossians 2:8) Thus, God’s laws regarding morality—including laws on honesty and sexual conduct—are viewed as relative, not absolute. The result is as described in Time magazine: “Lies flourish in social uncertainty, when people no longer understand, or agree on, the rules governing their behavior toward one another.”—Compare Isaiah 59:14, 15; Jeremiah 9:5.
Living in an environment where truth is held in little regard makes it difficult to heed the admonition of God not to tell lies. What can help us to be truthful all the time?
Taking a Stand for Truth
Our desire to glorify our Creator provides us with the very best motivation to cultivate truthful speech. Significantly, the Bible calls him “the God of truth.” (Psalm 31:5) So, if it is our desire to please our Creator, who hates “a false tongue,” we will be moved to imitate him. (Proverbs 6:17) How can we do this?
An earnest study of God’s Word can give us what it takes to ‘speak truth each one with his neighbor.’ (Ephesians 4:25) However, simply knowing what God requires of us is not enough. If, like many in the world today, we have not always been inclined to tell the truth, we will need to make a real effort to do so. We may need to follow the apostle Paul’s example and get tough with ourselves. “I pummel my body and lead it as a slave,” Paul wrote.—1 Corinthians 9:27.
An additional help in the battle to tell the truth at all times is prayer. By begging Jehovah for assistance, we can have “power beyond what is normal.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) Indeed, maintaining a “lip of truth” and putting away “the tongue of falsehood” may be a real struggle. (Proverbs 12:19) But with Jehovah’s help it can be accomplished.—Philippians 4:13.
Always remember that it is Satan the Devil who makes it seem that lying is the normal thing to do. He deceived the first woman, Eve, maliciously lying to her. However, we know full well the disastrous consequences of Satan’s lying ways. Untold suffering has been unleashed on the human family because of one selfish lie and three selfish individuals—Adam, Eve, and Satan.
Yes, the truth about lying is that it is comparable to a death-dealing poison. Thankfully, though, we can do something about it. We can stop the practice of lying and enjoy eternally the favor of Jehovah, a God “abundant in loving-kindness and truth.”—Exodus 34:6.
[Blurb on page 19]
Lying is comparable to death-dealing poison
[Picture on page 17]
The effects of lying are like the shattering of a vase