It's a lie, but no it is not sinful. In other words, sin is a transgression of God's law, not your morals. The law is: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Exodus 20:16 You, your emotions and feelings are not the standard - His law is.

Our duty is to uphold God's law and advance justice and righteousness - not be moralists imagining we live in a moralistic black and white world. When evil becomes good and good becomes evil and an ordained institution is at the heart of it like this situation, if you become moralistic in your approach to the law, then your moralistic approach to the law will make you a slave to sin and you'll abandoned the faith in self-righteousness.

In this example, the Nazi's don't have the legal standing to receive the truth - lieing to them is not sinful. You've chosen your legal position by your felonious activity of harboring fugitives. Hence, you are already a liar in deed by breaking the law in hiding them, otherwise, why are you hiding?


Apparently, though, you believe the civil magistrate in this situation has authority to receive the truth, hence lieing also includes being silent when you have a duty to speak.

A suggestion for you to consider - go take the license plates off your car and put them in your backseat and drive around for a few days. In so doing you can begin dealing with the real-world emotions of moralistic antinomian piety vs juridical obedience to Christ.

Test yourself and you'll soon figure out what a big fat liar you are - just like the rest of us. The key is to be able to make the right decision in the right circumstances, so that when the **** crows for you, then you aren't denying Christ in a misinterpreted moralistic antinomian piety whereby you think are doing right, but have instead deceived yourself.


Maybe, it depends upon what the circumstances are and what your standing is in those circumstances. Judas was honest and told Caiaphas where Christ was at - he told the truth and renounced Christ in doing it. His truth was prior to God's truth, and in his truth he become the son of the father of lies.



Yes, He is - He commands obedience to His law and His Lordship first - our circumstances have to be examined subjective to that absolute, not the ordination of an institution that can and historically does change the law and set up good and evil as opposites.

One thinks this stuff is simple to interpret - until you actually have to make a decision whereby you are disobeying an ordained authority in order to obey God - then it gets much more difficult to properly interpret. Because the question is always in your mind, did you interpret the situation properly when you set out to disobey the ordained authority in the first place?

What makes logical sense in good vs evil analysis - quickly becomes much harder to interpret and apply when good becomes evil and evil becomes good. You have to make numerous judgments within those circumstances and many times unfold an inside out situation before you can ever begin figuring out what your duties and responsibilities are.

We must always strive to insure that our interpretation of circumstances is correct whereby our actions are based upon God's law as the objective absolute and our morality is in subjection to that - when the tables get turned and good becomes evil and evil becomes good, then it is very easy to also become confused whereby our morality becomes objective and God's law becomes subjective to it. Generally, you'll think you are doing the right thing until you cross examine it from several different angles.

Yep, obedience to His objective law not our subjective morality.


Cordially In Christ,


Thomas

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Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana