That Lie of Rahab’s

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Feb 24, 1909

That Lie of Rahab’s.

WHEN God commends a person, it is important to make sure what it is in that person that He commends. For there is likely to be plenty that is not commendable even in those who win God’s approval. This way of looking at it may help to solve an old puzzle now propounded anew by a Pennsylvania reader:

“I know God does not want any one to tell a lie to help even His people, and yet it looks to me as if Rahab had told a deliberate lie in Joshua 2:4, 5.”

Yes, Rahab lied. She lied repeatedly, elaborately, and artistically, piling lie upon lie in careful attention to the plausibility of the facts that she rapidly manufactured while her callers waited. And there is not a syllable of approval of her lies in the Old Testament or in the New; only the condemnation of dead silence regarding them. Rahab was saved, as many a liar before and since her day has been saved, by the forgiving love of the Father of truth, who is the eternal foe of all lies. She was not saved because of her lie, nor because of any merit that was in her; and in that respect her salvation was on the same terms as the salvation of all other sinners. She was saved because of her expressed confidence, or faith, in the God of Israel; in her own blundering, sinning way, she gave expression to that faith in an act that saved Israel’s spies while it endangered her own life. God honored the woman’s spirit, and forgave her sins. He will do the same for us; but He expects us to have higher standards in truth-telling than did a Canaanitish harlot.—Sunday School Times.