Did God lie to us? If we take the Bible literally, his words are lies. Let me give you four examples: 1) Matthew 7:6 , 2) John 15:13, Mark 12: 1-9 and Exodus 21: 24.
In Matthew 7:6, God warns us not to throw the holy to dogs and the pearls to swine. He predicted that they will trample the holy and the pearls under their feet and turn against you. Yet, God did what he warned against. We are the dogs and the swine. We turned against him. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. And he forgave us. He planted the seeds of forgiveness into the soil of our hearts to raise us up from the level of the most miserable and hideous of loveless beasts to the level of our loving God.
In John 15:13, Jesus gave us a proclamation on the perfection of love. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Yet the John 15:13 proclamation limits the scope of love to friends. Here again, did Jesus lie? Don't be misled by the literal words. In Jesus's proclamation on the perfection of love, he was merely articulating the conventional wisdom on the upper limit of love. Jesus, however, showed us that the conventional wisdom was wrong. The conventional wisdom got the price right for the perfection of love but the scope wrong. Jesus was about to push the envelope. He was about to raise the bar that marks the upper limit of love far higher than the Good Samaritan did. He would show us a love that is more radical - more extreme - than laying down one's life for our friends. How so? Jesus laid down his life for his enemies. Jesus picked up the tab for us, the very sinners who tortured and murdered him (Luke 23:34). Wow! How radical is such love! How extreme! Is no one, not even our enemies, excluded from the scope of our love?
In Mark 12: 1-9 , Jesus suggested that the lord of the vineyard would “destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others”. Yet, the lord of the vineyard did no such thing. He forgave the husbandmen even though “they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard”.
In Exodus 21: 24, God called for “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,”. Yet, we tortured and killed Jesus. And he forgave us.
God did not lie to us. This is the way that God expresses himself. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways our not our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).
