Command 8: Keep Your Word
Study Question
Q: Why did God deliver Abraham and Sarah in spite of the lie they told Pharaoh and Abimelech, and yet destroy Ananias and Sapphira for the lie they told Peter?
A: In Scripture, two accounts of lying reveal important insights into the nature and consequences of not being completely truthful.
The first example is that of Abraham and Sarah. They agreed to lie about their relationship as husband and wife and instead tell people they were brother and sister.
Their lie produced plagues and distress in the households of Pharaoh and King Abimelech. What they did seemed to go unpunished, except for the rebukes of Pharaoh and Abimelech. They even acquired valuable gifts under the false pretense of their lies.
In comparison, the lie of Ananias and Sapphira seems insignificant. Their lie did not bring them money; they were simply not as generous as they wanted people to imagine that they were with the money they were giving to the work of the Lord. For their lie, God brought immediate death.
An initial reading of both accounts of lying might lead to the conclusion that God was lenient with Abraham and Sarah and harsh with Ananias and Sapphira. This is not true, because both were severely punished for their deceptions.
In some ways, Abraham and Sarah received the greater punishment, because the iniquity of their deception was passed on to their children and grandchildren. Abraham and Sarah told a “half-lie,” but their son, Isaac, went on to tell a full lie about his relationship to his wife. The deception practiced by Isaac was then practiced by Jacob, who deceived his father and stole Esau’s blessing by disguising himself. Jacob’s deception was then multiplied through his family. His sons deceived him by showing him Joseph’s coat of many colors, which they had stained with the blood of an animal, causing him to think that Joseph had been killed by a wild beast.
Had Abraham and Sarah sincerely repented of their deception, this would have motivated them to warn their descendants not to follow their example.
The accounts of Ananias and Sapphira and Abraham and Sarah illustrate the truth of Paul’s instruction to Timothy. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (I Timothy 5:24). The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was immediately opened and judged. The iniquity of Abraham and Sarah followed after them and became more and more harmful with each generation. The longer a lie continues without exposure, the more destructive it becomes.
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This study question and answer is adapted from the Commands of Christ, Series 2, book. For further study, this book may be purchased from our Online Store.