God Cannot Lie. Aren't You Glad?

"Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged." Hebrews 6:17-18 NIV

God cannot lie. I’m so glad! But it’s more than that. It’s not that He will not lie; it’s that He cannot lie. His very nature is such that He can never lie. He must always be absolutely and totally truthful and trustworthy. Think about that for a moment. Imagine being in a relationship where you can always and without fail believe what someone tells you and completely depend on them to do what they say they will do.

Many of you know that my husband and I have had rockiness in our marriage. Because of his addictions, I lived in the relationship for years with him where he would regularly lie, regularly be untrustworthy. And so now, even though he has been in recovery for three years, there are times when I have doubts about what he is saying or doing. I know that he can lie, so there always exists the possibility that he will lie.

We, as human beings, lie. I’ve told lies in my life. I’ve let people down. I’ve not been dependable in what I said. It’s a huge fault we have and it breaks into relationships and causes chaos and pain. But God . . . God cannot lie (also Titus 1:2). "It is impossible for God to lie." Why? Because within His very nature, God is, at the core, faithful not only to what He says, but to who He is.

"God’s attributes are not isolated traits of His character but facets of His unitary being. . . . To have a correct understanding of the attributes it is necessary that we see them all as one. We can think of them separately but they cannot be separated. . . . Thus, His immutability (His inability to change) presupposes His faithfulness. If He is unchanging, it follows that He could not be unfaithful, since that would require Him to change. . . . He is at once faithful and immutable, so all His words and acts must be and must remain faithful." (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, ch. 15).

[Immutable: not capable of or susceptible to change]

We worship and serve a God that is big enough to deserve our worship and service. He is a God perfect enough to be trustworthy and dependable. He is a God who won’t lie to us, won’t abandon us, won’t let us down. He will always love us, always judge us fairly, always provide when we ask in His will, always be Who He is throughout time. And while He is indeed a mystery, He will always be totally good, totally without sin, totally holy.

God cannot lie. Aren’t you glad?　

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.