God, That Cannot Lie

Article 5 of 10 — No Parachute: Following a Doctrine to Its Final Destination

Paul rests the hope of eternal life upon a short description of the promiser: “God, that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).

He does not say that God usually tells the truth or has never yet been caught in a falsehood. The apostle excludes the possibility. The promise is secure because lying is contrary to who God is.

Balaam, compelled to bless the people he was hired to curse, asks the question which exposes every unbelieving doubt: “hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19).

Divine truthfulness cannot remain a ceremonial affirmation near the beginning of a confession. It governs revelation, promise, preservation, and salvation. When a theory entails that God spoke and failed to make his word good, the theory has collided with the identity of the speaker.

Truth Is Essential to God

Created persons may tell the truth or lie without ceasing to be human. A liar is a corrupt man, but still a man.

God’s relation to truth is different. He does not conform himself to a law above him. He is “a God of truth and without iniquity” (Deuteronomy 32:4). His Word is truth (John 17:17). The Westminster Confession describes the one God as “most holy, most free, most absolute” and “abundant in goodness and truth.”

Falsehood would disclose a defect in knowledge, goodness, faithfulness, or power. A man may speak falsely because he is ignorant; God’s understanding is infinite. A man may deceive from an evil purpose; God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. A man may promise sincerely and fail through weakness; the Lord’s counsel stands and his power cannot be frustrated. A man may change through instability; with the Father of lights there “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

Paul joins these truths: “if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). The inability to lie is no defect in omnipotence. Moral evil is not an additional power which a perfect being unfortunately lacks. God can do all his holy will; he cannot become contrary to himself.

A promise commits its speaker concerning what will be. Human promises remain vulnerable because the promiser may deceive, forget, die, change his mind, or meet an obstacle.

None of those conditions applies to God. He knows the end from the beginning. His counsel stands. His character does not decay. When he promises, the future is not uncertain from his side.

Hebrews presses this certainty into the comfort of believers. God confirmed his promise with an oath so that “by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation” (Hebrews 6:18). The oath does not make a doubtful God more honest. It stoops to human weakness and confirms what his nature already makes certain.

Abraham was “fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21). Faith did not create the fulfilment. It received the promiser as truthful and able.

The relation is simple:

1. If God genuinely promises an outcome, that outcome cannot finally fail.
2. If the outcome finally fails, either God did not promise it or the alleged speaker is not the God who cannot lie.

The second line explains why doctrinal controversy must begin by proving that God spoke.

First Establish the Promise

Religious people often turn their interpretations and expectations into promises of God. When events expose the mistake, they speak as though God failed. He did not.

An argument concerning a failed divine promise must identify the words in context, the promised object, the duration, and any stated condition. Does the passage promise preservation of every word, the continuing authority of the law, the accomplishment of prophecy, the survival of the church, or something else?

This discipline is especially important in Matthew 5:18: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Christ plainly magnifies the abiding certainty of divine words down to the smallest written marks. How the verse contributes to the full doctrine of preservation requires exegesis alongside the rest of Scripture. A critic may not assume the doctrine in a slogan, and a defender may not dissolve Christ’s precision into the survival of religious ideas.

The Westminster Confession supplies its doctrinal summary: the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, “being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical.” A confessional argument must establish what that sentence affirms and whether a proposed theory can truthfully say the same.

A failed expectation, a failed interpretation, and a failed human theory reveal human error. A failed divine promise would contradict God’s truthfulness. The categories must not be exchanged.

The discovery of an editorial mistake does not prove that God’s promise failed. Neither does the loss of a manuscript or disagreement over a variant. The larger question is whether a theory requires the object God promised to have been absent, corrupt in the relevant sense, or unavailable during the promised period.

Let God Be True

God’s truthfulness gives controversy its gravity and Christian hope its rest. The Father sent the Son, Christ accomplished redemption, and the Spirit applies what God promised. Every part of that hope depends upon the identity announced in Titus.

The doctrine also warns the critic. We must not place God’s name beneath our inference before proving that he spoke. We must correct false claims about texts, editions, history, and opponents. “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4) includes the confessional writer.

Once a promise has been established, however, the conclusion must be as firm as the promiser. God will not fail to perform his word. Our accounts of history, manuscripts, providence, and salvation must yield to that certainty.

“Hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

He shall make it good.

Sources and Notes

• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), 1.8 and 2.1.
• Scripture quotations are from the Authorized Version.