Does God condone lying in the Old Testament?

Often times in life, we come upon situations that require us to make tough choices. This must have been the case for Rahab found in the book of Joshua. When we look at the story of Rahab, we see two choices on the table. One was lying to save the lives of the Israeli spies and the other was to tell the truth and miss out on the great opportunities that she saw arising in the lives of those who she knew were God’s people. Failure to respond would have been the worst choice ever. In the midst of this great dilemma, she had to make a choice and in the heat of the decision, she decided to lie. Yet, the book of Hebrews records Rahab as a woman of faith. Does God condone lying in the Old Testament?

No matter what an individual’s perspective may be, when we rightly perceive the situation we have to come to the conclusion that Rahab lied to the soldiers that came to her door. She first hid the spies in the upper room and then purposefully misguided the soldiers saying that the spies had gone outside the city gates already. She knew where the spies were and even why they were there but she came to the conclusion that it was better to lie in that situation.

The dilemma isn’t necessarily the fact that Rahab lied but that in Hebrews chapter 11, God honors her in the “Hall of Faith” as a woman of faith. The reason I believe God did that was because he wasn’t looking at the situation as a matter of true or false. But rather, as chapter 11 of Hebrews deals with, he was searching for her faith. It was her faith that gave her salvation! She knew that the God of the Israelites was the one and only, omnipotent God and she decided that she was going to be on his side no matter what. She most likely knew that lying was a sin and against the commandment of God, but regardless she was willing to risk the consequence in order to live a life of faith. God didn’t honor the lie, but he honored the faith that she portrayed in spite of the situation.