Unbelievers are liars

For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar. As it is written: “That You may be justified in Your words, And may overcome when You are judged.”

(Romans 3:3–4)

I was reading this passage while having breakfast this morning when I noticed that Paul was equating unbelief with lying. So, I said to myself, “Mike, how is it that unbelief and lying go together?”

So, I did some snooping in my commentaries and found that Jesus did the same thing when he was blasting the pharisees in John 8, saying,

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me”

(Jn 8:42–45)

Here Jesus connected believing the Devil with being like the Devil, who was a liar from the beginning, with not believing Jesus. I assume this is because, you have to believe something. There is no such thing as a faith vacuum. We must either believe the lies of the Devil or the truth of God.

I don’t know anyone who would say, “I believe the devil’s views about everything” (though I’m sure there are those who do), but the answer to this is given when the Bible equates (by proximity) the world and the flesh with the devil,

…in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh…

(Eph 2:2–3)

What this text illustrates or assumes is that there is a direct link between the world (godless people), the flesh (godless desires), and the devil (the tempter, liar, prince of the air, etc.). To say that someone is worldly is to say that he is living according to the flesh and according to the wiles of the evil one. It is also to say that he is living in unbelief. It is also to say that he is living according to a lie. And people who lie as a way of life are called liars.

Unbelief, therefore, is lying.

To be clear, unbelief does not mean not believing at all. It means that the person does not believe that “God is God and we are not”. It means that he does not believe that Jesus is Lord of the universe and that he has bowed his knee to the Lord of lords and King of kings. Unbelief means that he does not believe that Jesus died on the cross for his sins and rose again from the dead to prove it was all true. A person who does not believe does not believe that Jesus died for him and thus that his sins are forgiven, and he now lives in belief that all of this is true. Unbelief means that he is not living in the joy of the Lord, empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who strengthens him to live in accord with belief in all these things.

On the other hand, as I said, you can’t not believe at all. Just because you don’t believe God, doesn’t mean you don’t believe anything. You must believe something. This is because faith comes out from your fingertips. You live what you believe. Whatever you think, do, and say, comes from what you believe. As I just said, if you believe God, you’ll think, do and say things in accord with what you believe about God. But though you don’t believe in God, you still have to live. How are you going to live? What will dictate how you think, or what you think? Or in keeping with what you think, how will you talk, or what will you do? How will you live? According to what? Whatever your answer to that last question is will reveal what you have faith in; what you believe.

Some people will say they are original. Everything they think do and say is original with them. They aren’t being led by anyone or anything. They are the king of their own universe. Sure, they have to have faith in something, they have faith in themselves. But even this thought is not unique. Lots of people think they are original…until they go to a party and see several other people dressed just like them, who like the same music they like, who think the same way politically, etc.

And interestingly, all of these unique commonalities are in the same line. They are all like the ideas of the world (whatever is cool, groovy, trendy, wealthy, popular, faddish, etc.), the flesh (whatever makes me feel good), and the Devil (I’m the captain of my own little world). And it’s all a lie and it’s all based on a lie. It is all a reflection of unbelief in God who created it all.

Unbelievers are liars.

One other point, before I go. How can a person be a liar who doesn’t know the truth? Can’t they just be living their lives with no reference to truth or proclamation? If they don’t believe in God, to them God does not exist. Therefore, they aren’t lying. They’re just living.

This would be true if it is possible to not know the truth about God. But here’s the thing, every unbeliever is also a rebel. Rebels have to be rebelling against something, maybe even everything. And, at the end of the day, when you chase it all down, all rebellion ends at the source of the authority that is being rebelled against. That ultimate rebellion is against God. The Bible clearly says that everyone knows that he exists. He has left us all with no excuse to try to say that he doesn’t exist. Everyone knows he does. Part of every unbeliever’s rebellion is to deny God’s existence, and thus his claim on their lives.

So, we can go one step further and say that there is no such thing as an unbeliever. Everyone knows God exists. What so-called unbelievers really are are rebels. And thus, unbelievers are all liars. They are even lying about their knowledge of God.