The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Anjela Paje of Spokane, WA, from the tape, GC 1301-Q, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 19."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  ©1980. All Rights Reserved.

Question

I have a question about situation ethics. Someone believes that there are no absolutes. There are only shades of gray. And, they gave me the example that, if you have one person pursuing another, and the person that is doing the pursuing is doing it with the intent to harm the individual. Let us say that individual hides in your home, and then, the pursuer comes and knocks on your door and says, you know, "Is Joe Blow here?" And you lie, and you say, "No." Now, we know lying is a sin, but, then, how do you answer something like that? There are absolutes. There are, yes, this is right, this is wrong. No, it does not depend on the situation.

Answer

Well, if you are going to argue about absolutes, start here, say, “Do you believe there are absolutes? If you get a no answer, say, “All right, would you mind if I hit you in the side of the head with a plank?" Just for starters. There are absolutes. If you jump off a building, you go down. It doesn't matter what your ethics are. It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter if you don't believe anything. You'll go down, because there is an absolute law of gravity. There are absolutes, and if there are absolutes, in the physical realm, and that is where you want to start with people like that. There are absolutes in the physical realm. If you stick your hand in the fire, you will get burned. You know, you'll feel cold water, you'll feel hot water. There are absolutes. You drive an immovable object into an irresistible force then you are going to have a problem. There are absolutes. We know that 2 + 2 = 4. It is always 4. You can write 3, until you are blue in the face on your paper and you are going to get it wrong every time. There are absolutes.

So, what you want to start with is the fact that there are absolutes, and then, all you need to show people is that if there are absolutes in the physical realm, why will you not permit the same kind of absolutes in the relational realm or the ethical realm or the moral realm? Because the same God who drew the rules for this category must be the God who drew the rules for the next category. Now, if you are going to come to the place of knocking on the door, and so forth, you are right back to that same kind of a thing. I had a guy do that and try to kidnap my children. Okay, and he banged on the door and said, “I want to come in there and get your children...I have got a knife, and so forth.” I will be very honest with you. I said to him, “If you come through that door, you will not only not get my children, but you will find your head in Encino [CA].” That is exactly what I said to him. Now, I do not have a gun in my hand that I am going to blow him away. But, I am going to take care of that situation. Without, necessarily, telling him a lie about it. I am not going to say, “Well, nobody is home, here. Just us chickens," you know. You could treat a situation like that by saying, “I am going to call the police, or there is no one here that has any interest in you. You have no interest in this house. You had better leave.”

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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