‘Believe the unbelievable’

‘Former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major has launched a stinging attack on Boris Johnson, accusing him of asking the public to “believe the unbelievable” over lockdown parties in Downing Street’.[1]

This statement from the Sky News website is a blistering attack by a former Prime Minster upon the present Prime Minister. Yet some of us are old enough to remember events related in the memoirs of a former cabinet minister in Mr Major’s government and featured in the newspapers in September 2002.[2]

Whilst not attempting to defend either side in this political spat, it raises a more fundamental question: ‘which of us could say that we have never lied?’ Which of us could say we have never set out to deceive, a family member, a friend, a colleague, or a manager? We might grade our actions in terms of ‘white lies’, and different shades of grey, but when God says, ‘You shall not bear false witness’,[3] we would have to acknowledge that we are guilty. Whatever our reason or excuse may be, a lie is a lie. The argument of Sir John Major is that lies do not seem to have the consequences that he thinks they should.

Lies or similar failures may not seem to have drastic consequences in 2022 politics, and the police findings are awaited, but they do in Bible terms. The Bible tells us that ‘your iniquities [sins or failures] have separated you from your God’.[4] The New Testament confirms that when it says, ‘the wages of sin is death’.[5] Each time we fail, or sin, we put greater distance between us and God. The tragedy is that such a distance could become permanent. Speaking from heaven, the Bible records Abraham’s words to a guilty, unforgiven sinner, ‘between us and you there is a great gulf fixed’.[6]

How important, then, to get the matter of our failure and sin sorted out! How important it is to confess our sin and seek God’s forgiveness whilst we can. The Bible says that God is ‘faithful and just to forgive us our sins’, if we confess them.[7] Because Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again, God is able to forgive on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice. If we trust Christ and take Him as our Saviour, we are able to say, ‘in Him we have . . . forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace’.[8]

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/downing-street-parties-sir-john-major-says-brazen-excuses-were-dreamed-up-and-deliberate-lies-to-parliament-must-be-fatal-to-careers-12538111 [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/john-major-had-affair-with-edwina-currie-178437.html [3] Matthew chapter 19 verse 18, The Bible (New King James Version) [4] Isaiah chapter 59 verse 2 [5] Romans chapter 6 verse 23 [6] Luke chapter 16 verse 26 [7] 1 John chapter 1 verse 9 [8] Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7