Your right to remain silent with God is non-existent. When He asks you “what have you done?”, silence would be your denial, but if you even think about denying your sins before Him, you will not get away with it because He ALREADY knows.

I see the first lie in denying was conducted by Adam in the Garden. God asked him in Genesis 3, “what have you done?” and Adam’s denial for his sin was to blame God for giving him Eve. As IF God didn’t know what he had done including Adam’s thoughts before he had sinned. Adam tried to deny that he sinned by rationalizing it was Eve’s fault, and God to blame for her causing him to sin, a denial of his iniquity.

If you weren’t aware, and thought we could get away with lying by denying, it might work with man because we aren’t not omniscient, but it never will work with God. Examples would be the husband who cheated on his wife, while his wife has pretty much first hand video evidence, says “You are crazy, I was working late, that’s all”. The 2 year old child who you witnessed eating the cake and has frosting on their nose, in their hair, etc. says “No, I didn’t do it”. I have known Roman Catholics for example who I point out in excruciating detail their blatant idolatry and blasphemy say “that is not idolatry” or “that is not blasphemy”. I could probably write a thousand page book on just the examples of the denials which are lies. Even the denial when casually being asked “how are you doing?” and your response being “I am fine” when you aren’t fine, is a denial in a lie.

Lying comes so easily for us in a fallen state. As I mentioned it didn’t take long for Adam to start lying after he had sinned. The illogical part to lying is to convince yourself that God doesn’t know the difference! Some asks you “did you to it?” to something you blatantly did, and all you have to do is think “no I didn’t”, remain silent, and you sinned, you lied before God. You didn’t get away with it before Him even though you may have convinced your fellow man.

I personally know a person in my life that no matter what they are accused of, good, bad, indifferent, they immediately deny it, especially if they were trying to conceal what they did or you say it in an accusatory manner which should never excuse denying in lying. Their immediate reaction is “no, I didn’t”, when you have video, witness, audio, text, evidence to the contrary, and this person isn’t a 3 year old, but in their 70s.

Now think about Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God, in this context. He was born of a virgin, incarnated, was fully God and fully man as He walked this earth and was tempted in every way but did NOT sin ever. Think how EASY denials are, embarrassing things in our life we don’t want others to know about, and how EASY it is to lie. Jesus must have been a strange person as a youngster, because He never denied anything or tried to conceal anything to get away with anything. He never rationalized in His mind, “I am lying to protect a friend” or “I am denying that, because it is no-one’s business”. This is WHO died in your place if you believe in Him! You lied many times over, He never did! You deserved death, He never did!

Now denials are not always sin if they are truthful, if you truly did not do what you are accused of whether that be good or bad or indifferent. And again, whether or not man believes you is of no consequence, it is whether God believes you and He knows the truth!

Lastly, since denials are a deep seeded sin part of a pride engrained in us, just because one has been born-again doesn’t automatically mean they’ll never falsely deny things to their fellow man, but the difference will come in the automatic/immediate conviction of that sin because they KNOW they just sinned before God and will be disciplined and commanded to repent. One who is being sanctified will grow to not deny, but to tell the truth, pride is being taken away if indwelled by the Holy Spirit. One who has claimed to be a Christian for decades should not be a habitual liar in other words.

I know it is easy to say “do not deny what you did, tell the truth!”, but hard to put in practice, so ask God for help in this! Ask for His provision to be Christ-like and always strive to confess and be as honest and truthful as you can despite feelings, emotions, etc. Telling the truth sets you free, denials put you in bondage to the sin of lying!