James 2:25
New American Standard Bible 1995
25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
Paidion and I took the hierarchical position that there is a hierarchy of moral laws and in some cases they conflict, i.e. saving a life (love) and truth telling. Love is the higher obligation so in rare cases telling a lie to save someone from murder, etc., is not a sin.
I recently found at my favorite bookstore, St Vincent DePaul Thrift, an old, excellent copy of "Christian Ethics" by Newman Smyth, International Theological Library, 1892. In chapter 3, "Duties Towards Others as Moral Ends" I was surprised to find a discussion concerning whether truth telling could ever be a sin. I had never thought of this. Smyth cited the following case:
Should he have told them a falsehood for the sake of giving them the truth? Are some (any) so called "white lies" not sin?An officer in our civil war was once taken captive during a confused fight in a piece of woods. The lines on both sides had become very much entangled during the engagement. The squad of Confederates into whose hands the officer had fallen were separated from their command, and did not know in which direction through the thick underbrush they should seek for their own lines. The Union officer heard them saying to one another, "ask the Yankee; he will lie, and we will go in the opposite direction." So he told them the truth, and by means of the truth which he knew would be received as a falsehood by his captors, he deceived them, leading them straight into his own command, and they became his prisoners.