Demand #38 – Do Not Take an Oath – Cherish the Truth and Speak it Simply
Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.” But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil.
—Matt. 5:33-37
Truth is a big deal with a Holy God. I still remember the first time I saw God address measurement as an issue of righteousness. I remember wondering if all of our tape measures and bathroom scales were up to snuff. I think some people don’t want accurate bathroom scales. What does God think about that?
Leviticus 19:35-36 “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Of course the primary focus is on units of measure used in commerce but God loves truth and hates falsehood.
For Ordinary People Truth Is Precious
We may talk about epistemology and philosophically argue that we can’t be certain of the truth but nobody has those arguments when they are pulling out into traffic and a cement truck is coming at them at 65 miles per hour. We depend on truth even if we like to play philosophical games at times. Mr. Madoff is in trouble for misrepresenting the truth and no amount of philosophy will give him off of that charge.
“I Have Come to Bear Witness to the Truth”
Jesus confirmed the ninth commandment, “Do not bear false witness” (Mark 10:19) for us and told us that “deceit” comes out of the heart and defiles us (Mark 7:21-22). To religious hypocrites Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). And at the end of his ministry, he said to Pontius Pilate, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). And of course Jesus had already said, “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6).
As Christians, we have special help with the truth. Jesus said, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26). Jesus prayed for us saying, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
The Folly of Crossing Your Fingers and Crossing Your Heart
In the verse we used to begin this lesson evil (Matt. 5:33-37), Jesus demands that we not use tricks to avoid keeping a promise and he demands that we be so truthful that no one would think we need an oath.
Technical Evasions of Promise-keeping
One approach to avoid fulfilling a promise is to swear in a particular manner that you believe will not result in any liability before God when you don’t keep your promise. In effect they were assuming that God would not hold them to their promise if they promised in a certain way. When we were kids we would say we had our fingers crossed. It seems an especially blasphemous way to tell a lie doesn’t it? We make the symbol of the cross with our fingers and then tell a lie. Well we certainly hit a home run with that approach. There are not categories of promises in God’s eyes. Either you made a promise in truth or you didn’t. There is no righteous way for you to make a promise that you don’t intend to keep. That should seem obvious but sometimes the idea that God cares about our promises seems new to us.
Truth Evasion by Belittling God
The Pharisees tried to avoid telling the truth by swearing by something lesser than God. This was not well received by Jesus (Matthew 23:16-22) who said Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.” You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, “If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.” You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
We can even enter into a form of idolatry when we swear by “things” since they can’t hear us or witness our vow or judge us for failure to perform our vows. To swear by our “Dear Departed Sainted Mother” may sound sweet but it is idolatrous since my departed mother is done judging me as sweet as she was. However, God isn’t done with me yet.
Ultimately God is the only witness of truth so we know that He hears our every word and that truth has a fundamental place in all our communications.
Demand #39 – Do Not Take an Oath – Let What You Say be Simply “Yes” or “No”
And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil.
—Matt. 5:36-37
But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so.”
—Matt. 26:63-64
A New Standard of Truthfulness
God wants us to have a very plain view of truth and falsehood. Jesus says that we are to simply say “yes” or “no”. It is a much simpler way to approach the question of telling the truth. We just tell the truth and we don’t have categories for telling lies. Oaths in day to day life are a sign of our sin nature and Jesus moved from the Old Testament version of oaths to a New Testament command to not use any and just tell the truth. (Matt. 5:34, 37; Luke 11:20; 17:21). As the Holy Spirit fills and empowers us we are able to move to a new standard.
We Look to Oaths to Do What Love Does Not Do
We live in a world in which trust is hard to come by because of the damage done by our sin natures. Distorting the truth is “spinning” it rather than telling a lie. In a political context we are expected to listen to two liars and then arrive at the truth. I’m not sure that has ever been an effective means of finding the truth.
People I work with will sometimes make it clear that they are having “trust issues” with something I’ve said. Sometimes I’ll say, “I’ve never lied to you.” which generally gets a response of something like, “You are so full of it.” I have to laugh because, by God’s grace, they can’t accuse me of lying and they trust me but it bothers them so they tell me I’m full of “it”.
We live in a fallen world and those in the world sometimes need a way to reassure themselves that they are hearing the truth. The night before Jesus died the priest said to Him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. 26:63). Jesus, in essence, simply replied, “you said it” or yes. It was truth but the priest took it to be blasphemy in his ignorance.
Should the Followers of Jesus Ever Take an Oath?
On first read you could say no vows of any type ever. However, (Using Scripture to Interpret Scripture) there is a biblical provision for sacred vows and oaths; that is, there are lawful places and lawful kinds of vows and oaths that we take.
In fact, a covenant is not a covenant without a vow, and that's what we're doing when we take vows in marriage and in other situations, such as those involving contractual agreements—we are entering into a covenant. The whole basis of our relationship to God is based on vows and oaths, oaths that God swears, because he can swear by nothing greater than himself.
Based on the totality of scripture, there's nothing intrinsically wrong about the swearing of oaths and taking of vows, it seems that Jesus was objecting to using vows to avoid telling the truth all the time.
The swearing of an oath unto God or before God is an act of worship because in that vow we are saying, “So help me God,” which is what we say in the courtroom: “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” I'm taking an oath before God and acknowledging that as a fallen man I need God to help me be accurate in all I say.
I am acknowledging at that moment that God is omniscient, He is there, He sees everything that I do, He can hear the words that I'm saying; God is sovereign over my vows, and He has authority over my vows. I'm recognizing God as God at the moment I take an oath. It's a religious act at that point.
In the courtroom, we're actually taking a vow to God, not to the Bible. We don't ask the Bible to bear witness to our vows. We don't ask that book to listen in on us, to be the judge of our consciences or be sovereign over us. I don’t know where we ever got that symbolic practice of placing the hand on the Bible. In my mind it is to acknowledge having received God’s revelation of Himself and His demands and in particular His promise to punish sinners and especially liars. As long as you don't swear to or by the Bible it is legitimate to swear on the Bible.
For the unsaved it simply means that now if they lie they will be subject to punishment by law (perjury). For the saved it should be an act of worship as we call upon God to hear and judge our testimony.
But Beware of Taking the Edge Off of Jesus’ Radical Demand for Truth
“You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn” (Matt. 5:33). You can never lean on an oath as a way to decide what you should do or not do. When we take oaths in solemn occasions it is not the oath that is to keep us bound to the covenant. It is our fear of God that binds us. George Washington was wrong when he said, “I cannot tell a lie.” Since he was human he could tell a lie. To be fair to him, perhaps the cherry tree was an invented story and perhaps he only meant he couldn’t tell a lie in that particular situation.
I pray Jesus would convict our hearts with a renewed desire to always speak as nearly and clearly what we know to be the truth as we, by His Grace, are able to speak.
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