Oaths and Honesty

Matthew 5:33-37

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking together at Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on The Mount and we are in the middle of a section where Jesus is revealing the true meaning behind various parts of the Old Testament law. Remember that Jesus said He did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, He came to fulfill (Matt. 5:17). He taught that His disciples are to be characterized by a righteousness that exceeds even the righteousness of the most religious people of His day, the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20).

Jesus gives us six examples of this in His sermon. Now in each of these cases, he shows us what that surpassing righteousness looks like by contrasting the superficial obedience they were taught by the scribes and Pharisees with the genuine obedience to the true spirit of the law that God intended.

Jesus isn’t interested in a superficial, outwardly religious conformity to God’s law. Instead, He desires that, from the heart, we understand the true ‘spirit’ of what God wants from us in His commandments; and that, having grasped that true spirit, we then seek to obey His commandments with all our heart.

This morning, we continue our study of Jesus’ instruction on the law of God by looking at Matthew 5:33-37. There, Jesus spoke to His disciples and said,

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:33-37).

In this section, Jesus is talking about the importance of honesty and integrity in all that we say and do. Jesus is particularly talking about taking oaths in this passage, but his words would also apply to the promises and vows that we make. These are all similar. A “vow” is a solemn promise or pledge before God or before men, but an oath specifically means bringing God into the equation. When you take an oath, you are calling on God as your witness that you are telling the truth, and you are calling on God as your judge should you be lying or should you break your word. At the heart of this subject is the conviction that God truly is, that He takes very seriously the things we say and that we are accountable to God.

As His followers, Jesus is calling us to be people of the truth—people who say what we mean and mean what we say. God Himself is a God of absolute, unfailing truth. He speaks of things as they really are. He keeps every promise He makes and fulfills every word He utters. He does exactly what He says He will do, and He always keeps His promises. Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” That verse not only condemns us for our own untruthfulness, but it also shows the truthfulness and faithfulness of God. As we saw at the beginning of our worship service, Psalm 117 praises God “For His merciful kindness is great toward us, And the truth of the LORD endures forever.”

When God promises something, He bases that promise on Himself because there is no one higher than Himself and there is no one more true than He is. The writer of Hebrews states: “¹⁶ For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. ¹⁷ Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, ¹⁸ that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.” (Heb. 6:16-18). Two things confirm our salvation to us: that God (1) has pledged Himself with an oath; and (2) cannot ever lie.

This is what God is like. And Jesus says we are to be like Him, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48). What if everyone were to keep their word like God keeps His word? What if people never lied? If everyone suddenly kept the vows they make on their wedding day, what would happen to the divorce rate? Or if everyone were to keep their promises in business, how many corporate scandals would there be? And what would all the lawyers do?[1]

Essentially, the first sin that happened on the earth was a lie. Satan deceived Adam and Eve, which plunged the world into sin and destruction. From that point, lying is what humans do. In Romans 3:13, Paul described the effects of sin on humanity this way: ““Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”.” But Jesus’ disciples are to be different. We are to be true people of truth.

1. The Old Testament teaching on oaths (Matt. 5:33).

Jesus began by saying, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old . . .” And here, He’s referring to what the Jewish people had been taught concerning the law of Moses through their teachers. This verse follows the same pattern that the previous verses in this section have followed. In each case, Jesus begins by pointing out how the scribes and Pharisees have either restricted or misinterpreted the law, and then he goes on to tell the real meaning behind the law.

What does the Old Testament teach about oaths and honesty? Let’s begin with the third commandment: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7). They must not use God’s name in a false way or in a way that empties His name of its meaning. The ninth commandment was, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex. 20:16). They must not lie or perjure themselves in court. They were also taught to honor the vows that are made in God’s name. Leviticus 19:11-12 says, “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.” Numbers 30:2 says, “If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

And the common denominator in all of that is the name of God. The Jewish people took God’s name seriously. And so the Old Testament says we must not make any oaths in God’s name that are either not true or that we do not keep.

2. The loopholes and manipulation of oaths (Matt. 5:34-36)

Now, there was nothing wrong with the Old Testament law. Remember, Jesus upheld the authority of the whole Old Testament when he said: “I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.” (Matt. 5:17)

The problem was that, just as with murder and adultery, the Pharisees were reinterpreting the law to find a way out. The problem wasn’t with the Old Testament commands but with the Pharisees’ legal loopholes and the manipulation of oaths to get away with deception. What the teachers of the law had done was to shift people’s attention away from the need to keep the oath or vow to the formula used in making it. They argued that what the law was really prohibiting was not taking the name of the Lord in vain but taking the name of the Lord in vain. ‘False swearing’, they concluded, meant profanity (that is, profane use of the divine name), not perjury (a dishonest pledging of one’s word). So, they developed elaborate rules for the taking of oaths and vows. They listed which formulae were permissible, and they added that it was only sinful to break an oath whose formulae included the divine name. One need not be so particular, they said, about keeping vows in which the divine name had not been used.^[2]

It eventually came to be that vows would also be taken that were not “in His name” because they were vows that were not sincerely meant, or because they had no real intention of keeping them. There was what William Barclay[3] called “frivolous swearing”; that is, the taking of an oath when no oath was really needed or proper. They would say things like, “By the life of my head . . .”, “May I be struck dead if . . .” And then, there was something even worse, something Barclay called “evasive swearing”; that is, swearing by an oath that was so worded as to avoid making God into a partner. If God was not involved, then the vow didn’t have to be kept, or so they thought.

They made “one-step-removed” vows. They would make vows, calling upon the things of God; but not calling upon the name of God directly, thinking that they would avoid sinning if it became inconvenient to keep the oath. Jesus spoke of such vows in Matthew 23:16-22. He showed them that God was involved in these “one-step-removed” vows, even if they didn’t evoke His name directly. He spoke to the scribes and Pharisees and said,

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it” (Matthew 23:16-22).

This is what Jesus refers to in Matthew 5:34-37 when He says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.” They were attempting to take oaths and swear by God “one-step-removed.” They were swearing, for example, “by heaven”, or “by earth” or “by Jerusalem”, or even – as a popular phrase of that day had it – “by the life of their own head”. They thought that such oaths were useful because they added credibility to an otherwise questionable claim to honesty. And they also had the added benefit of being less binding than those that directly evoked the name of God.

They had taken the Old Testament allowances about swearing by God and His word and twisted them. When Leviticus 19:12 said not to swear falsely by the Lord’s name, they took that to mean that they could swear falsely by something other than the Lord’s name. When Numbers 30:2 said that if someone makes an oath to God, they must keep it, but they took that to mean that they could renege on those made to anyone other than God. They could leave themselves an out.[4] So, people were manipulating the truth.

What Jesus is teaching is that you cannot get away from your accountability to God. God hears all our words, sees our hearts, and knows what our intentions are. If He has promised to hold us accountable for every idle word we speak, then there is no “sacred” and “secular” distinction in our words. There are not some oaths that are binding, and others that are not binding. All our promises are as binding as if they evoked the name of God because they are always spoken in His hearing.

No wonder the apostle James says, “But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No,’” – quoting the words of our Savior, and adding “. . . lest you fall into judgment” (James 5:12).

What does Jesus teach instead?

3. Jesus’ teaching on truthfulness (Matt. 5:34, 37).

Jesus says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all . . .” Some have taken Jesus’ words to mean that, as His followers, we should never – under any circumstances – take an oath. Some traditions of Christendom have believed this; among them, for example, are the Quakers who will not even swear an oath in a court of law. Many fine Bible teachers believed this, Charles Spurgeon being among them. He said, “Whether in court of law, or out of it, the rule is, ‘Swear not at all’.”[5]

Those who hold this argument often look to Jesus’ own trial as an example. They say that He Himself was compelled to testify in a court of law; and yet, He seemed to refuse to speak under oath. The High Priest urged Him to answer the charges placed against Him, saying, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!“; and yet, Jesus answered, “It is as you said . . .” – which was almost like saying, “You have spoken the words yourself” (Matthew 26:63-64). Personally, I don’t believe this was an example of Jesus refusing to take an oath. I believe He was simply recognizing that He was standing before a hostile court that was already predetermined to execute Him; and that it didn’t matter what He said. He answered after being put under oath.

On the other side of the argument, there are many occasions in which Paul himself very clearly made use of oaths. Some of them are quite bold! He said, “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites . . .” (Rom. 9:1-4). He told the Galatians, “Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie” (Gal. 1:20). He said, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily” (1 Cor. 15:31). Or how about this one that he placed Timothy under: “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the word!” (2 Tim. 4:1-2). The writer of Hebrews points out that God Himself used an oath in confirming His promise to Abraham, “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” (Heb. 6:13-14).

I conclude, therefore, that when Jesus said, “do not swear at all” (Matt. 5:34), he was referring to the kind of so-called oath-taking promoted by the Pharisees in which they intended to secure acceptance for what they said without putting themselves at risk should they prove to be liars. In other words, if your appeal to something other than God is for the express purpose of escaping the force and sanction of the vow, you must not swear “at all”. It is that sort of swearing, not all swearing, that Jesus condemns.[6]

Jesus said that we are not to swear “by heaven, for it is God’s throne“. Nor are we to swear “by the earth, for it is God’s footstool“. Isaiah 66:1 says, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool.'” So, in a similar way to Jesus’ words in Matthew 23, if we swear by the throne of God, we swear by the God who reigns upon it and if we swear by His footstool, we swear by the God who places His feet upon it. Such “one-step-removed” oaths don’t let us off the hook after all.

Nor will it help if we swear “by Jerusalem“. There was an old rabbinical teaching that stated that it was binding to take an oath “TOWARD Jerusalem”, but not binding to take an oath “BY Jerusalem”. But that kind of hair-splitting won’t work either. As it says in Psalm 48:2, Jerusalem is “the city of the great King“. It is the place on this earth in which our Savior died; and it’s the place from which, we’re promised, He will reign. “God is in her palaces; He is known as her refuge” (Psalm 48:3). If we swear by Jerusalem, we swear by the great King who reigns there.

And even swearing by our head doesn’t avoid evoking God; because He has more authority over our heads than we ourselves do. Think about it! You and I can’t even turn one hair black or white (at least, not permanently). Only God has ultimate authority over all the things we possess, even over our own heads. God commanded His people that, when they swear by an oath, they were to swear only by His name. “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take your oaths in His name” (Deut. 10:20). Taking oaths in things “one-step-removed” from His name was an act of disobedience designed to cover up dishonesty.

The scribes and Pharisees were approaching this whole matter from the standpoint of the strict letter of the law. Their main concern was, “What is the bare minimum requirement with respect to oaths? Which oaths actually bind me to keep my promises; and which ones allow me some wiggle-room in case the promise becomes hard to keep?” But Jesus is calling us to be keepers of the true ‘spirit’ of God’s commandment. He is concerned to call us to a life of honesty and promise-keeping. Keener concludes, “Avoiding oaths is thus inadequate; the issue is telling the truth, because God witnesses every word we speak.”^[7]

Jesus got right to the heart of the matter, didn’t He? He said, “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’” (Matt. 5:37). In other words, He calls us as His followers to say what we mean and mean what we say. He calls us to become people of our word, people who keep the promises we make and who stand faithfully by our own word. We are to be like the person described in Psalm 15: “LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart” (Psalm 15:1-2). And among the other things mentioned that is true of such a person is this: “. . . He swears to his own hurt and does not change . . .” (v. 4). We are to develop a reputation for being the kind of people whose “yes” truly means yes; and whose “no” truly means no. This is an emphatic way of saying, “Whatever comes out of your mouth, let it be truthful. Do not hide behind even culturally accepted ways of shading the truth.” As followers of God, we are to step out of that normal tendency. We are to be men and women of integrity who speak the truth clearly to one another.^[8]

Everything that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount comes back to the reality that God sees straight into our hearts. He sees the malice and murder in our hearts when we cling to anger toward a brother or sister. He sees the adultery in our hearts when we gaze longingly at another woman. He is the only lie detector with 100% accuracy! The righteousness that comes from God cares infinitely more about what God sees than what man sees!

Jesus closes by telling us, “For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” We may find ourselves buttressing our everyday statements with oaths because we have a reputation for failing to keep our word – which demonstrates a habit pattern of sin. Or we may find ourselves buttressing our statements that evoke the name of God sinfully, which is nothing less than lying, and in which case we’re modeling ourselves after the evil one who is a liar from the beginning! In either case, we must repent!

God our Father is a God of truth. He keeps all His promises. May we increasingly become like our Heavenly Father in our everyday dealings. If we do so, we will not need to reinforce ourselves with unnecessary and sinful oaths. Then, we will truly be people of our word to the glory of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[1] Greg Allen, https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2004/103104.htm . I adapted Allen’s outline and some of his points in developing this sermon.

^[2] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 100.

[3] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 159.

[4] Danny Hall, To Tell the Truth, https://cdn.pbc.org/Main_Service/2004/02/14/14708_4907.html

[5] Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Popular Exposition of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Zondervon Publishing House, 1962), p. 29.

[6] Sam Storms, https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/matthew-5:33-37

^[7] Craig S. Keener, Matthew, vol. 1, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), Mt 5:33–37.

[8] Danny Hall, To Tell the Truth, https://cdn.pbc.org/Main_Service/2004/02/14/14708_4907.html