Matthew 5:33-36
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Matthew 5:33-36
ReplyDeleteQuestions:
- What is the modern day meaning of not swearing oaths?
It looks like there are two times we make oaths in our society: Marriage and the courtroom. One biblical example was when Paul took oaths with other men when he went to the temple.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reformed.org/webfiles/antithesis/index.html?mainframe=/webfiles/antithesis/v1n1/ant_v1n1_oaths.html says:
"an oath or promise is simply an agreement entered into between one person and another whereby the one taking the oath (1) explicitly or implicitly appeals to God to witness and sanction what he has said or committed himself to, and (2) calls God to judge and avenge His name if what he said is false or what he committed to do never comes to pass.
When one signs a form swearing that the information it contains is true, he is making an oath. When a bride and groom promise to remain married till death do them part, they are making an oath. When a party enters a contract, he is making an oath. When a courtroom witness swears to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he is making an oath.
The third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." . . .While the name of God is used comprehensively to refer ultimately to God Himself, the phrase translated in vain means "falsely" . . . we should refrain from appealing to the name of God to confirm or bear witness to a falsehood. . . . The third commandment, therefore, primarily requires us to honor our oaths and forbids us from violating them. When we appeal to God by means of oaths, we must honor God by honoring our oaths.
The general context of Scripture, when studied carefully, reveals that God does not forbid all oaths.
this passage proves beyond doubt that Christ is simply correcting Pharisaical abuses of and glosses on the Law. Christ constantly contrasts what the ancients said about the Law with what God says about the Law by repeating the formula: "Ye have heard that it was said...But I say unto you..." The Pharisees, for example, taught that the Law only forbade murder; Christ taught that the Law, properly understood, also forbade hate. The Pharisees taught that the Law only forbade adultery; Christ taught that the Law, properly understood, also forbade lust. The Pharisees taught that one was to love his neighbor and hate his enemy when the law affirmed the former but never even taught the latter!
Christ's opponents appeared to swear frequently and round-aboutly. Christ attacks both of these errors head on . . . partial list of Biblical guidelines for taking oaths:
1. The object of the oath must be Biblical.
2. What you are about to say must be true, or you must do what you are about to promise.
3. The oath must be necessary.
4. You must be prepared to abide by your oath no matter how your personal interests or circumstances may change.
http://rcg.org/questions/p174.a.html adds this:
ReplyDelete"God, through the apostle James, clearly states that Christians must not swear by an oath: “But above all things, my brethren, swear not…but let your yes be your yes; and your no, no; lest you fall into condemnation” (Jms. 5:12).
But God knows that we often lack the power to act on even our strongest desires and intentions. If a person were to swear an oath in God’s name and fail in it, he would be breaking the Third Commandment—taking God’s name in vain. If we do something that God commands us not to do, it is sin (I John 3:4).
We cannot bring God into a matter. He can bring Himself into a matter.
But what if one is called to testify in a courtroom? United States and Canadian law both provide for one to affirm the truth with a “yes” or “no”—the simple answers Christ and James admonish us to give. One is not required to raise his hand and swear."
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/oathswear.php says:
ReplyDelete"What is being condemned in the NT verses is not oath-taking per se, but flippant, casual oaths. The words "at all" in Matthew come from holos, which can mean simply, "not at all," but can also mean "commonly."
Now, who makes a serious, solemn oath on heaven, the earth, a city, or their own head? The NT is condemning people who treat oaths with contempt by making them thoughtlessly.
All ancient societies viewed oath-taking as dangerous, since they essentially called upon a deity to execute vengeance if the oath was not fulfilled. A flippant or false oath was in a real sense a blasphemy, a casual misuse of the name of God.
In the context of Jesus' own day, there existed a "popular abuse" of oath-taking in which surrogate objects were introduced to swear by, so as not to profane the divine name -- things like the right hand, Jerusalem, God's throne, and the head. Jesus also addresses this practice in his directive not to swear on such objects, as some thought it easier to break an oath if they swore on something inanimate rather than God.
What we therefore have here is an example of Jesus not disagreeing with the OT about oaths, but rather moving beyond the OT into an even more demanding standard that focuses on motivation rather than action (in the same manner as the "adultery in the heart" directive).
My two cents:
ReplyDeleteI think we are running into something that was a problem in those days - namely, taking flippant oaths on objects instead of God. I think Jesus was bringing this silliness into light and putting a stop to it. Whether you take the Lord's Name in vain or you just plain lie, they are both sin.
As far as wedding and court vows go, my guess is that we aren't sinning if we make a vow.
I think the take away for these verses is that we need to treat our words as our vows. Let our yes mean yes and our no, no. As in this and many other things Jesus said, we need to pay attention to the eternal principle rather than make new forms of legalism.