To Swear or Not to Swear (Part 1)

Matthew 5:33-37

Many years ago, I purchased a house and for some reason, I can’t remember why I had to swear an oath. It was something to do with the property having a “flying freehold”. Anyway, as a result of the conveying process Paula and I had to go to a solicitor in church street in Blackpool and they wanted me to raise my right hand and take an oath I had to swear that what I was about to say was the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and had to place my hand on a Bible to do it.

I have a question for you, should I have taken that oath, I mean this was not a question of whether I had done anything wrong it was a simple matter of requiring me to tell the truth about the situation regarding the purchase of our first home together. But the question is should have taken the oath, because in the sermon on the mount Jesus said, do not swear an oath at all. So was I in violation of the sermon on the mount if I took the oath.

Let me ask you a question have you ever been in that situation that required you to swear an oath, it used to be part of the preparation process of getting married under English common law. Who has ever done jury service and was required to take an oath. If you appear in the witness box at a trial, you take an oath under the penalty of perjury that what you’re saying is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well Jesus said do not swear at all, so have a significant number of us violated what Jesus taught on the sermon on the mount.

Exactly what did Jesus mean here? Well, this has some profound ramifications just beyond even oath taking so let me invite your attention to Matthew chapter 5 Matthew chapter 5 and I’m going to begin reading with reading verses 33 -37 and then we will return and work through this short passage, verse by verse.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfil 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: 33-37)

What I’d like for us to do over the next two episodes is first of all just look at the command that’s given here, “Do not swear”, and I want to try and give a clarification of what that means. Then in the next episode try and give some very practical suggestions that rise out of a correct understanding of this statement by Jesus.

So, let’s begin with the command itself. The first thing you need to notice is that this is in the sermon on the mount and we’ve been going through the sermon on the mount we’ve come to this passage but let me remind you again that the gist text of the sermon on the mount is chapter 5 verse 20, which says, “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes from the Pharisees you shall in no way enter into the Kingdom of God”.  From that verse onwards through the rest of the chapter Jesus gives 6 illustrations of what he means he by that.

He talks about murder, adultery, unauthorized divorce, unlawful attitudes of revenge and hatred, and we have covered all of those over these last few weeks.

But now he is saying in this passage,

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfil to the Lord the vows you have made.

(Matthew 5: 33)

He begins by saying,  “You have heard it said”, So in each of these six areas he’s talking about what is being commonly taught by the scribes and the Pharisees about the original commandment given to Moses, not the commandment itself. By Jesus then saying, “but I say unto you” he’s saying what he is giving a clarification in each of these six areas.

Notice he does not say it is written, he says you have heard that said, so he’s not clarifying or correcting the Old Testament he is correcting the Pharisees and their interpretation of the original commandment. The real subject here is righteousness and I want to talk about first of all what the Old Testament said and then we’ll look about what the scribes and the Pharisees said. So, let’s begin with just the Old Testament said about swearing. The book of Leviticus says swearing was totally forbidden,  in all cases at all times. Here is Leviticus 19: 12 says.

Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.

(Leviticus 19:12)

So the first thing that the Old Testament said was that you should not swear falsely and this is no doubt about the taking of an oath in court and oath was a solemn affirmation made with an appeal to God and it's the same thing today. But the essence of this idea is that what I'm about to say I’m saying with God as my witness. The idea is that if I’m not telling the truth, I’m going to inherit his favour in fact I will incur his wrath. So, I’m appealing to God for the truthfulness of what I’m about to say assuming that God knows everything I am saying is true or not and I’m in trouble with him if I don’t tell the truth. Let me put it like this, when we are witness in court and you take the card in your hand and swear on the Bible you are taking an oath under the penalty of perjury. Perjury is a serious criminal offense that can get you prision time more than a few people have gone to jail not because they committed any other crime other than they didn’t tell the truth when they took an oath. 

What Jesus is dealing with and what the Old Testament is saying is this you’re not just in trouble with government if you take an oath falsely, you’re in trouble with God. The point Moses was making is don’t take this oath and then use God to cover your lies. That is exactly what it means and that why it is such a serious commandment. There’s another Old Testament passage in numbers that Moses spoke to the heads of the  of Israel about this. 

Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands: 2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

(Number 30: 1-2)

So, the second thing the Old Testament says is don’t swear falsely and if you do swear make sure you do what you said you were going to do. In other words, if it’s an oath pertaining to an agreement make sure that you keep the agreement. That’s the backdrop of what Jesus is talking about in this passage that’s what the Old Testament said but as I said a moment ago Jesus is not dealing directly with the Old Testament. He doesn’t say you’ve seen it written he says you've heard it said and that's because he's not talking about what was written in Exodus, Leviticus or numbers he’s talking about what the scribes and the Pharisees taught about what was written in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

The question is in contrast to the Old Testament what was it that the Pharisees were doing and what were they saying that Jesus is trying to correct. Well, here’s what they did, the Pharisees said if you take an oath and it contains the name of God that’s binding, but if you were to take an oath and the divine name of God was not mentioned then it was not binding upon you. The idea behind this is if you use God’s name then God becomes a partner with what you’re saying but if you just do not mention God’s name you can swear by anything else and you just don’t mention God’s name then God has nothing to do with what you said, and it is not binding. You can imagine all the sorts of empty promises and agreement that led to. People would go around and swear on Jerusalem, or I swear by heaven, I swear by earth, I swear on my wife’s or my children’s life, but as long as they didn’t mention the name of God it meant nothing.

Swearing became the impression of telling the truth but as far as they were concerned that was not binding. The bottom line of all this and is the Pharisees were using oaths indiscriminately and frivolously and they were using them to sidestep the truth. I’ve racked my brain to figure out a modern parallel and one of the things I remembered when I was a child growing up in Norther Ireland some people usually children would swear to tell the truth but cross your fingers behind their backs and because they were crossed, they believed they could actually tell a lie. That’s what Jesus is talking about here and that’s what the Pharisees were doing. They were saying a swear by Jerusalem but because they didn’t say God in the oath they didn’t have to keep it. But there is an extension to this in that people then and today will sometimes fudge the truth and tell the truth but just add a little something to it or remove a little something. Telling the truth but in a way that it is used to cover the truth.  This can be done frivolously or it can be used deceptively so with that in mind let’s see what Jesus says in terms of a clarification. Jesus is correcting that perversion of the Mosaic legislation so he says in verse 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. 

(Matthew 5: 34-36)

Initially he said, “do not swear” that’s your sounds pretty absolute doesn’t it. I mean if you just took those words by itself you’d say that is an absolute statement. Don’t swear at all, as matter of fact a number of people in church history have interpreted this to mean that you should not ever take an oath ever. Anabaptists and the Quakers made this a universal prohibition on all oaths.  I have a friend who takes this verse literally and does not feel that he can take an oath, even in court. So, there are still people today  who take this statement literally and refuse to take an oath, some good and godly people have taken that interpretation and have had the courage to carry it out they are to be commended, but I believe they are wrong, and I will try and show you why later.And to understand this we need to do two things Firstly we need to look at the Old Testament passage Jesus is quoting here to make is point. And secondly, we need to understand the difference between God saying something is absolute and something is universal, and we shall do that in the next episode.