Do Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain (3rd Commandment)

Introduction

English Standard Version Chapter 20

7 “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.

English Standard Version Chapter 19

12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.

English Standard Version Chapter 24

16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.

This week we’re continuing our series on the ten commandments, picking up where we left off with the third commandment. If you’ve been following our series through the commandments you should recall that the first four commandments make up the first table of the law, which focuses on man’s duty to God, or man’s duty to love and worship God. Whereas, commandments 5-10 make up the second table of the law, which focuses on man’s duty to one another, to love one another.

The first commandment is concerned with who we worship (God alone), the second and third commandments are concerned with how we worship, and the fourth commandment with when we worship, or the regularity of our worship. Furthermore, we can make a distinction between the second and third commandments. The second commandment regulates our worship, that we might worship God properly (that we’re forbidden to worship God using images), while the third commandment is concerned with the manner of our worship.

The command “not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” is concerned with the heart of our worship, or how we approach God in worship. That we’re commanded to approach God with a genuine reverence for his name, rather than with cheap lip-service. That we’re to treasure and honor his name. The word translated vain there in verse 7 means worthless, futile, or empty. Meaning that we’re forbidden from emptying God’s name of its value, or treating his name as though it’s worthless. For instance, this is why, when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he began by saying, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The third commandment is concerned with hallowing God’s name, or treating his name as holy. That we’re forbidden from profaning God’s name, or approaching God irreverently.

What’s in a name?

You see, God’s name reflects his character, his name is intended to sum up who he is. This is why God is known by so mny names and titles throughout the Bible, many of which you may be familiar with, such as El Elyon meaning God Most High, emphasizing God’s supreme power, authority, and sovereignty over creation, or El Shaddaii meaning God Almighty, emphasizing God’s power and ability to provide for and protect his people, or Yahweh Jireh meaning the Lord who provides, emphasizing his provision and care for his people, or Yahweh Rapha meaning the Lord who heals, emphasizing his power to heal and restore, or Yahweh Shalom meaning the Lord is peace, emphasizing that he is his people’s source of peace, and the list goes on and on.

Similarly, when we choose names for our children, we choose names not merely to distinguish them from one another, but usually because of the meanings those names carry with them. We choose the names of people from the past who we revere or look up to, or we choose names that possess certain meanings. We might name our children after people from the Bible because of the role they played in redemptive history, or because of the meaning of that particular name.

Furthermore, many of the characters in the Bible have names that end with the suffix yah, which is derived from God’s Hebrew name Yahweh, or Yah for short, such as Jeremiah, which means the Lord exalts, or Isaiah, which means the Lord is salvation, or Zechariah, which means the Lord remembers, and other names like Hezekiah, Obadiah, Elijah, and so on. All intended to reflect their relationship to God or to attribute to them something significant about God’s character.

We also see this illustrated in Matthew 1:21 when an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The Hebrew name translated Jesus is Yeshua which means the Lord saves. Furthermore, the text goes on to say that, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Now, I say all of this to simply point out that a name is not merely a label meant to distinguish us from other people, but that our names are intended to communicate something about us, and are associated with our identity. If I were to bring up your name to a mutual friend, your name would immediately bring to mind everything they know about you. Similarly, God’s name is associated with who he is, and what he is like. And while we might not live up to the names given to us, or have a name with a good reputation, God lives up to his name perfectly, and he has a name that is above every other name, therefore God’s name is to be revered by all above all, and we’re forbidden to empty it of its value, or to bring undue reproach upon his name, we’re forbidden from treating his name as though it were worthless. We’re expected to lift up his name and treat it as holy.

And if we don’t, we’re also told there in verse 7 that, “the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes him name in vain.” In fact, later, in Leviticus 24:16 Israel was warned that “whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.” And while we no longer live under Israel’s civil laws, God’s law is always just, therefore the punishment prescribed for Israel highlights the seriousness associated with taking the Lord’s name in vain. Therefore, this morning, I want us to consider what it looks like both to violate this commandment and to keep this commandment.

Phrases that violate the 3rd commandment

Now, while many Christians, in general, possess a shallow understanding of the 10 commandments, the 3rd commandment might be where our understanding is at its weakest. The reason I say that, is because if you were asked what it looks like to violate the 3rd commandment I suspect most answers would simply boil down to avoiding certain technical phrases like “Oh my God!”, “OMG!”, “Oh my gosh!”, or using God’s name alongside a curse word. And while violating the 3rd commandment certainly includes using God’s name in these profane or trifling ways, violating the 3rd commandment always goes much deeper than this.

To see what I mean, turn with me to Matthew chapter 12. In Matthew 12 we find the Pharisees blaspheming the Holy Spirit by attributing Jesus’ casting out of demons to the work of the devil, they attempt to discredit Jesus by attributing the Spirit’s works to the devil, and so they slander the Holy Spirit to do so, they bear false witness about the Spirit’s activity, they lie about him, which immediately provokes Jesus’ response there in Matthew 12:31-32, we read,

Matthew 12:31–32 (ESV)

... I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Most Christians know this event as the unforgivable sin. And Jesus’ interaction here with the Pharisees highlights the seriousness of their blasphemy, the seriousness of their violation of the 3rd commandment, and Jesus doesn’t take lightly their blasphemy.

Now, I want to make two observations about this text, the first, is that the Pharisees would have been undoubtedly scrupulous about how they used the Lord’s name when speaking about him, they would never have used the Hebrew equivalent of “Oh my God!”, “OMG!”, “Oh my gosh!”, or used God’s name alongside a curse word, yet when Jesus came along he revealed that their law keeping was superficial, and driven by other wicked motivations.

When Jesus came casting out demons by the power of the Spirit, the Pharisees were immediately exposed as frauds, it became clear that they had no genuine regard for God’s name, because when they were put to the test they didn’t hesitate to blaspheme the Spirit of God in the severest of ways, and thereby bringing upon their own heads the severest of consequences. In other words, merely watching what comes out of your mouth may not be enough, we must endeavor to discern whether we desire to honor God’s name as holy from the heart.

Secondly, Jesus then goes on in Matthew 12:33-37 to describe how a tree is known by its fruit, that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” In other words, when we profane the name of the Lord with our lips it indicates a much deeper problem, a problem that stems from the heart. Therefore, first, we must be careful not to think that we’ve necessarily kept the 3rd commandment merely by restraining our lips, and, second, we also shouldn’t conclude that the problem is merely with what we say, but that profaning God’s name with our lips indicates a much deeper issue.

Swearing by God’s name falsely

And so, this morning, I want to spend some time looking at what other ways the 3rd commandment is often broken that frequently goes undetected, and then, in turn, how we might endeavor to keep it. First, we need to understand that the 3rd commandment was primarily understood as forbidding Israel from swearing by God’s name falsely. We read later in Leviticus 19:12,

Leviticus 19:12 ESV

You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

In other words, if you invoke God’s name when making an oath or a vow, you’re expected to keep it, lest you take the Lord’s name in vain. You see, the point of invoking God’s name when making an oath is to give other parties assurance that you’ll keep your word since it would risk calling down God’s retribution upon your head if you don’t.

Or to put it another way, if you invoke God’s name when making an oath, but fail to keep it, you give everyone the impression that God’s name doesn’t bear any weight, or that calling upon God as your witness shouldn’t give others any assurance that you’ll keep your word. When you don’t keep your word, you’re communicating to other people that God won’t necessarily keep his either.

God’s reputation

Now, it’s absolutely crucial for us to understand that God takes the reputation of his name very seriously. In fact, there’s nothing more important to him than his own name. And I don’t think most Christians realize this, or have really thought this through. Instead, I think most Christians think that what he’s most concerned with is them. In other words, we’re inclined to think that this whole story is about us.

Now, I don’t think most Christians have thought about it like that, or even considered it, but the fundamental reason God ever acts, is for his name’s sake. Scripture tells us over and over again that he defers his anger for the sake of his praise (Isaiah 48:9-11), that he saved Israel for his name’s sake (Psalm 106:8), that he forgives our sin for his name’s sake (Psalm 25:11), and that he has predestined us according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace (Eph. 1:5-6). And my point is this, if God’s chief concern in all the universe is his own name, then we should take him very seriously when he says there in Exodus 20:7 that he “will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”

Avoiding keeping our word

Now, this doesn’t mean that we get to break our oaths or go back on our word as long as we don’t invoke God as our witness. This doesn’t mean that we’re only obligated to keep our word when we invoke God’s name. No, the purpose of an oath in our fallen world is to aid us in keeping our word when making important or extended commitments such as telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth when testifying in a court of law, or when we make lifelong wedding vows.

However, this was the logic employed by the Pharisees in Jesus’ day in order to avoid keeping their word under certain conditions. They would purposefully swear by the temple, or by the alter, or by heaven and earth rather than by God’s own name, because they thought by doing so they could sidestep the 3rd commandment. They thought they could create for themselves an out by swearing by something other than God’s own name. They played games with God’s law.

Which is why Jesus addressed the issue in his Sermon on the Mount, and then latter in his famous seven woes of the Pharisee in Matthew 23:16-22, listen to what he said,

Matthew 23:16–22 ESV

“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.

which is why he previously told his disciples in his Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:33-37) that they’d be better off not making any oaths at all (if their example was the Pharisees), and that they should just let their ‘Yes’ be yes, and their or ‘No’ be no, because anything more than that would only come from evil.

Now, he wasn’t forbidding them from swearing oaths that invoked God’s name, but he was making the point that it would have been better for them not to swear an oath at all if they were simply looking for a way out of keeping it. And I think all of us can relate to this, probably more than we’d like to admit, when we find ourselves looking for a way out of keeping our own commitments. When we think our commitments are causing us to lose out on something or causing us to miss out on an opportunity, and all of a sudden we begin to diminish the significance and the binding nature of our prior commitments in order to weasel out of them.

And my broader point here is simply this, that the 3rd commandment forbids us from swearing by God’s name falsely, that when we fail to keep our word we take God’s name in vain, even when we don’t invoke his name, because, you see, as Christians we bear the name of Christ wherever we go. When we lie we take God’s name in vain, we tarnish his name, and bring reproach upon his name. When you don’t keep your word, you’re communicating to others that God won’t necessarily keep his either. That you do not fear him, or take him seriously, and therefore they shouldn’t either.

God’s name as leverage

It also follows that we’re forbidden from using God’s name to deceive or to lie. We might say, “I swear to God” in an attempt to convince someone to believe us when our word has been called into question, but we’re not permitted to use his name merely to gain leverage or to deceive others. God’s name is not meant to be used as a tool for leverage or as a cover for deception.

Blasphemy

We’re also forbidden from lying about God, or what we call blasphemy. We’ve already seen how serious blasphemy is back in Matthew 12 when the Pharisees attributed the works of the Holy Spirit to the devil, and Jesus told them that their blasphemy would not be forgiven, or in Leviticus 24:16 when the Israelites were warned that “whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death.” While these are more extreme cases of 3rd commandment violations, they’re more prevalent than we might think, and we're probably more at risk to them than we might assume.

False teaching

One form of blasphemy, or lying about God, is false teaching. When false teachers lie about God they’re taking his name in vain, they’re teaching something untrue about God. This can be done deliberately or out of ignorance. Jesus told his disciples to beware of false prophets and that many would come as wolves in sheep's clothing. And the Apostle Paul wrote that these false teachers would disguise themselves, just as Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Which is why we must always be on guard, and always sharpening our faculties of discernment by being intimately familiar with the word of God, and knowing how to rightly divide it, because if you don’t you will be lead astray and unwittingly join them in their blasphemy.

This is why cults are so dangerous, cults like Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Hebrew Israelites, and so on. These cults teach various degrees and types of heresy, or teachings that are ultimately damning to it’s adherents, teachings that fundamentally distort the Gospel or the definitional truths of Christianity.

There are also many well meaning teachers out there who aren’t deliberately leading people astray but who are still doing great damage to the church due to their ignorance of the Scriptures. This is why Jesus’ brother James wrote in James 3:1 that, “not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” This is why every teacher should tremble whenever they step up to the pulpit, that they would not blaspheme the name of God, and lead others astray to do the same. Having qualified elders within the context of the local church is essential to guarding the church from taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Jealous for God’s name

This is also why, as Christians, we’re commanded to contend for the faith, to correct our opponents, and to destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to Christ, because we’re jealous for his name. In fact, one of the hallmarks of a Christian is that they’re jealous for God’s name, and that they’re bothered when his name is blasphemed among the nations. For example, many of you may have seen portions of the opening ceremony for the Olympics in Paris, where, throughout the ceremony, Christianity was deliberately mocked in some of the most vile ways, which should rightly bother anyone who is jealous for God’s name.

Putting words in God’s mouth

Another way we might be at risk of taking the Lord’s name in vain is when we attribute our own thoughts, words, or actions to the Holy Spirit, when they are not his own. Many Christians have become very accustomed to talking as though God has spoken to them directly, that God lead me to do this or that, or to go here or there. While there’s nothing wrong with perceiving the hand of God in our lives, we must be very careful not to put words into his mouth. Or assume that our own feelings or thoughts are necessarily his. We should avoid asserting that God told us this or that, lest we risk putting words in God’s mouth. Furthermore, whenever we make a claim that God has told us to do this or that we prevent others from questioning our plans, because who could presume to question what God supposedly told you to do?

This is also why prophecy is taken so seriously in the Bible, and why a person in Israel would have been stoned for prophesying falsely, if they had spoke on God’s behalf when God had not, because to do so would have been to deliberately take the Lord’s name in vain.

Hypocritical worship

We must also guard against worshiping God hypocritically, that we don’t lift up the Lord’s name in vain. This is fundamentally a result of worship which is devoid of faith, or without faith. Hebrews 11:6 says that “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that the rewards those who seek him.”

False professions

One of the issues that plagues the church, and will until Christ returns, are false professions of faith, tares among the wheat as Jesus put it in Matthew 13, those who call themselves Christians, who claim to be Christians, who claim to follow Christ, and identify themselves with Christ, but do so in vain. They make empty professions, calling Jesus their Lord yet never doing what he tells them. They bear the name of Christ, but do so in vain, and by their lives they bring undue reproach upon Christ’s name.

Baptism

This is why a local church should be careful who they baptize, and who are allowed into church membership. Not that we make it difficult to be baptized, but that we’re careful to baptize those who demonstrate credible professions of faith, baptizing those who give evidence of genuine faith, because those who have been baptized bear the name of Christ, because they have identified themselves with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. We take baptism seriously because we take God’s name seriously.

Church discipline

A local church should also take church discipline seriously. It’s members should be encouraged to confront one another when necessary and to forgive one another, and should the circumstances require, be willing to remove those who are unrepentant from membership, ultimately with the hope and aim that their brother might repent and be restored to them, and we’re not slack in practicing church discipline because we know that the local church bears the name of Christ, and that the conduct of that church’s members is intended to glorify God. 1 Peter 2:12 says to “keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

Lip-service and empty piety

Another form of hypocritical worship is lip-service and empty piety. Jesus famously described the Pharisee in Matt 15:8-9 as a people who “honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” Our worship is not intended to be mere lip-service and empty piety. The Pharisees were known for praying loud and long prayers in order to be heard, public displays of righteousness, making a show of their giving, and drawing attention to themselves and their fasting with disfigured faces, but their love and devotion wasn’t directed at God, but to the praise of men. They leveraged God’s name only to gain wealth and accolades.

Conclusion

These are some of the many ways that we bear God’s name falsely. In summary, when we falsely swear by his name, breaking our oaths, we give everyone the impression that God’s name doesn’t bear any weight, or that calling upon God as our witness shouldn’t give others any assurance that we’ll keep our word. When we don’t keep our word, we’re communicate to others that God won’t necessarily keep his either. Secondly, we bear God’s name falsely when we try to avoid keeping our word by swearing by so-called lesser things, backing out of our commitments, and diminishing the significance of keeping our word, regardless of whether or not we invoked God as our witness or not, because our yes should be yes, and our no should be no. Thirdly, we should never use God name as leverage to deceive or to lie. Fourthly, we’re forbidden from lying about God, whether purposefully or out of ignorance, that false teaching is dangerous and a form of blasphemy. Fifthly, we’re never to put words in God’s mouth, always careful not to assume that our thoughts are his thoughts, or that our words are his words, and lastly, guarding against hypocritical worship, understanding the dangers of false professions of faith, that a local church should be careful who they baptize and accept into membership, no become lax in church discipline, all to guard and protect the name of Christ, and not offering lip-service or empty piety, but worship that treasures and honors God, not drawing attention to ourselves but giving glory to God.

Prayer