Swearing

In this verse James warns of another way that we can sin with our tongues. It’s by swearing. Swearing refers to the taking of an oath. An oath is a type of an oral contract before people and God. They have existed far longer than written contracts. In an oath a person is calling upon God as a witness. They are also asking Him to judge them if they are lying. They are necessary for one reason-people lie. And we know that people lie. People can’t be trusted. And we tend to feel a little better about trusting people if they take an oath.

Notice that James starts this verse out with “above all”. He is saying that this is the most important thing. It is essential that believers speak the truth. James has talked about our speech a lot. He has identified the tongue as a source of many different sins. But he says here that lying is the one we should be concerned about most of all. He says that lying leads to “condemnation”. He’s talking about the judgment of God. So this is a pretty serious issue. This verse really echoes what Jesus says in Matthew 5:33-37. So let’s look at both of these passages together. Jesus fleshes it out a little more than James does.

At first glance it may seem that this pretty simple. We shouldn’t swear, period. However, as we consider our own lives and other passages in the Old and New Testament, that interpretation runs into problems.

* Does this mean that we can’t get married? The marriage vows are an oath we take before the Lord. We promise to love and cherish our spouse as long as we live. Is God saying this is wrong?

* Does this mean that we cannot testify in court? In order to testify we have to swear to tell the truth. Is that wrong?

Some groups would say that it is a sin to do such things. They take a very shallow view of these verses without considering the rest of Scripture. Consider the following truths:

1) The Old Testament commands us to swear. “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; Him shalt thou serve, & to Him shalt thou cleave, and swear by His name.” Deut. 10:20

2) Paul invoked God as a witness on several occasions (Rom. 1:9, 2 Cor. 1:23, Phil. 1:8, 1 Thess. 2:5, 10).

3) Jesus testified under oath before Caiaphas (Matt. 26:63-64).

Hebrews 6:16 gives us an understanding of what the purpose of an oath is. It says “For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife”. The purpose of an oath is to give greater authority to what is being said. The intent is to prove the truthfulness of a statement. The oath is to put to silence any doubt about the reliability of a statement.

In Jesus and James day oaths were being abused, especially by the religious hypocrites. Truth was being squandered as men increased in their desire to deceive one another. Obviously the religious people of Jesus day did not trust one another. If they did, there would have been no reason to make so many oaths. There was some degree of reverence for God left however. Instead of swearing by God’s name, they began to swear by other things. Jesus mentions four of those things.

* By heaven

* By earth

* By Jerusalem

* By your own head

To swear by one of these things was kind of like crossing your fingers. You didn’t have to be telling the truth because none of these things were as great as the name of God. It was a type of loophole for people who wanted to appear sincere but were not. The rabbis and religious leaders taught people to keep their oaths, however they also taught them ways to get out of keeping them. If they swore by these things they thought they did not have to fear any repercussions. Jesus revealed how ridiculous this type of thinking was in Matthew 23:16-22. To sum it up, Jesus is putting to rest the false belief that it’s okay to lie sometimes.

Jesus is not contradicting other truth found in the Old and New Testaments. He is correcting the false understanding of oaths that the teachers of His day put out there. Any time a person swears it is binding. God is in heaven, the earth is his footstool, Jerusalem is His special city and we belong to Him. In other words, anything we swear by is connected to the glory of God in some way because He is the Creator and owner of everything (Psalm 24:1). When Jesus says “Do not swear..” He is referring to swearing in the way that the culture swore and the corrupt religious leaders allowed. He is no more condemning all oaths than He was condemning all public prayer in Matthew 6:5-8.

Jesus is making an appeal for truthfulness. In verse 37 He teaches us that we should mean what we say. If we say “Yes”, we should mean “Yes”. If we say “No” we should mean “No”. If we say one thing and mean another we reveal a deceitful heart, which is evil. The abuse of oaths in Jesus day had weakened the truth. So many unnecessary and evasive oaths were used that the truth had taken a back seat. These actions prove what the Bible says about mankind in general. “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3).

We are born with a deceitful nature that encourages us to lie and justify what is untrue. In these passages Jesus wants to reveal that to us. There is not one person who is old enough to speak that can say with truthfulness they have never been deceitful. We have to recognize that and come to grips with what God says about it. Lying is not something that God takes lightly.

* Psalm 119:163 “I hate and abhor lying…”

* Proverbs 6:16-17 “These six things doth the Lord hate… a proud look, a lying tongue”.

* Proverbs 12:22 “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord”.

* Rev. 21:8 “And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire.”

The people of Jesus day had a corrupt heart that needed to be changed. They could no longer cover their deceitfulness with false oaths. On top of being murderers and adulterers, Jesus is now convincing them that they are liars and blasphemers! The rabbis and religious leaders excused their sin, but Christ condemned it. They needed to be changed and only Christ could change them.

It’s important for us to understand how all of this relates to us as believers. It is true that we have received a new heart. Because we love Christ, we love the truth. However, there is that natural man hiding in us who often wants to be deceitful. How does Christ’s teaching relate to us?

1) As believers we do not need to swear to reveal that we are telling the truth. We should not need to qualify any of our statements with “I swear to..” If we find ourselves doing this it may reveal deeper problems.

* It may reveal that we are not known for telling the truth. Therefore, we must convince our hearers that we are.

* It may reveal that we doubt ourselves. Sometimes an oath will even convince us that something that is untrue is indeed true.

* It may reveal we have an unhealthy desire to be believed by someone. This could be a sigh of the fear of man. We want their approval, acceptance, etc.

2) It is a serious thing to invoke the name of God. We hear God’s name used irreverently far too often in the church. One of these times is when a person desires to be believed. The second commandment forbids taking the name of the Lord in vain. We use His name in vain when we use it unnecessarily or irreverently. Believers should caution themselves in this area.

3) We should seek always to be people of integrity. When a person swears they are making a distinction between what they are saying at that specific time and what they say at other times. This is unnecessary for believers. We are called to always be truthful. Whether we are at work, school, home, the bank, or church should not matter. No matter the setting, the subject or the circumstances we should be people of truth.

4) We should remember that God sees our heart. We cannot cross our fingers behind our backs and think that God does not see it. As followers of Christ we should not try to down play the truth in any way. Sometimes we excuse ourselves by thinking “I’m not telling the truth, but I’m not lying”. We should be straightforward. There is no room for exaggeration or misinformation in the believer’s life. Far too often we say one thing and mean another. We give half truths as truth, all while our heart is condemning us. Sometimes it’s not what we say that makes us lie but what we fail to say. We shouldn’t be like the religious leaders of Jesus day who excused certain lies.

5) We should trust one another. This is how we can encourage one another to stop swearing. Sin has caused us all to be suspicious. Our kids have to cry out “Mom, I promise I did” before we will believe them. 1 Cor. 13:7 says “Love believes all things”. That means that if we are people of love we give the benefit of the doubt to the other person. We are not called to be the truth police. If we live in suspicion of those we love we encourage them to qualify their statements by swearing. Not only should we refrain from unnecessary oaths, we should also do what we can to help others refrain.