THE DANGER OF THOUGHTLESS OATHS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 2, 2024 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: October 2, 2024 from James 5:12

Theme: Under times of pressure, we must especially be on guard against making thoughtless oaths before God.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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There are many ways that the Bible shows itself to us to be a divine book from God. One of those ways is in how it calls us to take seriously things that we may think of as unimportant.

Consider ‘oaths’ for example. Few of us who are followers of Jesus would ever dare think of using strong profanity or crude language. And yet, many of us give little thought to thoughtless oaths and hasty vows that may proceed out of our mouths—statements by which we recklessly make promises before God that we cannot or don’t really intend to keep. In the midst of his letter to the believers under his care, the Holy Spirit led Pastor James to make a very big deal about just that very thing. He warned his readers to beware of the kind of pledges and promises that may come out of their mouths in moments of excitement or tension. In James 5:12, he wrote;

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,” lest you fall into judgment (James 5:12).

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Now; the word “but” connects this verse to the immediate context of the previous verses of Chapter 5. Pastor James had been writing to his brothers and sisters in Christ about the oppression they were suffering, and the persecution they were experiencing—all at the hands of evil people who were treating them unjustly and taking advantage of them (see verses 1-6). And so, he encouraged them—in the light of the Lord’s promised return—to be patient in their endurance and to establish their hearts in hope (vv. 7-8). He encouraged them to cease from grumbling against one another (v. 9), and to look to the examples of the patience of the Old Testament prophets and learn from God’s good outcome toward them (vv. 10-11).

But why, in such a context as that, would James close off—in verse 12—with an exhortation about not swearing by oaths? It would be important, first of all, to understand …

1. WHAT JAMES WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT.

Many have misunderstood him to be forbidding all forms of oath-taking—such, for example, as we see in the courts of law or official agreements. An oath in those cases would be an appeal made before God—who alone can see into the heart and read the thoughts—regarding the truth of what was being said or the sincerity of the commitment that was being entered into. And because of James’ words, there have been some religious groups that have abstained from all oaths completely.

But this could not be what James was talking about. If James had been forbidding all oaths of any kind, he would have been teaching something that would have been inconsistent with what the Bible teaches elsewhere:

In the Old Testament law, God had commanded his people that oaths were permitted; but only to be taken in His name. In Deuteronomy 6:13, God Himself said, “You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.” This was a way of establishing that they worshiped no other god but Him, since there could be no one higher than He by whom to bind themselves in an oath. Deuteronomy 10:20 says, “You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.” And Hebrews 6:13-18 reflects this when it speaks of the reliability of God’s own promises to Abraham and says;

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.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 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 (Hebrews 6:13-18).

God even repeated such an oath by His own hand in promising the land of Israel to the Jewish people; telling them, “for I raised My hand in an oath to give it to your fathers” (Ezekiel 47:14).

What’s more, even the Lord Jesus Himself recognized the legitimacy of an oath before God by the fact that He responded to an official call issued by just such an oath. While under trial before the high priest, our Lord stood silent. But in Matthew 26:63-64, we read;

And the high priest answered and said to Him, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!” Jesus said to him, “It is as you said” (Matthew 26:63-64a).

The apostle Paul repeatedly used oaths to testify to the truthfulness of his own words on matters of ministry and doctrine; saying such things as, “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 1:23); or “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying” (2 Corinthians 11:31); or “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 9:1); or “Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie” (Galatians 1:20). What’s more, he even bound others by an oath to do their duty. He told Timothy “I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing with partiality” (1 Timothy 5:21); or “I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate …” (6:13); or “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” (2 Timothy 4:1).

Even an angel took an oath before God to affirm the immediacy of God’s prophetic actions. In Revelation 10:5-6, we read;

The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer (Revelation 10:5-6).

And so, James’ instruction to his readers cannot be understood to mean that the taking of all oaths was forbidden. A sincere follower of Jesus can—in holiness—swear himself or herself under an oath before God in human courts of law, or in binding agreements of obligation, in the inauguration of commitment to public service or duty, or even in the solemn declaration of truth.

So; with that in mind, we should then ask …

2. WHAT WAS JAMES WARNING AGAINST?

The best commentary on what James was talking about would be found in the teaching of our Lord Jesus. James—as we’ve seen repeatedly—often drew from the Lord’s instructions in The Sermon on The Mount. And in this case, he was very clearly doing so. In Matthew 5:33-37, the Lord Jesus 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).

The key is in what the Lord said about not swearing ‘falsely’. The Jewish people knew that the law of God forbade them from using God’s name in a vain or irreverent way. The third commandment said, “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” (Exodus 20:7). And so, in order to make promises to each other that they didn’t really intend to perform (as people often do today), they got into the habit of swearing oaths based on things related to the Lord in only an indirect way. In doing this, they didn’t feel bound to keep their promise … and thus swore ‘falsely’. Later on in His teaching, the Lord Jesus rebuked this whole method of substituting the things of God for God Himself in an oath. He told the religious leaders of the people of Israel;

“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).

So; it wasn’t against the practice of taking an oath itself that James was giving this warning. Rather, he was warning about the practice of taking an oath—in informal and everyday settings—in a way that tends toward thoughtlessness and recklessness and without a whole-hearted intent to do what is promised. A ‘vain oath’ would be an oath that we uttered without serious consideration of the obligation to which it binds us before God. It would obviously involve swearing by the name of God falsely—which would itself be a very great sin. But it also involves calling the sacred things of God as a witness to our words in a ‘secondary’ way—as if making it sound like we’re binding ourselves to the truth or sincerity of something by God when we really weren’t. James urged his fellow believers not to swear “by heaven” or “by earth” or (literally) “by any other oath of that same kind”. This would completely forbid our using phrases in common relationships in which we swear “by heavens”, or “by Jerusalem”, or even “by my sainted mother”, or any other substitute for the name of the Lord.

James actually states the matter plainly: “my brethren, do not swear” … that is, at all! If we’re not going to consider that our words are uttered in the hearing of our Lord—or that we’re really going to keep them before Him whether we swear to do so or not—then we ought not to swear to do something at all. We should only let our “Yes” be a true yes, and our “No” be a true no … and leave it at that. If we have to reinforce it with anything else, then something’s wrong.

Now; many people wouldn’t think of this as all that important a matter. But James treats it very seriously. We can see this in two ways. First, he prefaced this warning by saying, “But above all, my brethren …”; and the phrase “above all”—in this particular case—is meant to communicate a superiority over other matters111. And second, in the original language, he puts this in what’s called ‘a prohibition in the present imperative’; which indicates the cessation of an ungodly practice that was currently going on. In other words, the people to whom he was writing were already in the bad habit of swearing vain oaths … and must stop immediately.

This leads us then to ask …

3. WHY DID JAMES TREAT IT SO SERIOUSLY?

It had much to do with the situation of persecution and oppression that his readers were in. Early church history is marked with many stories of Christians who bravely withstood trials of persecution and threat, and willingly laid down their lives for their testimony to their Lord. But there were also stories of some who failed that test. It’s not hard to imagine, in such cases, that many Christians would feel pressured to bind themselves by oaths that they really didn’t want to be bound to. Some would be tempted to deny with an oath that they were followers of Jesus in order to save their lives—just as Peter himself once did when he “denied with an oath, ‘I do not know the Man!’” (Matthew 26:72). Others might be tempted to bind themselves to a commitment that they only partially fulfilled in order to look more saintly—just as Ananias and Sapphira did; whom Peter told, “You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:4). James was warning his fellow Christians not to do this; but rather to be careful to let their words be capable of standing as true on their own—even in a time of distress and great pressure.

James used strong words to show why this was not to be done. He said that it was “lest you fall into judgment”. Some of the reasons why we could fall into judgment for this habit might be because:

• Swearing by reckless oaths often tempts the promise-maker to bring an unnatural emphasis to the promise; and this often involves the use of language that is completely inappropriate for a follower of the Lord Jesus to use. Jesus warned, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:36-37).
• It also reveals an irreverent attitude toward God; because when we swear to a reckless oath, we often try to ‘use’ God and the things of God to our own advantage.
• It also presents a bad witness to others in that they can see we really don’t revere the things of God, and don’t really honor the truth.
• Over time, it diminishes our own trustworthiness by the fact that we—ourselves—don’t consider our own word to be sufficient proof of our intention … and that we must somehow try to reinforce our integrity with the addition of an oath.
• And most of all, it violates the spirit of the third commandment against taking the name of the Lord in vain. We’re forbidden from anything that would use the name of God in a careless way, or that would speak of the things of God in an irreverent manner. And it most certainly would be careless and irreverent if we swore ourselves before God to do something … and didn’t do it.

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King Solomon had the practice of swearing by oaths in mind when he wrote;

Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.

Do not be rash with your mouth,
And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God.
For God is in heaven, and you on earth;
Therefore let your words be few.
For a dream comes through much activity,
And a fool’s voice is known by his many words.

When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it;
For He has no pleasure in fools.

Pay what you have vowed—
Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.

Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity. But fear God. (Ecclesiastes 5:1-7).

Pay special notice to those final three words. They describe the principle that would best keep us from this sin—that is, the principle of keeping the reverent fear of God before us whenever we open our mouths. This would especially be true in a time of persecution or oppression or trouble or trial … when we’re the most vulnerable to say things rashly and hastily. Instead, may the words of our mouths, and the meditations of our hearts, truly be acceptable to our most holy God!

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1A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of The Greek New Testament in The Light of Historical Research (Nashville, TN: Boardman Press, 1934), p. 622.

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