“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, NKJV).
Honesty and Humility
Before getting to the heart of the matter, take a moment to consider the periphery by looking at this prohibition in terms of a practical question.
Can a Christian swear an oath, especially the form expected in Western courts of law? Some sects among Quakers, certain Mennonite factions, and others, refuse to take such an oath in court considering it to be in violation of these verses, but is that what Jesus is really commanding against? If so, then both the Apostle Paul, and God Himself are in violation of this precept. Note these instances of oath-taking in the New Testament:
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers, (Romans 1:9, NKJV).
I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, (Romans 9:1, NKJV).
(Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.) (Galatians 1:20, NKJV).
For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:8, NKJV).
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 6:16-18, NKJV).
Given these, Jesus cannot mean that no oaths are ever permitted. Instead, some over the years have written that the Lord is prohibiting vows taken against other than God Himself, which is a possibility, except that the Old Testament is replete with oath-takings that do not directly invoke God and these were considered legitimate, so much so that breaking the oath under certain circumstances was severely punished. Still others have argued that Jesus was implementing a restriction against swearing an oath in every day language, which I believe to be the best interpretation.
In fact, I further propose that He is instructing His disciples primarily about two things in regard to vows, one having to do with honesty, the other humility.
A Christian's word is his or her outward expression of God-given inward integrity. What we say we mean, and what we mean we say ("…let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No."). We are Christ's Ambassadors in a fallen world. We are His witnesses and representatives. It is therefore unthinkable that we should be duplicitous or frivolous in our words in the context of fact or serious intention. Doing so is a reproach to His name. We should never have to bolster the credibility of what we say by any artificial phrases or magical incantation. Our normal, every day speech should be as trustworthy as any signed contract. This is not the complete forbidding of oaths, in my view, but a prohibition against reliance on oaths to ensure that we are telling the truth under "normal" circumstances. That's the honesty part.
The humility part is itself two-fold. The first, simply put, is that, we do not and cannot control God by our Words. He is not bound by our utterances in any way, shape or form. He is not some Celestial Genie obligated to respond to our "properly worded spell". Swearing by His throne or any aspect of His creation does not add any weight to our vow. He would lose nothing by our failure to live up to the oath, nor does He gain anything by our fulfillment it. He is completely beyond our influence or desire. He is Sovereign, and does what He wills, and only what He wills. That is an essential aspect of being God. That He has chosen to provide us His everlasting love and kindness is His choice. We did not choose Him. He chose us.
The second, expressed with equal simplicity, is that we have no control over even the most mundane aspects of our own physical existence. We can't by mere words alter our hair color. We can't by worry, add one cubit to our stature. We are not our own. We have been bought with a price. Our very breath is in His hands, so swearing by any of those things is essentially meaningless, and should not be required to augment the sincerity of what we are expressing. In humility, our forswearing swearing is a testimony of our recognition that we are completely dependent on Someone other than ourselves. And THAT is an offense to the unbelieving world. The Christian's acceptance of such dependency makes us a target for contempt. We need a "crutch" of faith to get by in life. Good. Let the world in its arrogance think what it wants. In the end, the truth of what we believe shall be known, and "…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth," (Philippians 2:10, NKJV).
Finally, Jesus is elevating us in Him, by declaring that His children by faith need not follow the prescriptions of the Old Testament, where a vow was ceremonially and legally necessary to hold a man to his word. Since in Him we live and move and have our being, we are no longer under the Law, nor the curse of the Law. We have liberty in Christ, and part of that liberty is having His credibility imputed to us. If you are His, you are expected to speak truth and to be believed.
Simple as that.
