Be True to Your Word

³³ “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.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. ³⁶ Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black.³⁷ But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. Matthew 5

Matthew 5:33-37 is a passage that in our modern culture we have some trouble understanding.  Why is Jesus forbidding swearing an oath? What does the temple or the earth have to do with it?  In context, God had instructed His people in the book of Leviticus “And you shall not swear by My name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.”(Lev. 19:12) By the time Jesus had come to earth Israel was abusing this commandment. To get around this commandment, instead of swearing by God’s name, they would swear by the temple, the earth or Jerusalem. These things are all of God, but did not have God’s name directly on them. Therefore if they broke an oath, they would not technically be breaking the commandment. Or so they thought. To swear by these things was a disingenuous oath.  It provided them with a “trap door” if they wanted out of the oath. Kind of like when a child makes a promise to another child while crossing their fingers. Jesus pointed out the error in this by stating that Jerusalem is God’s city, the earth is His footstool, and heaven is God’s throne.  Jesus instructed His followers to be people of their word. When a person says “yes”, they are to mean “yes” and when a person says “no” they are to mean no.

We should all take great joy in knowing that God is a God of His Word. When God says yes He means yes. When God says no, He means no. When God says that whosoever believes in His Son will not perish, He means it. When God says He will never leave us or forsake us, “never” means never. We can trust in, and believe in, all the promises of God. God is a God of truth and in Him there is nothing false.  Jesus, in telling us to be people of our word, is simply instructing us to be like our Father in heaven.