New Thoughts (11/29/05-12/2/05)
Before I turn to the message of Jesus in this passage, I am drawn back to the closing of John’s first epistle by the parallels listed for these verses. There is something he writes that it seems the church has forgotten over the long centuries of its history. Yet, it is something John says we ought to know beyond any doubt. In 1John 5:18, he writes that we know the fundamental fact that God’s children do not sin. Now, it must be said that we clearly know, as he also writes, that no man living is free of all sin. Here, he speaks of that sin which has become habitual, non-stop, always to be entertained. He follows this with the reason by which we understand that habitual sin has no home in the child of God: Because “He who was born of God,” Jesus the Christ of God, keeps that child, and because this is so, the evil one does not touch him! Do you see those words, the evil one does not touch God’s child! He cannot! The strong tower of God’s only begotten Son surrounds that child and will in no way allow such a thing to happen!
How is it, then, that so many in the church today are forever prattling on about how the devil is harassing them, about how this event and that malady are the devil’s doing? Do they not know that they are the children of God? Have they not understood the strength of the Lord of Hosts, Who stands as a bar and a hedge against any such harassing attacks? Clearly, I cannot simply take this one verse out of its proper setting and think to have established a Biblical view on the matter. I must keep in mind those other things we have been told about our enemy, the devil. We are told that he is the prince of this current age; although in this passage in Matthew we learn that it is a princedom he holds only by usurpation. For, it echoes the ancient truth that the world is the Lord’s, and all that is in it (Dt 10:14). We know that this illegitimate princeling is as a roaring lion, ever looking for somebody to tear apart (1Pe 5:8), that he does all he can to bring the redeemed children of God back into captivity, even posing as an angel of light, and pretending to power he does not have (2Co 11:14). But, Jesus has warned us of this very thing, and told us the intent: to mislead, if possible, even the elect (Mt 24:24). The key there is ‘if possible,’ perhaps better taken as ‘were it possible,’ for as John has written to us: the one born of God is kept by Him who was born of God, and the evil one (who so seeks our destruction) does not and cannot touch him (1Jn 5:18).
The balance of the message comes to this: we can be confident in the face of adversity, deception, and all manner of ill treatment, because we know with confidence that we belong to God, and that He has never yet, nor ever will lose one whom the Father has entrusted to Him. At the same time, we are not given permission to relax our guard in this confidence. We are called to remain steadfast and attentive, knowing our enemy for who and what he is, being forewarned of his methods and his intentions, and to resist him in every conceivable way (Jas 4:7). See, our opposition and attention are not called to be upon him for his ability to destroy us. Because of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ of God Almighty, Lord of Hosts and King of kings, this enemy that prowls about us cannot touch us. He knows it, and we know it, yet he hopes in his persistence to convince us otherwise, to weaken our resolve to stand fast against him. Our diligence is not out of fear of failure on our behalf, but simply because we are members of God’s house, soldiers of His army, sworn to service in His kingdom. We resist the enemy for the liar he is, because God is the Truth, and lover of truth that He is.
Darkness cannot overcome the Light. That is the power of our service. He tried his utmost to prove God false, especially in this matter, but he has failed in every attempt. Indeed, he knows deep down that he cannot win, but he is only angered by that knowledge, and he suppresses it as best he can. Rather than surrender, he struggles the more fiercely. But, the end is already determined and recorded in the record of God’s revelation of Himself to those this false prince held in captivity. Through long centuries, his stolen kingdom has been crumbling about him and he knows it. Oh, he prowls about, ever hopeful of proving God wrong in some matter, ever hopeful of convincing a son of God to join with him in his rebellion. But, He who was born of God keeps every son of God, and the evil one, try as he might, does not touch him (1Jn 5:18). It is not an isolated, misappropriated doctrine at all, but the full counsel of God that we stand in this position - watchful yet confident, careful yet assured. We are of that army whose battle cry is “Be still and know that I AM is God.”
Our battle lines are drawn at the very point that Jesus is addressing in this lesson: truthfulness. Because God is Truth, His children are required to be truthful as bearers of His image. That is really at the core of what Jesus is teaching here. It is not that vows and oaths are somehow evil in themselves, how could they be evil in the sight of the God of Covenant? Vows, oaths, and other such guarantees are required by us and of us because of our fallen nature. Because man is corrupt, we tend to need something more than a spoken promise to feel certain of the outcome of a matter. Jesus is not telling us that we cannot declare such guarantees when they are required of us. It is not a sin to comply when sworn in for testimony before the court.
The particular issue he is dealing with here is the false security that men sought to offer up without committing sin in God’s sight. In this passage, one finds it in the particular oath takings that Jesus condemns. Why did He need to explain that swearing by heaven remained a matter of swearing one’s oath before the God of heaven? It was precisely because this was the custom. If I swear by something other than God, anything other than God, I need not fear breaking that oath I have sworn. For, God is not my witness. The problem was not that they wished to offer greater credence to the truth of their words. Recall, after all, that God has sworn oath by Himself, that being foundational to our certain hope! The problem was that they wished to offer no more than the appearance of credence, and by doing so, they eroded the power of truth.
So widespread was this practice of the pseudo-vow that even the religious leadership was getting in on the act. A later exploration of this topic by Jesus (Mt 23:16-22) shows how bad it had become. Like every other aspect of Law and obedience, the heads of religion had made fine distinctions as to what vows mattered and which did not. The Temple? Fine, keep your word if you choose to. Ah! But, if you’ve sworn by the Temple treasury, don’t you dare! The altar? An empty promise, nice as it sounds, but if you’ve involved the sacrifice, you’d best be honest in your dealings. Not only had these blind leaders helped to dilute the effectiveness of the oath and the value of truthfulness, but they had been so wholly subsumed by the world system that they couldn’t even judge relative values correctly!
Loss of Truth will do that to a person. Without a deep and abiding concern for Truth and truthfulness, we are utterly incapable of rightly judging the value of any other thing. How can we hope to have true judgment of the world around us, discernment if you will, if we have no regard for truth? That’s the issue under the microscope of the Master here! The issue is not that you have taken oaths, it’s that you’ve been trained to take oaths that are empty and meaningless, and you don’t have the least care for your own promises. Look at verse 36, there’s your point! See, an oath implies some greater power which can intervene to bring justice should you refuse to uphold your part of the bargain.
Face it, neither the Temple nor its gold has the power to bring about this justice. Neither has jurisprudence over your agreements with other men. No, and neither altar nor sacrifice was likely to step in and require that you do as you agreed. Jesus turns to perhaps the most ridiculous of these evasive oaths: “By my head.” What is your head going to do to you when it your head that is determined to ignore the oath? Can justice come from the one who is unjust? Obviously not. If you had not the power to keep your word in the first place, what power do you suppose you have to force yourself to keep it later? None. What punishment are you capable of bringing upon yourself? Can you so much as cause your hair to change its hue? Not at all! The oath is utterly empty, insofar as the wording is concerned.
Yet, I tell you even such a foolishly worded oath remains as binding as if it had been sworn upon God Himself, for it has been sworn in His sight, however much we try to delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. Indeed, this draws us into the central correction that Jesus is making here. Every oath, however you may have sought to couch the terms in less threatening tones, remains an oath sworn before the God of Creation, the Lord Almighty, Captain of Hosts. He has heard your promise, however you may have chosen to phrase it, and He is most assuredly able to bring justice when your promise is not kept. He alone can do it, and He will do it, for His Just Self demands it.
In verse 37, Jesus makes the matter as clear as it can be. Even if you have not sworn oath, even if you have simply promised, in fact, even if you haven’t promised at all, but merely voiced your agreement or disagreement; there is no difference in the sight of God. You have spoken, and having spoken, ought to consider what you have spoken to be binding on your actions. Do that which you have said you will do. Cease from that which you have said you would cease from.
It comes down to the reason we have oaths in the first place, the reason we have such an array of contracts and binding legal agreements amongst us even today. It is because men have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, and have found others to be so. If men walked in truth, spoke in truth, and acted in truth, there would be no need for so much as a promise, for we could then assume that what one said to us, one intended to abide by. This is precisely the thing Jesus calls us to. It is precisely what we can and should expect of God.
What God has said, we can know with absolute certainty He will do. He is not a man that He should lie. We, who bear the image of the God of Truth are called to be likewise trustworthy. He calls us to live in such a fashion that those who know us will know that no promise, no oath, no contract is required to ‘keep us honest.’ It is a simple enough thing to understand: live in such a way that there would be no call for such an oath. If men still require oath of you anyway, fine. But, don’t behave in such a way that none would dare deal with you without it!
Truth and trust go hand in hand. Our society is so full of distrust now that lying and cheating is an expectation. Much of our daily experience is either an outgrowth of this distrust or inclined to add to that distrust. Consider driving to work. You’re running late, so you’re driving perhaps a bit over the speed limit. But, you know from experience (at least here in Massachusetts) that you can get a good 5 to 10 mph over the top without any concern for being pulled over. Well, when you got your license to drive, wasn’t that a promise to abide by the laws that govern driving? Is your word sufficiently trustworthy that even when ‘everybody else is doing it,’ even when the enforcement officers themselves are cruising at higher speeds than that, you stay at the posted limit?
What of the workplace itself? Are you giving the hours and the effort that you signed on for? Are you giving an honest day’s work? Here in this entitlement society it’s easy to fall into that mindset that figures that just showing up for the full shift satisfied one’s obligation and everything else is gravy for the employer. It’s easy to fall into a mindset that figures the employer’s doing to you, so you may as well do to them in return. It’s easy to fall into shaving a few minutes off each end of the day, perhaps work at a more leisurely pace. Hey, you get paid the same either way, right? So, why exert yourself? Well, there’s more reasons than one to do so, if you are a child of God. Fundamentally, there is that message of doing all that you do as unto the Lord. Would you really give Him less than your best effort, if you really believe He IS? I think not, not if you believe Him when He describes Himself! Here, though, we have another reason. Employment is a contractual matter between us and our employer. Both sides have agreed to abide by the terms of that contract. I tell you, even when your employer is pushing it, even when they are walking right up to the edge of what is allowed, you have no grounds to stop upholding your end.
So, too, with citizenship. Although you may have been born into it, you were born under contract. With every election cycle, you renew that contract. However poorly those elected officials may be doing on their end of the contract, it continues to be a binding agreement on your part. Unless their actions should truly constitute a breach of contract, we are honor bound to uphold our part of it.
If I were to reduce the message of Christ Jesus here, I would say simply that we are to treat our every word as if spoken under oath. Throughout the surrounding sections, Jesus has taken the Law that had been made familiar and restored it to its original, unattainable standard of righteousness. First with murder, then with adultery, He stripped away the false confidence that many had. You thought you were complying with this law, but consider the full implication of that law, and you will see your guilt made clear. I think He has just done the same with vows and oaths. Even those who had not taken to swearing in a fashion they felt free to break, there may have been a false confidence built upon the fact that they had been swift to maintain their end of whatever vows and oaths they may have sworn. Perhaps, they simply took refuge in never having sworn an oath at all, never made a vow at all. Moses says clearly enough that there is no sin in such an approach. But, they have missed the point. First, these were the people of the covenant. They bore the mark of the most telling oath on their own skin, and it is precisely this oath that Jesus is showing them they have not kept. At present, he is taking away any thought of having complied with the Law regarding oaths and vows. He raises it to the same impossible level as the others – every word you speak ought to be treated by yourself as a vow and an oath. Every word another hears from you ought to be heard as a solemn covenant agreement with which they can know you will comply no matter what. Can anybody think that they have truly complied in this fashion?
I think not. Yet the failure of every man is no excuse for me. I cannot take refuge in the failure of others, for those others are not the standard by which I shall be measured. The standard is and ever shall be that standard which Jesus has been establishing throughout this lesson. As utterly unattainable as Legal compliance is for us when we rely on our own strength, it remains the standard by which we shall be judged. Is it any wonder that Scripture declares that all are found wanting, that every man is condemned by this Law? Is it any wonder that it took God Himself come to this fallen land as a man to allow one Man to walk as the Law requires? This is exactly the reason that Jesus expends so much effort to make the utter hopelessness of our efforts toward righteousness clear to us. The best we can do on our own is fool ourselves into an undeserved confidence. Without Christ and His righteousness imparted to us, we are condemned to work ourselves to death trying to obey, yet ever knowing deep down that we have not obeyed, nor can we. Our only refuge apart from Him is delusion, and that is poor refuge indeed, for that delusion will eventually be stripped away. The day when He sits in judgment will surely come, and there will be no hiding in delusion before Him. The pure Light will penetrate to every darkness by which we’ve hidden ourselves, and we will finally have to face ourselves as we truly are.
Father God, forgive me, for I know there are any number of things in which I’ve convinced myself I’m doing better than I am. It is part of this fallen nature in which I walk, yet I know there is no excuse to be had in that nature. I lay myself upon Your tender mercy, knowing that I have an Advocate in Your Son Jesus, knowing that His righteousness has atoned even for this. Oh, God! Keep me aware of those things, those ways of mine that are displeasing in Your sight. Give me strength to rid myself of those ways, that I might be pleasing to You. Thank You, Holy Living God, for I know that as I seek Your forgiveness, it is swift to come. Thank You, Sweet Jesus, for apart from You I know I would be utterly without hope in this life. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for I know You walk with me day by day, keeping me from straying farther than I do. To this day, it remains a mystery to me how You in Your perfect righteousness can abide in me, a sinner, yet I am thankful for the mystery that allows it to be so. All praise be unto You, the Triune God of all! Savior of Creation, let Your Name be blessed above all else.
