And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil. — Matt. 5:36-37
But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so.” — Matt. 26:63-64
Excerpts from the book:
Page 294: A New Standard of Truthfulness.....In other words, Jesus now goes beyond the Old Testament standard of keeping our oaths to not using any. His reason seems to be that with the arrival of the kingdom of God in his ministry (Luke 11:20; 17:21) and the presence of the King himself (Matt. 21:15-16) and the sending of the Spirit of truth (John 15:26) and the inauguration of the new covenant (Luke 22:20; see Demand #23), the standards of truthfulness should rise and the measure of compromise with evil in this world should decrease.
Page 295: Therefore, truth is in jeopardy all the time. But life in community cannot survive without truth. There must be some measure of trust in marriages and businesses and schools and governments and in the vast realm of contractual agreements, not to mention the precious fabric of personal friendships. Therefore, the evil of lying and falsehood and deceit that pervades the human heart and society has been restrained by devices called oaths.
Page 295: We Look to Oaths to Do What Love Does Not Do - The evil that ruined trust is essentially selfishness and ill-will. We distort the truth to get what we want, even if it hurts others. Which implies that, for truth to hold sway, love must hold sway. If we were not selfish or unloving to others, we would not break our word or tell lies or act hypocritically. Truth would hold sway. But love does not hold sway in the world, and so oaths have arisen to compensate for what love should do.
Page 298: Jesus Simply Said, “You Have Said So”Jesus was saying, “.................Let your integrity be unimpeachable. Look the court clerk in the eye when she asks you, ‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God,’ and say, ‘I will tell the truth.’” When Jesus was adjured by the high priest at his court appearance the night before he died, the priest said, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. 26:63). In other words, he demanded that Jesus call God to witness with an oath as he made his claim to messiahship. Jesus would not yield. He answered, in accord with his own command in Matthew 5:37, “You have said so.” This is Jesus’ simple yes: “You have said it, and you are right” (Matt. 26:64; see Mark 14:62). There was no need for an oath.
Page 298-299: Should the Followers of Jesus Ever Take an Oath?.......To answer this it may be helpful to note that the question can be asked another way. Not only did Jesus say, “Do not take an oath at all” (Matt. 5:34), he also said the positive counterpart, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’”—or literally, “Let your word be ‘yes, yes,’ ‘no, no’” (Matt. 5:37).
Page 299:.........So the question of application can also be put this way: Should the followers of Jesus ever make a promise or answer a question or make an assertion with any other words than “yes” and “no”? The reason it may be helpful to consider this second question is that there are exceptions in Jesus’ ministry that would warn us against saying followers of Jesus may not add any words to “yes” and “no” to emphasize the speaker’s truthfulness. The most prevalent is Jesus’ use of the phrase, “Truly” or “Truly, truly.” Over fifty times in the Gospels Jesus says something like, “Truly, I say to you,” or “Truly, I tell you.” And over twenty-five times he uses the even stronger phrase “Truly, truly I say to you.”
Page 299: This gives me pause, therefore, that I should be slow to say that a follower of Jesus may have such integrity that there is no situation in which love may not demand some reinforcing expression for the sake of the listeners. Add to this that Jesus knew that God himself, who is the essence of integrity, confirmed his word at times with oaths. This was not to make up for untrustworthiness on his part, but to give multiple encouragements to help us believe him (see Luke 1:73; Gen. 22:16). It seems, then, that Jesus’ argument aims at absolute integrity and truthfulness but does not intend to stipulate absolutely the wording that expresses this truthfulness.
Page 300: Some Oaths May Be Permitted - Returning then to the seemingly absolute prohibition, “Do not take an oath at all,” should we infer from these thoughts that there are exceptions to the prohibition? I am inclined to think we should be open to the possibility that the wording of an oath .......... In other words, Jesus’ absolute prohibition relates to the abuses of oaths referred to in Matthew 5:35-36 and 23:16-22, and the principle that is absolute across all time and culture is the demand that we be people of absolute truthfulness and honesty.
Page 300:....Our new inclination should be, my oath is not necessary. I should be slow to use an oath. An oath will very likely (if not necessarily) communicate something about the weakness of my trustworthiness that may dishonor Jesus. One of the glories of Jesus is that he frees me from the need to lie and from the need to prove that I don’t lie. The followers of Jesus are not just honest, they are moving toward a condition in which protections against being thought dishonest will not be necessary. Therefore, they will find countercultural ways of declaring the lordship of Christ over their minds and mouths. In the end Jesus aims to be known as the way, the truth, and the life. He demands that we live and speak in a way that will make that glory known.
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