To Tell the Truth

Matthew 5:33-37

August 11, 2002 


Truthfulness appears to have been tossed out the window. With a blatant disregard for integrity in life and lips, many find a way around honesty without feeling guilty. Recent disclosures of "book cooking" among several major corporations have rocked the nation's economy. Lying for political strategy and gain seems to be the norm. Media exaggeration and cover-up in reporting that colors one position against another has become so regular that it is difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.

 

How widespread is lying in daily life? Can you name even one arena where lying has not planted its deceitful foot? In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord has just stated his own thoughts on divorce. He shows that lying is really connected in this regard by the use of the word "again." In other words, breaking the marriage vow and common lying have the same roots of unfaithfulness. Lying affects all of life.

 

We have grown accustomed to people in the business and sports world breaking contracts - another form of lying. I read this week that a number of corporations maintain a slush fund that they can manipulate into the profit column for their company report in order to inflate earnings, and then slip it back into the slush column before disbursements - another twist in lying. Thousands of term papers are available on the Internet of which thousands of students have availed themselves in lieu of doing their own work - lying again. Last year I heard about two students copying the same paper, word for word, for the same teacher - lying caught up with them. Some are so accustomed to lying that they forget to cover it up as in the case of one of my former students. He was to do research on a particular country, investigating their people groups and the mission work taking place in that region, and then develop his own mission strategy. He did no original work. All he did was print a few pages off the Internet with the web address automatically printed on the bottom of the page! You can guess what grade he received.

 

This is where kingdom citizens must be different! While telling the truth should be an essential part of everyone's life, unfortunately it is not. A wide array of lying displays the darkness of men's hearts in every corner of life. But those that have known the saving grace of God are distinguished from the common practice of lying through lives of truthfulness. To faithfully tell the truth marks one as a follower of Jesus Christ. A kingdom citizen's radical view of truthfulness testifies of the power of the gospel to change lives. Why is telling the truth so vital for us?

 

I. Navigating around truth

 

Jesus initiates this particular exposition of integrity as he has done with the three previous paragraphs - by referring to a reference of Old Testament law. This particular one is actually a combination of a number of passages that summarized the common view regarding vows and oaths. "Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord'." At face value, this is a clear statement. Don't make false vows. Fulfill the vows that you make to the Lord. Simple. But the "ancients" had a way of navigating around the truth in order to have one's own way. At heart, they sought ways to avoid standing upon their word. Integrity meant little as long as things looked good outwardly. It was this disposition of heart - that of dishonesty in word and deed that Jesus Christ corrects.

 

1. Legalism strikes again

 

The previous expositions on murder, adultery, and divorce addressed the way that many sought to avoid the guilt of those sins while still committing them. They did this through legalism. What legalism does is to put a nice border around a particular law or offense, and regard anything within the border to be wrong. The legalist will fuss and fume, scream and holler about any offense within the border that he has painted. But if it is outside the border then it is permissible behavior. In the case of vows or oaths that were so common during the first century, the legalist proposed that the way one worded a vow determined whether or not he had to keep it. Notice the language. "You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord." The phrase, "to the Lord," is critical in the legalist's approach. He carefully worded his vows to avoid using the divine name in an authoritative way. Consequently, he could disregard his vow and claim no guilt over his breach since it was not technically a vow "to the Lord."

 

This is what our Lord meant when he gave details: "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city for the great King." The legalist would be involved in a conversation, and in order convince the other party of some point he was making, he would assert, 'I swear to heaven that this is true.' Or he might say, 'By Jerusalem, I'm going to do this thing.' In each case, he has carefully avoided making an oath with God's name, picking something lesser so that if he decides not to fulfill his commitment he can walk away without guilt.

 

We have similar phrases used in our day. I cannot tell you how often I've heard a dishonest person trying to convince me of something by adding force to his oath with the words, 'I swear to you on a stack of Bibles,' or 'if I'm lying I'm dying,' or the old favorite, 'cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.' The problem is that such a person has lived in deceit and dishonesty so that he is not believable. So he resorts to propping up his affirmations with some type of oath, even using something that has veiled reference to God or eternity to give it more weight.

 

But what the legalist fails to realize is that accountability to God goes beyond the simple use of the divine name, e.g., 'I swear to God.' The ancients swore to heaven as though such an oath was not binding. But Jesus reminds them that heaven "is the throne of God." They swore by earth but failed to realize that earth "is the footstool of His feet." The very spiritual swore by the sacred Jerusalem, yet by their dishonest intentions failed to admit, "it is the city for the great King." Some even resorted to swearing by their own physical features, similar to "If I'm lying I'm dying" jargon: "nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black." Here is the point: God is not limited by simply the use of His name. As John Stott put it, "However hard you try, Jesus said, you cannot avoid some reference to God, for the whole world is God's world and you cannot eliminate him from any of it" [Christian Counter-Culture, 101]. He that created us demands that our word be a reflection of His own truthfulness and faithfulness. To lie or to deceive or to misrepresent - regardless of how cleverly we maneuver our words - affronts the character of God.

 

2. Natural dishonesty

 

The problem that causes such corralling of oaths to convince others of our intentions is the natural dishonesty in the human heart. It is not that we learn to lie. We are born liars. Deceit - like that of "the father of lies" (John 8:44) - is bound up in our hearts so much so that Paul, in agreement with the Psalmist, can say of all men, "Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness" (Rom 3:12-13).

 

Keep in mind what Jesus Christ is doing. He has set forth the character of kingdom citizens in the Beatitudes, and now he is explaining how kingdom citizens are to behave. His standards go far beyond what "you have heard that the ancients were told." While the religious legalists were satisfied with an outward conformity to their interpretation of divine law, Jesus Christ demands that kingdom citizens conform to his own faithful conduct - the true intent of divine law. This is why the Sermon on the Mount either thrills you or frustrates you. It is only when your heart has been transformed by the power of the gospel that you can see the demands of Jesus Christ with delight and desire for obedience. Anything less, any masquerading as a Christian, will meet with frustration or even anger in the divine mirror of the Sermon on the Mount. Only a new citizenship - the one that comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone - can lead you away from the natural dishonesty bound up in our hearts to desire integrity in speech and conduct.

 

3. Commonality with the ancients

 

What the "ancients" were doing is not simply history. It is present reality. We have the common spiritual ancestry in the fall and the same disposition of heart that tries to weasel out of truth if it will be to our advantage. The ancients were doing these very things, so Jesus brought it home to the present tense, "But I say to you, make no oath at all." The problem is the same; it is just dressed in more modern jargon.

 

Let me put it like this. If you constantly need to rely upon some form of oath or swearing or promising in order to be believable, then your problem is not one of poor communication. It is one of a desperately darkened and deceived heart. Jesus is telling us that there is no need for kingdom citizens to resort to oaths or promises in order to assure truthfulness. Such a life is so radically different from the world so that truthfulness and integrity distinguishes one's conversation.

 

Helmut Thielicke explains the problem so clearly:

Whenever I utter the formula "I swear by God," I am really saying, "Now I'm going to mark off an area of absolute truth and put walls around it to cut it off from the muddy floods of untruthfulness and irresponsibility that ordinarily overruns my speech." In fact, I am saying even more than this. I am saying that people are expecting me to lie from the start. And just because they are counting on my lying I have to bring up these big guns of oaths and words of honor [quoted by Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom, 126-127].


Does this resemble your pattern of conversation? Are you believable when you open your mouth? It may not be that you resort to what is termed an "out-and-out lie." But you might dally in deceit or make constant use of exaggeration or stretch the truth when it makes you look better or use some other creative form of lying. It is lying just the same. And it has no place in the lives of kingdom citizens.

 

II. Taking truth seriously

 

What our Lord insists upon is that we take truth seriously - that we be conscientious in what we say, how we express ourselves, and even in the way we say something so that there will be no duplicity in heart and lips. To help us understand what it means to take truth seriously, let us focus on the forthright demand of Jesus Christ for kingdom citizens.

 

1. Clear command

 

We do not need to get lost in the antithetical illustrations that Christ uses. He makes his command quite clear: "But I say to you, make no oath at all." He refers to the spiritual terms used for making vows, "heaven...earth...Jerusalem." Then he adds one of personal reference, "Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black." The use of oaths trivializes the truth. Or as Don Carson put it, "Swearing evasively becomes justification for lying" [The Sermon on the Mount, 47]. I do think that a clarification needs to be made concerning this command.

 

We normally think of oaths as that which is used in the court: 'I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.' Even that kind of oath has to be explained because of the devalued concept of truth in our day. By truth the court means, 'the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' rather than half-truths or deceit or cover-ups. Does Jesus then imply that we are to join ranks with the Quakers and refuse to take an oath in a court of law? I believe that such an interpretation misses the whole point that our Lord is making since oaths are part of divine law as well as exemplified in biblical characters.

 

Leviticus 19:12 warns, "You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord." It is only false swearing that is prohibited not an appropriately administered oath.

 

The Lord gave instructions on oaths through Moses in Numbers 30:2. "If a man make a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." Again, an appropriate oath is not forbidden, rather keeping the oath is demanded.

 

Deuteronomy 23:21-22 even expected that God's people would be making vows to Him. "When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the Lord our God will surely require it of you." And then he adds, "However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you." The important thing was to honor one's vows. The wisdom writer adds, "When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay" (Eccl 5:4-5).

 

We find Abraham making his servant swear that he would not take a wife for Isaac from among the Canaanites, even calling this a binding oath (Gen 24:2-9). Joseph made the sons of Israel swear to remove his bones from Egypt and carry then back to the Promised Land upon their return (Gen 50:25). Our Lord was silent before his accusers until he was put under oath, then he gave testimony of himself and his divine sonship (Matt 26:62-64).

 

We can conclude from this that what Jesus addressed in our text was not the legitimate use of oaths in formal settings such as legal documents or court cases. But what he does refer to is the normal use of speech. Oaths were resorted to because lying was so common, making even oaths to seem trivial. While the ancients would avoid perjuring themselves in a law court, many had no problem using a similar oath to deceive someone in normal conversation. It is this that seems to be most prominent in our text. Certainly we are to tell the truth when under oath in a court. But more importantly, we are to be truthful at all times so that we have no need to resort to swearing to make ourselves believable.

 

I must confess, when someone resorts to swearing that something is true or promising that it is true, I automatically do not believe him. I recall one summer job during college when I directed a school age day care with 60 boys and girls. When dealing with disputes I would often have to get two or three of the kids together to ask who did what, trying to unravel the "he-said-she-said" phenomena of childhood. I can still hear one little fellow that would always say, "I swear to you..." and then he would give his side of the story. I told him then, and believe the same to be true now, if you must swear to make something true it is because you have a problem with truthfulness. Just tell the truth.

 

2. Simple practice

 

That is precisely what Jesus meant by his closing statement, "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'." What comes out of your mouth needs no embellishment as a kingdom citizen. In other words, your "Yes" really does mean yes and your "No" really does mean no. Your word is believable because in the character of your life you are seeking to conform to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. You have such intent of obeying Christ that you will jealously guard your words so that you speak truthfully.

 

What does it take to follow this simple practice? (1) We must remember that the Lord hears every word we utter, and that we will give an accounting for those words: "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment." (Matt 12:36). (2) We must also remember that our words are important in giving evidence of our relationship to Christ. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matt 12:37). Thielicke rightly states, "The avoidance of one small fib... may be a stronger confession of faith than a whole 'Christian philosophy' championed in lengthy, forceful discussion" [Hughes 129].

 

And (3) we should take our words so seriously that we regularly inventory what we have spoken. We need to reflect on our conversations. Have we stated the truth? Have we exaggerated some claim so that truth is embellished and our vanity elevated? Have we misrepresented the truth by carefully navigating our words just as the ancient legalists did? Have we cheated on a test or homework or our tax forms or our time sheet at work or our expense account? Have we deceived someone to make a sale or to gain popularity or to avoid a conflict?

 

Samuel Johnson was right. "It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world" [Hughes 129]. Are you careful or careless with truth? Let your "Yes" really mean yes, and your "No" really mean no.

 

3. Holy rationale

 

We have enough reason for truthfulness by the fact that our Creator is ever true in all He says and does, and that as kingdom citizens we have added reason to live as redeemed citizens like our King. But Jesus adds one more rationale that must arrest our tongues when considering duplicity of speech. "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." Or another translation might be, 'but the things beyond this are from the evil one' or 'the things exceeding this are from evil'. A failure to be truthful has its roots in evil. Jesus explained to the religious hypocrites that were trying to condemn him that they were just like the devil. "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.... Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). And now our Lord tells us that to embellish the truth or to deceive or to exaggerate or to cheat or to lie is to act from the fountain of all lying - the devil. A pattern of lying calls into question the reality of our profession of Christ.

 

Kingdom citizens have no desire to resemble the evil one. So attention to truthfulness in word and deed will mark their lives. Does this mark your life?

 

Conclusion

 

We must not limit truthfulness to simply words as we have seen. It is applicable to our marriage vows, to our commitments at work and school, to the vows we have made to God, and to the covenant we have made with the body of Christ - the church. Kingdom citizens are marked by faithfulness to telling and living the truth. May our lives give testimony of Him who is the Truth as we live and speak truthfully to His glory.

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