Q.
101
But may we swear an oath in God's name if we do it reverently? Q.
102
May we also swear by saints or other creatures?
DeYoung,
in The
Good News We Almost Forgot,
notes the issue of oaths was an important topic at the time of the
reformation. One issue was whether people were bound by monastic
oaths and oaths sworn to saints – they were not. These “rash”
oaths were made for wrong reasons and should be their making should
be repented. The other issue was whether any oaths were lawful –
the answer is yes. While the Anabaptists use Matthew 5:33-37 to
forbid all oaths, the Reformers pointed out that there is multiple
mention of proper oaths in the Bible – e.g., God swears by himself
to guarantee his promises (Hebrews 6:13).
Monday:
There
are times when a solemn vow is required because the issue at stake is
so important. A person swears to tell the truth in court; an elected
official vows to fulfill the duties of office.
Genesis
21:22-24
At that time Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, said to
Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. Now swear to me right
here in Godʼs name that you will not deceive me, my children, or my
descendants. Show me, and the land where you are staying, the same
loyalty that I have shown you.” Abraham said, “I swear to do
this.”
Romans
1:9-10
For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel of his
Son, is my witness that I continually remember you and I always ask
in my prayers, if perhaps now at last I may succeed in visiting you
according to the will of God.
Tuesday:
God
swore by himself to fulfill his promises since there is no one
greater than himself. God never lies so there technically is no need
for him to swear an oath, but necessary oaths that we might take vows
by God (submitting to his judgment) that what we are doing is honest
and true.
Hebrews
6:13-18
Now when God made his promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no
one greater, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you
greatly and multiply your descendants abundantly.” And so by
persevering, Abraham inherited the promise. For people swear by
something greater than themselves, and the oath serves as a
confirmation to end all dispute. In the same way God wanted to
demonstrate more clearly to the heirs of the promise that his purpose
was unchangeable, and so he intervened with an oath, so that we who
have found refuge in him may find strong encouragement to hold fast
to the hope set before us through two unchangeable things, since it
is impossible for God to lie.
Wednesday:
We
may not swear by anyone other than God – that is because we are
calling for one who can judge our hearts and inner thoughts to be
true. To swear by anyone else is to put them in the role that only
God can properly take.
Deuteronmy
6:13
You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using
only his name.
Deut.
10:20
Revere the Lord your God, serve him, be loyal to him and take oaths
only in his name.
Thursday:
Law
courts and political ceremonies no longer require people to swear by
God's name. Now people are just asked to solemnly swear to tell the
truth or carry out responsibilities. God speaks only truth and hates
falsehood; God's people must similarly must love truth as God loves
truth.
Luke
1:18-20
Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am
an old man, and my wife is old as well.” The angel answered him, “I
am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to
speak to you and to bring you this good news. And now, because you
did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you
will be silent, unable to speak, until the day these things take
place.”
Friday:
Even
if oaths are not required, God's children should always speak truth
to be like their heavenly Father.
1
Chronicles 28:9
“And you, Solomon my son, obey the God of your father and serve him
with a submissive attitude and a willing spirit, for the Lord
examines all minds and understands every motive of oneʼs thoughts.
If you seek him, he will let you find him, but if you abandon him, he
will reject you permanently.
Psalm
44:20-21
If we had rejected our God, and spread out our hands in prayer to
another god, would not God discover it, for he knows oneʼs
thoughts?
Romans
2:16
on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according
to my gospel through Christ Jesus.
Saturday:
God's
children must love and speak truth as God does. If we promise or make
an oath we must follow through even if it is difficult or costly. We
should, therefore, be careful about making promises in the first
place, but if we do promise we should show that our word can be
trusted because that is what our Father, God, is like.
Psalm
15
Lord, who may be a guest in your home? Who may live on your holy
hill? Whoever lives a blameless life, does what is right, and speaks
honestly. He does not slander, or do harm to others, or insult his
neighbor. He despises a reprobate, but honors the Lordʼs loyal
followers. He makes firm commitments and does not renege on his
promise. He does not charge interest when he lends his money. He
does not take bribes to testify against the innocent. The one who
lives like this will never be upended.
Reading
between the lines...
God
declares believers in Jesus “Saints” through Paul and other NT
writers. A saint is a “holy one” - there is nothing in our
natural circumstances or our behavior that would define us as a
saint, but we are declared saints purely through the work of the Holy
One, Jesus Christ. How does God view us? It is not like a dimmer
switch – it is either on or off, like an ordinary switch. We are
either in Christ or not – if we are in Christ, even though we are
still sinners, God sees us as holy – saints!
Romans
1:7
To all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints: Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Ephesians
1:7 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the
saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Colossians
1:21-22 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds
as expressed through your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you
by his physical body through death to present you holy, without
blemish, and blameless before him
“A
law unto themselves” usually means someone who does not follow
convention. Scrivener describes Gentiles who now have the law written
on their hearts by the indwelling Holy Spirit as “a law unto
themselves”. They have escaped from under the law to be good from
the heart.
Romans
2:12-15
For all who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart
from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by
the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous
before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous. For
whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the
things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law
to themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their
hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting
thoughts accuse or else defend them,
Hope
against hope is the hope you have when there is no hope. Paul uses
Abraham as an example of this. He shows that salvation comes through
God's grace, not through our goodness or faithfulness. Salvation is
from the Lord. Abraham can do nothing other than trust in God's
promise. The context for faith is a hopeless, barren place – it is
a confrontation between the deepest human weakness and the greatest
Divine strength. Faith is trusting the Lord's Word and not our
capability. We trust God to do the impossible. Trust that God will do
what God has promised.
Genesis
18:11
Abraham and Sarah were old and advancing in years; Sarah had long
since passed menopause.)
Romans
4:18-22
Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became
the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will
your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered
his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and
the deadness of Sarahʼs womb. He did not waver in unbelief about the
promise of God but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. He
was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So
indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness.
“God
forbid” might better be translated “may it never be”, but it
has become a statement of indignant resolve. It occurs 26 times in
the Bible, with the majority by Paul who uses it as a rhetorical
device – he voices a possible rejection to his teaching and then
rejects it firmly - “God forbid!” Sometimes salvation is thought
of as an impersonal thing given to us, a blank check, and then we run
off to live our lives. God does not given an impersonal thing – he
gives us Christ! A person with whom we have become united – in his
death and in his resurrection. We are not individuals with a “get
out of hell free” card, we are members of Christ himself in whom
our sin has been dealt with, once and for all. We have been brought
through sin, death and judgment and out into new life. We have been
saved from sin, free to live a new life. We think that to make people
good, we need to add conditions – but conditional love causes us to
turn from the lover to other things and increases sin. Jesus says we
have an unbreakable bond, an unconditional love that, as we come to
know it, makes us hate sin more and more.
Romans
7:7
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I
would not have known sin except through the law. For indeed I would
not have known what it means to desire something belonging to someone
else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
Romans
9:14
What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
Romans
11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely
not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the
tribe of Benjamin.
Romans
6:1
What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may
increase? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in
it?
1
Corinthians 6:15
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take
the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
This
verse reminds us of 3 contrasting pairs: wages vs. gifts; sin vs.
God; and death vs. eternal life. People usually view God as a
taskmaster who requires us to strive to meet high expectations in
order to be acceptable. Paul says this is a condemned view. Instead,
God is about giving salvation freely. From all eternity God has been
giver. The second pair is about 2 paymasters – sin pays out a wage;
God gives a gift, he comes into the world to give life to sinners.
The third pair shows us death as the loss of everything while eternal
life is fullness and fulfillment. Sin is the legalist, God is the
gracious one; sin demands that we work for a wage, God offers a gift;
sin is death dealing, God is life giving.
Romans
6:23 For the payoff
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
According
to Paul there are 3 tenses of salvation: 1) Christ has saved us –
completed! 2) we are being saved 3) we will be saved. Paul as makes a
distinction between spirit (saved the moment we believed in Christ),
mind/soul which is being renewed and body which will be saved when
Christ returns. We have the flesh of Adam even as we have received
the Spirit of Christ. The struggle that this causes should give us
confidence that we have the Spirit of Christ within us. Paul's final
word comes in Romans 8:1, that there is now no condemnation for those
in Christ!
Titus
3:4-6
But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind
appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done
but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth
and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full
measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.
1
Corinthians 1:18
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Romans
5:9
Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his
blood, we will be saved through him from Godʼs wrath.
Romans
12:1-2
Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies as a sacrifice - alive, holy, and pleasing to
God - which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this
present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so
that you may test and approve what is the will of God - what is good
and well-pleasing and perfect.
Romans
7:14-25
For we know that the law is spiritual - but I am unspiritual, sold
into slavery to sin. For I donʼt understand what I am doing. For I
do not do what I want - instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I
donʼt want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me
doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good
lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I
cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil
I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me
doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I
want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of
God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging
war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of
sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me
from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with
my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Romans
8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus.
Paul calls people to
live at peace with people even when subjected to evil and we might
feel angry and vengeful. We need to leave revenge and pay back to
God. Miroslav Volf states that the ability to respond in non-violence
requires the belief in a God of vengeance, and that the only time
violence is legitimate is when it comes from God. We do not have to
take vengeance into our own hands, we can trust that Christ will
judge perfectly. Having this knowledge can even inspire pity for
those who inflict violence on others. It is the vengeance of God that
creates peacemakers.
Romans
12:17-21
Do not repay anyone evil for evil; consider what is good before all
people. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with
all people. Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to
Godʼs wrath, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,”
says the Lord. Rather, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is
thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will be heaping
burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.
