James 5:12

¹² But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

James goes to great lengths to address the Christian’s use of the tongue. For one final time, he will address it here in James 5:12. This time it is in regards to truthful speech. Since Christians are those who have been given and know the truth, it is paramount that we demonstrate it by being truthful in all that we say and do. The importance of this single verse before us cannot be overstated. In fact, James begins the verse with the words “Above all.” Kent Hughes rightly concludes, “If heeded, this call will set us apart from the test of the world, and even get us in trouble at times. But radical truthfulness will also bring power to our lives and grace to a confused world.” There are three reasons why truthfulness is so important that are given to us in this verse.

The first reason that believers must always be truthful is that God prioritizes truth. The words “Above all” make this clear. The command here is to “swear not.” This section follows verses 7-11 and precedes verses 13-18 for a reason. Since sincere prayer is the proper response to trials (James 1:5-8; and addressed in 5:13-18) and fighting amongst the community came from worldly wisdom (James 3:13-4:3; and addressed in 5:9 with grumbling), it seems that James is addressing another issue that arises from the difficulties that the Christian community was facing. That issue is the issue of manipulating circumstances and people in order to avoid difficulty. Here, it has to do with the practice of oath taking. In the ancient near east, oath taking was a very serious matter. One would swear by a deity or something that they considered sacred in order to reinforce the truthfulness of what they said or guarantee the fulfillment of a promise that they made. Overtime it was abused and misused for the sake of manipulating people to convince them to strike deals or allow them to get out of a difficult situation. Most of us are not taking oaths today in that same way, but all of us are familiar with saying things we don’t mean in difficult situations, making promises we don’t keep, trying to make deals with God to get us out of something, or obligating ourselves to something out of guilt or peer pressure. When we make commitments without fully thinking them through, overload ourselves with those commitments, or make promises we can’t keep, we diminish our witness for Christ. When we do these things, we misrepresent the God that we serve and we dishonor him. Therefore, God prioritizes truthfulness in speech. It is not just a matter of speaking true things, but speaking from true, calculated commitment and conviction.

The second reason that we must be truthful in all things is that God has defined it for us. Here, we are given the extent of the prohibition against swearing. He tells us not to swear by heaven, earth, or any other thing. Instead, we should strive to simply mean what we say and honor our word. The Jews had developed this system of swearing to avoid misusing God’s name. Therefore, Jesus put them on the hook for any swearing that was untruthful in Matthew 5:33-37. Heaven was where God lived, so it was a sin against His home and a sin against Him. Earth was His footstool and so it was a sin against His property. Jerusalem was the city where God’s name dwelt and the capitol of His chosen people. We are His image bearers and therefore are called to represent Him faithfully. Also, swearing by ourselves is prideful because we don’t have the power nor the authority to add anything to our statement as God does (Hebrews 6:13-18). The Pharisees also had a system that allowed them to swear by lesser things than God and then claim that the oath was not really binding or less binding because they swore by something lesser. The equivalent today is promising something with our fingers crossed. Jesus condemns this in Matthew 23:16-22. In fact, the Mishnah had an entire section that addressed when oaths were binding and when they were not. James cuts through all such systems of thought. He tells us we are always accountable to tell the truth. It does not matter the circumstance, situation, or reason. If we lie or violate an oath, it is a lie…period. Sometimes we do this today in another way. We duplicitously say “I’m not lying, but I’m not really telling the truth either.” We also may involve ourselves in something that we know others have a problem with so we keep it quiet and sneak it around. This is lying, even if we are not speaking it out loud. The reason that this is all wrong is as Kent Hughes says, “God stands behind everything.” When confronting Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, Peter doesn’t address their lie as one to people, but against God when he says, “thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” Believers are called to put away lying and speak truth with our neighbor (Ephesians 4:25). We are simply to say, “Yes” and mean it and to say, “No” and mean it. We should be known by truthfulness as God defines it, which is total and absolute.

The final reason we must take this so seriously is that God judges according to truthfulness. James says we must be truthful so that we do not fall into condemnation. The temptation within the community was to avoid or alleviate trials by taking oaths to those attacking them, oaths that they didn’t mean or follow through with. This is similar to today when we tell a “white lie” to avoid dealing with a difficult situation, answering for something, or avoiding something. However, this thing we may regard as small and harmless is actually of great offense to God. Further, a pattern of this actually demonstrates that someone does not truly have the Holy Spirit in them for they would be convicted by this. John MacArthur rightly says, “Christians may lapse into falsehood on occasion, though lying will not be the unbroken pattern of their lives.” The devil is the “father of” lies (John 8:44) and “all liars” are cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 21:8, 27). Those who love and practice lying will be left out of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:15). This call, among the others regarding the tongue in James, serves as a reminder to always watch what we say, to use fewer words, and always speak the truth.

Do people know I belong to Jesus by how I speak? Am I known for being truthful or dishonest? Whom have I harmed with a “white lie” that I need to make amends with? Have I dishonored God by making commitments for things He doesn’t want me to? The answer for the tongue, as with everything else James addresses, is to “Submit to God” (James 4:7) and “Humble” ourselves before Him (James 4:10).