A mother tells her little boy to not eat the cookies that she has baked. But when she isn’t looking, he slips into the kitchen and has a big bite of a just-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie. But he doesn’t eat the whole thing. Just a bite.
When the mother comes in, she discovers bite marks that perfectly coincide with junior’s teeth. She questions him, and the little lad says, “I didn’t eat a cookie. I swear.” Is he telling the truth? Technically, yes. He did not eat an entire cookie. But he is leaving out an important detail — he did take a bite.
This is why when we have to swear an oath in the US, we are asked, “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”
This means that we cannot squirm away from the truth by only sharing that which is partially true. Nor can we evade the truth by giving more information than is necessary in order to mute the impact of our actions. We swear to be entirely truthful.
In Matthew 5:37, Jesus says, “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” It appears that Jesus is against taking an oath. Is that what this verse means? What does Jesus mean by telling us to “let your yes be yes”?
What Is the Context of This Statement?
Matthew 5:33-37 is set within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It is here that he outlines what life in the kingdom looks like. Many of his statements in this sermon begin with something like, “You have heard it said…but I say to you….” The section on oaths in Matthew 5:33-37 is similar.
In Matthew 5:33, Jesus summarizes a few places in the Old Testament and says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.” In other words, “If you invoke the name of God, you’d better be truthful and do what you say you will do.”
But Jesus says in verses 34-36, “Do not swear at all.” Some have taken this to mean that taking an oath is against what God calls us to do in the kingdom. Followers of Jesus, it is believed, should refuse to take an oath.
But verse 37 helps us to interpret verses 34-36. There it says what they should do instead, namely, “Let what you say be simply ‘yes or ‘no’….”
But what does that mean? Is Jesus saying that we shouldn’t ever take an oath? Or is he teaching something different?
What Does This Verse Mean?
I laugh when I think about some of our playground rules. A kid comes into class and tells a whopper of a story. Nobody believes him, but then he says, “I swear.” The class is still not convinced and so he says, “I swear on my mother’s grave.”
At this point, we have to assess how much he loves his mother and if he’d risk breaking such an oath. We also know that he could be crossing his fingers or toes, thus canceling out his verbal oath.
In a moment of despair, the young man pulls out the trump card. He offers his pinky finger. Everyone in the class understands that you absolutely cannot break a pinky promise.
To do so, such a thing would rend the very fabric of the universe and swallow the entire class up into a fiery abyss. Nobody breaks a pinky promise. To do such would make you an outcast for the rest of your days.
If you break a pinky promise, then there is no higher thing you can invoke in order to be believed. If you break this one, you’re done for. Everybody believes the pinky promise.
Let’s think about what is happening here. Why does the class only believe his story when he offers his pinky? It is because his word is not enough. Perhaps he is known as a child who tells fibs. Or maybe his story is so unbelievable that it requires some greater affirmation.
But what does this communicate about his character? What does this communicate about a society where we need to take oaths and pinky promises?
It communicates that we are not trustworthy people at our core. We must invoke higher authorities and greater consequences in order to raise the stakes on truthfulness. Truth for the sake of truth isn’t enough to motivate us, apparently.
The Jews had their own version of a pinky promise. It involved the name of God. Leon Morris explains:
“The Jews held that unless the name of God was specifically mentioned the oath was not binding; there were lengthy discussions about when an oath is or is not binding, and people would sometimes swear by heaven or earth or a similar oath and later claim that they were not bound by that oath because God was not mentioned” (“The Gospel according to Matthew”).
They even had their own way of crossing their fingers. They’d swear by heaven or earth or by Jerusalem as a way of avoiding swearing by the name of God.
And some would even swear a curse upon their own head. This would be our version of “cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” Jesus is saying that we shouldn’t be playing this game.
Or rather, he is saying that such a thing should not be necessary. He’s not de facto saying don’t place your hand on a Bible and take an oath before a judge and jury.
What he is saying is that you should not have to do this. Your character should be such that when you speak, people know you are telling the truth.
The word of a follower of Jesus should be enough. It should be the most reliable thing that they have. Invoking the name of God should not be necessary because we should be known as people of truth. That is the point that Jesus is making in this passage.
As Jesus is outlining the way of life in His Kingdom, we see from this passage that it is one marked by truth. Can you imagine what society would be like if we truly did not need to take an oath?
Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if every time someone spoke, we knew that it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Such will be life in the Kingdom of God.
How Do We Apply This Today?
We apply this verse by being people of truth. That means having integrity and doing the things we say we are going to do. It means being faithful to our word. So that when we say “yes” or “no,” the other person knows that we will come through on our word.
It means being a people who tell “the whole truth” and “nothing but the truth” in our interactions with others. We do not fudge the numbers. We do not pretend to know when we do not know.
And we also do not pretend ignorance when we do know an answer to something. We are honest people of integrity.
But we also apply this by acknowledging our humanity. Being a person of truth does not mean being all-knowing. I like how Patrick Miller and Keith Simon put this in their book Truth Over Tribe:
“We all like looking omni-intelligent, omni-knowing, and omni-correct. But God, the only truly omniscient one, did not design us that way. God designed you to have limits. He designed you to not know. He designed you to discover. To learn. To rethink. To explore. When God gave Adam and Eve the mission to expand Eden, he implicitly gave them a calling to make new discoveries, build new things, and learn new ideas.”
To obey Matthew 5:37 means that sometimes we admit that we do not know the answer. That is what it means for our “yes” to be “yes” and our “no” to be “no.” It means we are authentic. We are truthful. We are people of integrity who live what we say. And we are fully honest.
In reality, only Jesus perfectly obeys the way of the Kingdom. It is only Jesus who is able to truly have his “yes” be “yes” and his “no” be “no.” We are liars. Jesus never lies.
In our flesh, we need oaths and pinky promises because we are not yet fully people of truth. But when Jesus changes our hearts, we increasingly reflect the kingdom.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus is what we cannot be. He accomplishes the way of the Kingdom on our behalf and opens up the way for us to have new life.
And when we are united to Christ, our hearts change and we slowly (and often awkwardly) become more and more transformed into His image. We become people of truth just as He is.
Someday there will be no more lies. And there will be no more oaths. This is where Jesus is taking us. Matthew 5:37 is a window into heaven. A place where the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth reigns every day.
For further reading:
What Is the Difference Between ‘Your Truth’ and The Truth?
What Is the Sermon on the Mount?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/maurusone
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.
