When we come to James 5:12, it can feel like James is making a completely unrelated statement about not swearing or taking oaths. And we can find ourselves saying, “where does this come from?”
What does this have to do with being patient in the face of wickedness and injustice?
In this statement, James is calling us to walk, speak and live in truthfulness. As you live in a world of evil, be men and women of integrity, of honesty, and sincerity. Do not let lies or falsehood come from your mouth.
One of the methods of wickedness, evil and injustice is often lies, deception, falsehood and slander. But James calls us to live differently as followers of Jesus Christ.
And so James highlights this exhortation by saying, ‘above all” meaning at the end of the day, no matter what you go through or encounter in this world, no matter if lies and deceptions are thrown at you, as you persevere with patient faith, may you been known for your truthfulness, may you be known for a character that can be trusted.
This is one of the ways we live patiently and faithfully in a fallen world.
And so James writes, ‘Do not swear…”
Now when James says do not swear he is not taking about not using profanity or taking the Lord’s name in vain, but rather he is talking about the act of taking an oath.
The dictionary definition of an oath is: “a solemn promise, often invoking a divine witness…”
A place in culture where we see people taking an oath is when a newly elected official enters into office they might take an “oath of office”. We call this a swearing In ceremony.
The most famous swearing in ceremony in this country would be the presidential inauguration where the newly elected president places their left on the bible and raises their right hand and they begin with these words, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States…”
You and I may never be sworn in as President but we may one day have to be a witness in a court where we will be asked raise our right hand and solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
And so James says, “do not swear..” And yet we have these moments in our culture where we are asked to solemnly swear and we can read verse 12 and find ourselves saying, “what is James telling us not to do here.”
Well, this is not a blanket statement about not making any kind of oath but rather it is statement about making a certain kind of oath or more specifically a statement about how we use oaths.
The Bibles teaches that there are certain kind of oaths or vows that are appropriate.
Deuteronomy 10:20 says, “You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear.” In other words, if you make an oath it must be in God’s name and God’s name alone. You should make an oat in the name of a false god or another person. You are to only make your vow, your promise before God. He is the one we are accountable to.
An example of an oath made in Scripture was in Genesis 24. Abraham asked his servant to go find a wife for his son Isaac and he asked his servant to swear by the Lord that he would not get a wife from the Canaanites. But he asked his servant to travel back to Abraham’s homeland and get a wife from his own relatives. The servant was making a commitment to Abraham before the Lord. And so the servant was saying, “yes, I will do what you ask and I make this promise in the presence of God.”
And so oaths were a part of the Jewish culture. But what happened over time is that people started making binding oaths and unbinding oaths. If you made an oath before God it was binding but if you made an oath to something else it was non-binding. And so the way an oath could sound good but still be non-binding is if they swore by heaven or by the temple. It sounded good but it wasn’t actually swearing by the name of the Lord and so they thought if you didn’t fulfill a nonbinding oath that it wasn’t a sin. You weren’t being deceptive. You still had integrity.
And so what happened was the Jewish culture essential legitimized dishonesty. People were able to make it seem like they were outwardly telling the truth and upholding integrity and honesty when it reality they were not.
And so James says do not swear by heaven or by earth or any oath because you are doing it in a deceptive way. Your character lacks integrity.
Jesus addressed this very issue in his sermon on the mount. In Matthew 5 he says, “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King… (Jesus goes to say) Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”
What Jesus was doing all throughout the sermon on the mount was addressing the heart motives for areas of morality. He was taking them beyond the cultural acceptance of morality and he was challenging their heart. And so in the area of oaths Jesus was saying this is not a legal transaction with loopholes. Oaths aren’t causal promises that you can manipulate to get what you want. This is about your integrity. So stop playing around with oaths and simply let your word mean what it says – let yes mean “yes” and no mean “no.”
The heart of the issue for Jesus and the heart of the issue for James is integrity, character, righteousness, faithfulness.
And so James repeats what Jesus said, Let your yes be “yes” and your no be “no.” As Christians, we shouldn’t need an oath to be able to keep our promise. It should be who we are and what we do because of our identity as followers of Jesus.
If a follower of Jesus speaks, the world around them should know that their words can be trusted. That should be one of our testimonies in this world. They may not be in agreement with our biblical worldview but they should see in our lives that our worldview leads us to live a life that is different then the rest of the world. They would see in us a life of integrity, a life of purity, a life of dignity, a life of sincerity, a life of hope and freedom that is rooted in the grace, hope, forgiveness and peace of Christ.
James addresses the issues of not grumbling in the midst of suffering in verse 9 and then he addresses being truthful and blameless in the midst of suffering here in verse 12 and what is interesting is this parallels what Paul writes in Philippians 2 where he says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
And so Paul says that in the midst of a crooked and unjust generation, live differently, lively blamelessly and innocently. In fact, he says that when we do we shine. We shine like lights in a dark world. Our honesty, truthfulness and integrity sets us apart but more importantly we reflect the divine character of God.
That is how we not only patiently persevere, but how we proclaim the truth of Christ in a wicked generation.
James concludes verse 12 by saying if our lives, our words and our actions are not filled with truth and integrity we may fall under condemnation. Other translations say “fall under judgment.”
Now this is a strong statement from James. When James uses this word condemnation, he is not simply talking about one being disciplined, rebuked or corrected. When this word condemnation is used in the New Testament it is used to refer to those who are being condemned to hell.
James is not saying that if you are a Christian and you are deceitful that you will go to hell. That is not what he is saying. Romans 8 tells us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Our sins cannot condemn us to hell. He has paid the penalty for our sins.
But the point that James is making is: if this is the pattern of your life, if you are regularly deceitful and dishonest then that is not the fruit of the Spirit of God, that is actually the work of one who is still a slave to sin. Lies and deceptions is the work that is being produced in a non-believer.
The book of Revelation speaks of the works of a non-believer: Revelation 21:8 says, “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur…”
If the pattern of your life is deception and lies it may be that you have not truly surrendered your life to Christ, that you are not a true believer and that when you die you will be condemned to hell. But I think the greater point in verse 12 from James is that falsehood and lies is not are fruits of a Christian. And so James is exhorting us to no live this way! Seek to live out of truthfulness for this demonstrates the character of God.
There is a way to live in a fallen world without giving into this world or by being overcome by this world. In fact, Philippians says, we can actually live in this world as ones shining the hope and truth of Christ in the middle of the darkness of this world.
May our lives shine before a fallen world that they see the works of God in us and glorify our Father in heaven.