Jeremiah tells us that the heart is deceitful, desperate, wicked, and unknowable by humans, including the person within whose chest it resides (Jeremiah 17:9). And Jesus tells us that the evil which flows out of that desperate and wicked heart does so in the form of words that escape our mouths by way of restive tongues (Matthew 12:34). Later, he shares how it is more than just words that escape such an evil heart. Wickedness like murder, lying, theft, and sexual immorality are products of the darkness that lurks at the centers of people still shackled to their sinful states (Matthew 15:18-19). But most people are not murderers in any direct sense. And Most people are not thieves in the way that we normally think of that word. And most people do not commit overt sexual immorality beyond what is tolerated within the behavioral boundaries of their immediate cultures. But most, if not all of us, are liars. If we’re not lying to other people about something, then we’re almost certainly lying to ourselves about something. This penchant for deceit too often provides the illusory cover needed for all of those other evils to flow out of us undetected.
In the ancient Hebraic culture, people would often take oaths to show their commitment to an agreement. People with rotten hearts would swear by anything that sounded holy. They might swear by Heaven, or by the Earth, by Jerusalem, or as one writer puts it, even by their own heads. But they would always be very careful not to swear by God. In this manner, they foolishly believed that they were safe from judgment if they needed to break an oath, because they hadn’t really sworn by something of true importance. Jesus criticizes this logic in Matthew 5:33-37, arguing that Heaven is where God’s throne is, and that the Earth is where his footstool is, and that Jerusalem is the City of the Great King. In other words, you have lied to yourself out of the evil in your heart, and have forgotten the sovereignty that God has over every element of life. In that passage, Jesus also teaches that instead of flippant oaths, we should instead just let our yes be yes and our no be no. His brother, James, repeats this exact concept in his own teaching (James 5:12).
It doesn’t appear that Jesus is condemning oaths, since God guaranteed his promise of blessing to Abraham with one (Hebrews 6:13-18). Instead, it appears that Jesus is giving us a higher standard. One that can only be met with proper spiritual alignment. Our hearts should be honest enough that no deception proceeds from them and then finds its way out of our mouths and into our relationships. We simply do what we say we will do because our character is good and rooted in a holy and truthful God.
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