Matt 5:33–37 — Do Not Lie To One Another

After expounding the sixth and seventh commandments, Jesus turns to truthfulness. His words concern both the third commandment, which forbids taking the Lord’s name in vain, and the ninth, which forbids false witness. Leviticus 19:11–12 joins the two: “You shall not lie to one another” and “You shall not swear by my name falsely.”

Jesus teaches his disciples to be so consistently truthful that they have no need to reinforce ordinary speech with elaborate oaths. We will consider Jesus as the teacher of truth, the devil as the father of lies, and Christ as the Savior of liars.

The Teacher of Truth

One, the teacher of truth. Two, the father of lies. And three, the savior of liars. The teacher of truth, that is Jesus. The father of lies, that is the devil. And the savior of liars, that is Jesus, who comes to save us from our deceitfulness. So first, the teacher of truth. Jesus is the teacher of truth. He teaches the truth. All that he teaches is the truth of God. In fact, he embodies the truth? In the Gospel of John, it says, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth. And of course, as the teacher of the truth, Jesus calls his disciples to follow the truth, to be truthful in their speech, not to lie to one another, not to use oaths in order to communicate falsehood. And so that’s what Jesus is getting at here in this paragraph. He’s calling his disciples to be truthful. Now we need to understand what Jesus is not teaching here.

At first you might think that he’s saying that oaths in and of themselves are wrong or sinful. He says in verse 33, again, you’ve 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. And so that phrase, do not take an oath at all, if you take that literally, could be interpreted as teaching that Jesus is forbidding all oaths whatsoever. Oaths in and of themselves, even taking an oath, is something bad and sinful in and of itself. But that can’t be what he’s saying, because if he meant that, then that would imply a criticism of the Ten Commandments.

Because in the Third Commandment, it says, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. That is, you shall not make an oath for a false purpose. You shall not take an oath that is false. Implying that you can take an oath if it is legitimate and true? Furthermore, think about this.

Just in your mind’s eye, just think about the Old Testament as a whole, and think about how often it talks about God himself taking an oath? If oaths are in and of themselves bad and evil and sinful, then why is it that the Bible describes God as taking an oath? There are two main oaths in the Old Testament that are all over the place in the Old Testament. Dozens and dozens of times it talks about God’s oath with Abraham, and again with God’s oath with David. Often it talks about the oath that God swore to our fathers, meaning to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If oaths are in and of themselves sinful, bad, wicked things, then why is God engaging in this practice of taking an oath? So obviously, the issue here is not the oath itself, as if the oath itself is sinful. The issue is taking it for a false purpose in order to verify something that is not true. Also, there are examples in the Old Testament of Israel.

When they heard God’s law, responding to that by taking an oath and promising to keep God’s law. And later on, as they go through their history, there are different times when the nation is more or less backsliding and falling into apostasy, but then a king will arise and he will reform the people and call them back to covenant faithfulness.

They’ll have these ceremonies where they renew the covenant vows. They have these covenant renewal ceremonies in which they promise once again, we’re going to be more faithful, we’re going to put away all the idols, and they would take an oath to be faithful to God. And it’s like a marriage ceremony? Taking an oath to be faithful to their husband, to God himself. And also in the New Testament, we even see examples of oaths.

Paul often used oaths. Just think in your mind how often he’ll say something like this, God is my witness. How I am constantly praying for you. God is my witness that I’m not preaching the gospel to seek to get money from you or acting from underhanded motives. So again and again, Paul will use oaths.

It cannot be that Jesus here is literally saying that oaths are wrong and sinful in and of themselves. When you look at everything that the Bible teaches, the third commandment itself, which teaches that oaths are proper if they’re not done in vain, that God himself bound himself to oaths, that Israel committed themselves to God by taking an oath, and that Paul also used oaths when he said, God is my witness. So Jesus then is criticizing the misuse of oaths. He’s criticizing using an oath in order to seek to make what you’re saying sound true when it is not.

some have taken Jesus literally here. There’s this whole tradition that goes back to the Anabaptists at the time of the Reformation and Christian anarchists who use the teaching of Jesus, especially in this section of the Sermon on the Mount. So starting with the passage on oaths and then going to the next section on turning the other cheek in verses 38 to 42.

They take this section of the Sermon on the Mount and they lift it out of context, out of the context of the teaching of the whole Bible, and they say that Jesus is requiring Christians to not take any oaths whatsoever, to not engage in any self-defense. And so Christians ought to not serve in law enforcement. Christians ought not to serve in the military. Christians should refuse to testify under oath if they’re brought into court. In a way, it’s like this anarchistic view of just rejecting all of civil society and saying we shouldn’t participate in it because Jesus literally says it right here?

An example of this that is famous in history was the author Leo Tolstoy. You may have heard of him. He wrote some famous novels? War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But he also wrote a book. It was a non-fiction book called The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You. The Kingdom of God is Within You. He wrote that in the year 1894. And this was not a novel.

This was his own thinking about what the Bible teaches, what Jesus requires of Christians. And he was using these passages in the Sermon on the Mount, especially the one on oaths and the one on turning the other cheek, as a way of critiquing the society around him. He was a Russian. He lived in the time before the Russian Revolution when church and state were mixed together. And he was critiquing that.

He was critiquing all of paying taxes and serving in law enforcement or serving in the military or taking oaths. And he was saying that all of society needs to be reformed. We need to follow the teaching of Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount and apply it literally to society. Which in effect would mean destroying civil government? You can’t even have a country, you can’t have courts, you can’t have law, you can’t have a civilization if there’s no taxes, if there’s no law enforcement, if there’s no oaths allowed in court.

he was in effect a Christian anarchist and he was using Jesus to seek to support that. But again, that cannot be the correct interpretation because Jesus himself affirmed the legitimacy of civil government. He affirmed the legitimacy of paying taxes. He said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render to God the things that are God’s. Just like the Apostle Paul also taught in Romans 13 that civil government is ordained by God.

clearly then there are various situations where oaths can be legitimately used in society. For example, when elected officials take their oath of office? They swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. Law enforcement officers do that. Members of the military take an oath to support the Constitution. Of the United States.

If you go into court to testify in court, you’ll be asked to affirm that what I’m saying is the truth, and I know that I’m saying this under penalty of perjury, that I could be prosecuted if I, it’s like making a curse? Like in that Old Testament idea, if I’m not telling the truth, then may God pluck out my right eye. It’s like that, although you’re just talking about a civil penalty. Being found guilty of perjury, but that’s the idea of taking an oath. May some harm come to me if I am not telling the truth. And that’s a way of then impressing upon your conscience the need to tell the truth. So those are legitimate use of oaths in society.

Jesus is not teaching that all of society and the civil government and the courts should be abolished and thrown out the window. What is he teaching then? He’s not focusing upon how the civil realm should be operated and run. He’s focusing upon the higher righteousness that is demanded of disciples in his kingdom. That’s the whole context of the Sermon on the Mount? He called his disciples to them and he opened his mouth and he taught them. And he’s teaching the disciples what it means to be a member of his kingdom of grace.

What he’s doing then is he’s criticizing people taking voluntary oaths, not a situation where you’re called into a court or you’re taking an oath of office, but voluntary oaths in the course of daily life, the daily life of God’s people, where somebody will take a voluntary oath in order to seek to enhance the credibility of what they’re saying.

By the temple, I say. By Jerusalem, I say that this and that or the other is true. Ironically, when you do that, it actually makes you seem less trustworthy, doesn’t it? If you have to add an oath to what you’re saying, then it makes you seem less trustworthy.

That’s what Jesus is getting at here. He’s getting at this idea that how Christians ought to treat one another in the kingdom of Christ is that we ought to speak the truth to one another and not lie to one another. And we can tell that’s what Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about how life should be lived within the kingdom, the kingdom of salvation, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, not the civil realm.

We can tell that because of several things. Number one, the book of James. James was the brother of our Lord, and in his letter the epistle of James, he quotes the teaching of Jesus quite frequently. And this is one of the passages that he quotes from in James chapter 5. But notice how he interprets it. He interprets it as something that has to do with how Christians ought to treat one another.

The context is in James chapter 5, verse 7, where he says, Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. And then he says in verse 9, do not grumble against one another, brothers. So he’s talking about the brothers and sisters within the body of Christ. And then he says, in that same context, as he’s giving these exhortations to Christians within the church, he says, but above all, my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

That James is properly interpreting the teaching of Jesus in its setting as being Jesus’ teaching for disciples and how they ought to live within the kingdom, that is within the church, within the community of disciples of Christ. Verifies for us that he is interpreting Jesus’ teaching correctly and applying it to the right kingdom. He’s not applying it to the kingdom of the world, the civil kingdom, and to the courts and the military and all of that. He’s applying it to the life of God’s people within the kingdom of grace.

One commentator writes this, he says, In fact, it’s interesting that not only does James, the brother of our Lord, quote Jesus, But I believe that Paul himself also quotes Jesus. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25, and notice how he specifically ties it to the body of Christ. He says, So notice how he is alluding to the teaching of Jesus here on the need for truthfulness, but he’s applying it to the body of Christ. Let each one of you within the body of Christ speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. And he says something similar in Colossians chapter 3 verse 9 in the parallel passage.

By the way, it’s interesting to note there that in that verse in Ephesians 4.25, when he says, Not only is he alluding to the teaching of Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount, it’s actually a quotation from Zechariah.

Zechariah 8, verse 16. And in that context, in Zechariah chapter 8, that whole context there deals with the restoration of Israel under the New Covenant. Israel had been sent into exile because of their sin, their idolatry. One of the sins that the prophets were very concerned about was the sin of deceit and taking oaths that were in vain, taking false oaths and not speaking truthfully to their neighbors. But in that context, Zechariah, as a prophet, is speaking of the restoration of Israel under the new covenant. And he says, this is what you must do, God’s people, in the new covenant age. Let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. So that’s the first point then, Jesus is the teacher of the truth.

The Father of Lies

Let’s go now to the second point, where we talk not about Jesus, but about the devil, who is the father of lies. Where do I get that from? Well, as I mentioned as I read the passage, verse 37 can be translated, let what you say be simply yes or no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one, that is from the devil. We see a similar thing, by the way, if you look in the Lord’s Prayer in the next chapter, in Matthew 6, verse 13, the very last petition of the Lord’s Prayer is what? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Same thing there. That can also be translated, but deliver us from the evil one. And I know in the ESV, I’m not sure about the other translations, there’s a footnote that acknowledges that is a translation possibility. And I think that is the correct way to translate it here.

Jesus here is really escalating the importance of speaking the truth. Because if we do not speak the truth, then we are participating in the devil’s work. Is that not the essence of the devil’s work? Deception and lies? Going all the way back to the garden? The devil came to Adam and Eve in the garden. What did he do? He lied. He deceived. He tricked. He was more crafty than any other beast of the field. He said, has God said that you will not die?

He’s questioning God’s word and God’s truth. In the Heidelberg Catechism, it’s very interesting on the question and answer that deals with this commandment, the ninth commandment. The Heidelberg Catechism mentions this reality of the devil’s role in lying and deceit. What is God’s will for you in the ninth commandment? Answer, I’m reading just one section of it, that I should avoid under penalty of God’s wrath every lying and deceit as the very works of the devil. The Heidelberg Catechism is correctly picking up on something very significant here in biblical theology, which is that Satan is the deceiver.

He is called the deceiver of the nations in the book of Revelation. With regard to believers, he’s not the deceiver because we can’t be deceived in Christ. But with regard to believers, he’s the accuser? He accuses us before God. But with regard to the unbelieving world, the unbelieving world is under the deception of Satan.

He is called the father of lies. That’s the name Jesus gave him in John chapter 8, verse 44. He is the father of lies. Every lie that has been told in the history of the world is the trickle-down effect of the principal lie of Satan in the garden. He is the father of lies. All lies are his offspring.

Just think about the increase of lying that is going on in our society around us. The lies that are being told by the media, by those in power, lies such as this, that abortion is liberating and empowering for women, that abortion is just really healthcare, and that’s all it is. It’s just healthcare for the woman. It’s this lie where it’s denying the reality of what abortion is. It’s killing your own child. But you see how there’s this lie, there’s this deception, there’s this way of trying to paint it into this seemingly innocuous role. Or think about those who focus on this idea that gender is a social construct, that being male or female is not rooted in biology, God didn’t create us male and female, it’s simply a social construct, it’s simply something that we made up and you can choose whatever you want. Regardless of what your biology says, you can decide what gender you want to be. Think about all of these lies that are going on in society right now. And think about how these lies are being pushed and forced upon us in such a way that if you dare to speak the truth, you can lose your job. Or you could be censored on social media. There is this regime of lying, this regime of deception that is going on in the world around us. And this is satanic, this is demonic.

There was a well-known Russian dissident named Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who lived from 1918 to 2008. He was a famous Soviet dissident in the 1950s and 60s. He was a critic of Joseph Stalin and of communism. And he wrote this book called the Gulag Archipelago in 1973 that showed the world what was going on inside of the Soviet Union. Behind the Iron Curtain.

The rest of the world didn’t really know all the details of what was going on there. We had our suspicions, but when his book came out, The Gulag Archipelago, he exposed the political repression that was going on, the totalitarianism, how the communists were so concerned about thought crimes and making sure that people believed the right thing, that no criticism of Stalin or the governing elite would be allowed.

It was this realm of lies. It was a kingdom of lies that was being pursued by the Soviet Union at that time. And Solzhenitsyn, he suffered for it. He was thrown into the gulags, thrown into the prisons. And he experienced that oppression and totalitarian regime because he would not go along with what the government wanted him to say.

Interestingly, Rod Dreher wrote a book in 2020 called Live Not by Lies, which is taken from an essay that Solzhenitsyn wrote. He wrote this essay, Live Not by Lies, to summarize what we can do to resist these oppressive regimes. Rod Dreher’s book, though, is taking that concept and taking Solzhenitsyn’s experience and applying it to our current situation today, pointing out that there is a softer form of totalitarianism that is happening in our world and in our culture today. And he subtitled the book, Live Not by Lies, subtitle, A Manual for Christian Dissidents.

A dissident is someone that doesn’t go along with the ruling regime, that doesn’t agree with the lies that are being promoted by those in power, and suffers for it. And so he’s calling us, Rod Dreher is calling us as Christians to do the same thing, to live not by lies, but rather to be Christian dissidents who stand for the truth, even though it is costly.

Whenever lies, deception, and false narratives abound, then that’s the telltale sign of the devil’s work. Then that the devil is at work. Was not communism truly demonic? Think of all the lies and the murders that took place under those regimes. Are not the lies of those today who are pushing these false narratives and false beliefs about abortion and gender and so on, are not these truly demonic? Is this not a demonic deception?

Do we not feel that there’s something going on here? There’s something, some spiritual warfare that is happening? That’s why it’s not surprising that those who are on the political left are so opposed to traditional Christians. They don’t have a problem with liberal Christians who are progressive in their beliefs and that go along with all these lies, but traditional Christians who hold to traditional ideas of sexual morality and traditional gender roles and the family and so on, they are very opposed to them and wish to muzzle them and to deprive us of our rights and our ability to speak the truth. And so there’s this tremendous pressure to go along with these lies. There’s a culture of lies. There’s a totalitarian pressure that is moving in our culture. And what Christ is warning us here is, let us be those who are lovers of the truth, not simply those that go along with the truth when it’s easy and convenient, but let us be those that are champions of the truth, who hold fast to the truth, who let our yes be yes and our no be no, because anything more than that, anything beyond that comes from the evil one. He’s calling us here to engage in spiritual warfare. It may seem you’re reading the Sermon on the Mount, and it just seems like, oh, he’s just talking about these different commandments make sure that you’re a truth teller, make sure that you don’t engage in murder in your heart, and so on. But when you really see what Jesus is saying here, there’s this cosmic spiritual warfare that is going on, and he’s calling us to fight the good fight.

He’s calling us to be aware, to be on the alert, to be sensitive to that there is demonic activity going on around us. And how often we ourselves get so numb to it. We don’t see the true spiritual battle that’s going on beneath the surface. We just see the tip of the iceberg, but underneath we miss this massive reality that is happening below.

Jesus is calling us to engage in the spiritual warfare, to take up the whole armor of God, and to be lovers of the truth. To be champions of the truth and to be careful with our words, to be careful that we speak the truth to one another. So often there are these, it happens incrementally? So often it’s like, well, just this one little compromise, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. But then what happens? Then the devil comes along and takes you another step beyond that. And before it, you’re in a world of hurt. Before it, you’re in the arms of the devil and you are following his whole narrative. Let us follow the Lord. Let us follow Christ, the teacher of truth in this way. But that brings us then to the third point, the savior of liars. So Jesus, of course, is the savior of us, of we liars who know how often we have failed.

Don’t kid yourself. Don’t think that you’re not a liar. Don’t think that, well, I don’t really do these bad, terrible things. I’m not engaged in communist lying. I’m not engaged in saying these horrible things about abortion or gender and so on. I’m not that bad. Recognize that you yourself have a satanic liar in your heart.

It’s interesting that Matthew, in writing his gospel, will illustrate each of the next paragraphs here in the rest of his narrative. So these three paragraphs that are at the end of chapter five, so the paragraph on oaths, the paragraph on retaliation, turning the other cheek, and the paragraph on loving your enemies. Matthew, as he tells the story of the gospel, is going to keep those three points that Jesus is teaching in his mind, and he’s going to bring them up as the narrative progresses. You might think that just seems somewhat far-fetched, but think about this.

What does Peter do when he denies Christ in Matthew chapter 26? Now we’re at the very end of the gospel, the passion narrative. Peter denied Christ. Remember when that servant girl saw that Peter was there and she recognized him and said, hey, I think I know this guy. I think he’s one of Jesus’ disciples. What does Peter do at that point?

The text tells us not just that he denied it. It doesn’t just say that he denied it. The text tells us that he denied it with an oath. It explicitly says that. So I think that Matthew is picking up here on this teaching of Jesus about oaths, and he’s illustrating it. He’s showing us how this is what happens when you engage in this practice of using oaths as a cloak for your lies.

Peter denied it with an oath. In fact, it even says that he invoked a curse on himself. He doesn’t say what the curse was, like may I be killed or may my right eye be plucked out or something, but it just says he invoked a curse upon himself. He’s vehemently denying that he was one of Jesus’ disciples, vehemently denying it, even taking an oath upon himself, even taking God’s name in vain in order to affirm it, that he did not know Christ.

Peter is a liar. Peter is breaking the teaching of Jesus right here. And Matthew is illustrating for us the lie that Peter committed. In contrast with Peter though, Jesus spoke the truth plainly, even to his own hurt. Right in that same section of Matthew chapter 26, it’s actually just a few verses before where Peter denies Jesus, we have Jesus before the high priest.

He’s been arrested. He’s brought up on charges. The high priest and the Sanhedrin, they’re trying to find a cause to put him to death. They’re bringing in all these people that were bearing false witness. But that wasn’t convincing enough. And so finally, the high priest turned to Jesus himself. And what did he say to Jesus? He said, I charge you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. And what does Jesus say? He doesn’t say, I take an oath in the name of God that I am or am not or something. He simply says, you have said so. Exactly what Jesus is teaching right here? Exactly what Jesus taught here in this passage in the Sermon on the Mount.

simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don’t add an oath to it, even though the high priest is demanding that you do it. Demanding. I charge you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. And Jesus simply says, you have said so. He simply let his yes be yes. He could have taken an oath. He could have tried to get out of it. He could have been like Peter, but he didn’t. He simply told the truth. He simply stood for the truth in plain, simple words.

The Savior of Liars

Jesus here is our example. He is the one that shows, who illustrates for us what it means to be truth tellers and not to be those who use oaths in order to get out from the truth or to cover up our lies. Peter, had confessed Christ earlier, remember back in chapter 16, he confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, but when push came to shove, when it came to a moment of crisis, when he was afraid that he was going to get arrested and put on trial too, he crumbled and he denied Christ. Christ alone remains steadfast in the truth and as a result of his faithfulness to the truth, he was crucified in order to save Peter from his lying and to save all of us from our unfaithfulness and all of our lying. Jesus is the savior of liars because he is the truth and he is the one who speaks the truth. But wonderfully, God transformed Peter because after the resurrection, Peter was restored and became a powerful witness to the truth. Peter proclaimed the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the savior of liars, not only dying for the sin of lying, but also transforming us from being liars into those who tell the truth and who, in the power of Christ, are champions for the truth and are willing to hold on to the truth even at great cost to ourselves.

In the power of Christ, we too can renounce deceit. Left to ourselves, we are fickle and weak like Peter; united to Christ, we can stand for the truth of the gospel.

Paul cherished that phrase, “the truth of the gospel.” When pressured by the Judaizers to treat circumcision as necessary for salvation, he refused to yield “so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (Gal. 2:5). That gospel is our only hope. Let us therefore hold fast to it and, in the power of Christ, speak truth to one another.