The Cost of Discipleship – Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chapter 11

Matt. 5:33-37 (NIV)

³³ “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ ³⁴ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. ³⁶ And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. ³⁷ All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

In a speech I stated, honesty is not the best policy, (pause) it is the only policy. It was my way of telling the audience that there is no room for misleading, deceiving or being untruthful (aka lying) in life.

Bonhoeffer makes the following definition. “What is and oath? It is an appeal made to God in public, calling on him to witness a statement made in connection with an event or fact, past, present or future. By means of the oath men invoke the omniscient deity to avenge the truth.”

I did a little checking and came across the following explanation. Making an oath is to call on God as a witness to men, creating an objective guarantee to uphold the truth whereas vows are personal pledges of devotion, often conditional on God's help.

This is somewhat an exercise in semantics since both are intended to maintain truthfulness. The matter of swearing an oath has been debated back and forth throughout the history of religion. Some religious groups say they cannot make an oath, but they do make marriage vows before God and witnesses. Isn’t signing a loan, having documents notarized, even writing a check a form of an oath?

What I see Bonhoeffer getting to is that foundationally, we are completely known by an omniscient God. Every word we utter is known to him and as such we are obligated to be truthful. There is no need to swear by God, ourselves, some object, someone we know or something revered. Truthfulness is to be a hallmark of the Christian.

I will close with two quotes from The Cost of Discipleship.

“In this matter of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness, and they resist it with all their might. That is why the persecute it and crucify it.”

“There is no truth towards Jesus without truth towards man. Untruthfulness destroys fellowship, but truth cuts false fellowship to pieces and establishes genuine brotherhood. We cannot follow Christ unless we live in revealed truth before God and man.”