Theological term
Third Commandment
8 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Lawful oaths and vows occupy a distinct place in Christian ethics, grounded in the third commandment's demand for reverence toward the divine name and the ninth commandment's prohibition of false witness. This confession-study exposition of 1689 LBCF Chapter 23 distinguishes oaths (horizontal promises between men, made before God as witness) from vows (vertical commitments made directly to God), explains why both the Quaker rejection and Catholic corruption of oaths are condemned, and works through five paragraphs covering definition, solemnity, carefulness, integrity, and the lawful use of vows. The governing application is that the integrity of speech in all of life — family, church, and civic — flows from a rightly ordered fear of the God in whose name oaths are taken.
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
The lawful use of oaths and vows — their definition, sanctity, necessary care, and required clarity — is examined through 2LCF Chapter 23 against the backdrop of three historical abuses: Roman Catholic monastical vows, state imposition on conscience, and the Anabaptist and Quaker rejection of oaths altogether. The chapter is read in full and then expounded paragraph by paragraph, demonstrating from Deuteronomy, Matthew 5, Matthew 26, and Hebrews 6 that oaths are a legitimate element of religious worship reserved for matters of weight and moment, taken only in the name of God with holy fear and reverence. The session concludes by connecting the call to truthfulness with the person of Christ, who as the only one who ever spoke in perfect truth, stands as the substitute for those who break their word.
The Penalty for Blasphemy
Leviticus 24 addresses both the daily obligations of tabernacle worship and the capital penalty for blasphemy, grounding each in the direct speech of God to Moses. The chapter's narrative pivot — an incident in which a man of mixed Israelite and Egyptian descent blasphemes the name of Yahweh — becomes the occasion for case-law application of the third commandment, surrounded by reminders of the lex talionis and the equal accountability of stranger and native-born alike. The typological furniture of the holy place (lampstand and showbread) points forward to Christ as the true light and bread of life, while the blasphemy legislation, with its witness requirements and retributive principle, reveals a God who guards his own honour and structures justice with both severity and safeguard. The sermon exhorts hearers to put away every profane use of the divine name and to cultivate a reverent, wholehearted employment of it in thought, word, and worship.
Love your neighbour
Leviticus 19:9–18 sets out the concrete shape of neighborly love within the covenant community of Israel — not as sentiment, but as law. Working through gleaning regulations, prohibitions against theft, lying, exploitation, and a corrupt judiciary, the passage demonstrates that to love one's neighbor is to refrain from every breach of the second table of the Decalogue. The sermon shows that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and Paul in Romans 13 do not improve upon Moses but confirm what the moral law of God has always demanded: that love is the fulfilment of the law, and hatred of a brother is always a sixth-commandment violation.
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Lawful oaths and vows, treated in 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 23, are grounded in the third and ninth commandments and constitute genuine acts of religious worship — invoking God's omniscience, omnipresence, and vindictive justice as witness and judge. The confession distinguishes oaths (promises made to men before God) from vows (promises directed to God himself), insisting both require solemn care and plain sincerity without equivocation or mental reservation. Against Anabaptist denial and Roman Catholic abuse, the sermon defends the legitimacy of lawful oaths in matters of weight and moment, refutes the reading of Matthew 5 as a suspension of oath-taking, and condemns popish monastical vows — perpetual celibacy, professed poverty, and regular obedience — as superstitious snares without scriptural warrant. Hearers are called to prize truth-telling as a reflection of the character of God and to take every solemn oath with a full awareness of its theological gravity.
2 Samuel 4:1-12
Second Samuel 4 narrates the assassination of Ish-bosheth, the last surviving rival to David's throne, by two Benjamite officers who expected royal reward but received capital punishment. The passage raises the perennial question of divine providence and human responsibility: God works through the wicked acts of men to accomplish His decreed purposes, yet this in no way legitimises those acts or excuses the men who commit them. David's response — swearing by the God who redeemed his life from all adversity and executing the murderers — models both gratitude for sovereign faithfulness and the administration of justice that foreshadows the kingdom of Christ. Believers are exhorted to live by God's revealed, preceptive will rather than by self-serving interpretations of His secret will, and to resist the temptation to mask sin or unkindness behind theological language.
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
What makes an oath lawful, and what does the Bible say about vows? Working through Chapter 23 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study distinguishes between oaths (solemn promises made before God to men) and vows (solemn promises made directly to God), and defends the lawfulness of both against the Anabaptist refusal to swear. The Confession's four characteristics of lawful oaths — their nature as acts of worship, their sanctity as sworn in God's name alone, their solemnity requiring due consideration of weightiness, and their sincerity requiring plain speech without equivocation — are traced through Scripture and illustrated with examples ranging from courtroom testimony to marriage vows. The study closes by warning against rashly multiplying vows and condemning the Roman Catholic tradition of monastic vows as superstitious snares that mistake asceticism for holiness.
The Third Commandment: Oath-Taking
Jesus' instruction in Matthew 5:33–37 is not a universal prohibition against oath-taking but a condemnation of the Pharisaic practice of swearing by created things — heaven, earth, Jerusalem, one's own head — as a device to lend apparent solemnity to speech while evading accountability to God. The sermon exposes this abuse by tracing the Old Testament's positive teaching on oaths, demonstrating from Christ's own submission to adjuration in Matthew 26 and from Paul's sworn affirmations that lawful oath-taking remains valid. The corrective Jesus offers is the kingdom ethic of simple truthfulness: the citizen of Christ's kingdom needs no oath to be believed, because his yes is yes and his no is no, and any compulsion to pad speech beyond this reveals the depraved bent traced ultimately to the father of lies. The Sermon on the Mount, rightly understood, drives the hearer to the cross, where Christ — who honored every commandment and swore to his own hurt — provides the righteousness no oath-keeper can supply for himself.