Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Third Commandment

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Third Commandment

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 062

Dictation Name: RR171AG62

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that thy truth endureth unto all generations. We thank thee that, in a world where men advance their own notions of right and wrong, it is thy word that prevails. That all the workers of iniquity shall perish, that all their realms, their powers, their nations shall crumble and be as nothing. Make us zealous in thy word, that in Christ Jesus we may be more than conquerors today and always. In His name. Amen.

Our scripture is Exodus 20:7: The third Commandment. Exodus 20:7. “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Like so much else in the law, the third commandment has been cheapened, by cheap and limited interpretation. It is commonly limited to mean that idle swearing is prohibited, which is true, but the commandment means far, far more than that. The word translated as “vane” is a Hebrew word from a root meaning “to rush over, to devastate, to lay waste or destroy.” It means “to desolate, to be destructive and evil, to be idolatrous, to be useless and false.” Both James Moffett and the Berkeley version translate it in Exodus 27 as “profanely.” You shall not use the name of the Lord your God profanely. The meaning of this law appears also in another statement of it, in Leviticus 19:12. “And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of the Lord thy God. I am the Lord.” In this verse, profane is “halal;” to bore, to pierce, to wound, to dissolve, or to break. Thus, the commandment means that we must not dissolve, break, devastate, or destroy God’s order.

There is an essential reference here to a court of justice. God’s order is inseparable from justice, and to swear falsely by God’s name is to take part in the destruction of justice. Taking the Lord’s name is routine in a court of law, or it used to be, and it had reference not only to any destruction of God’s order, but in a court of law where God’s justice was to be furthered to swear falsely.

An oath in God’s name is a conditional curse. A false witness brought justice on the one who swore falsely. A witness must testify especially against a false oath, according to Leviticus 5:1. A false witness must be punished by the same penalty as the case involves. If it’s a murder case, the false witness according to Deuteronomy 19:16-21, had to die. Whatever the penalty, that fell upon the false witness.

It is a serious error and a form of antinomianism to limit the application of the law to individuals. The law applies to men and to society. There is an essential link between the faith and the character of men, and the social order they live in. it is their faith, their character, that creates or alters in one direction or another, their social order. To assume that a society can be just when the people are not is a modern heresy. One of the worst titles of this century by Reinhold Niebuhr, was a book titled Moral Man and Immoral Society. Well, that’s nonsense. If men are moral, they will soon create a moral society. If immoral, they will create an immoral society. This heresy of seeing a difference between men and their society, gives an independent life and character to a civil government and a society apart from the people in it, and no state has an independent life. It isn’t something that floats out there in space with a character, apart from the people, but this illusion is essential to the errors of the U.S. State Department and millions of Americans. They assume that the United States, its Constitution, and its laws have an independent character from the people. But this is nonsense. The Constitution has always been interpreted in terms of the character of the people, and if we have a bad character, we have a bad Constitution as it has been interpreted. Its meaning is varied, and legally, the Constitution is to be interpreted by the most recent decisions of the Supreme Court.

Some people believe these people who hold to this heresy that all that is necessary is to allow the unlimited immigration of aliens, of non-Christian peoples into the United States, and to ensure them of equal rights, and they will become what the Americans of 1800 were, or of 1900. And the same illusion marks Europe. In Europe, they believe that because the country has a character, everyone who comes in will soon pick up that character. So, all the blacks and Arabs that are in France will become Frenchmen. That’s an illusion. They don’t have the same faith, therefore they’re not going to give the same character to society.

This commandment also has to do with blasphemy. It was once very seriously regarded in Europe and the Americas, because it was recognized that at the core of western civilization’s order was the reverence for the name of God and for the justice of His order. In April of this year, 1989, at Brown University, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. confessed to what he called “a certain amusement when I hear the Judeo-Christian tradition praised as the source of the good in our world. Rather,” he said, “the age of equality has been the great source of good.” Amazingly, Schlesinger listed as one of the benefits of modern egalitarianism, the abolition of torture. Tell that to the Soviet peoples, or to the Chinese, or to countless numbers of Africans. Torture was common to Antiquity. It was reintroduced by the Renaissance after Christianity had abolished it. It has never been more prevalent than in our time. Both Schlesinger and those who were indifferent to the moral evils of our time, are despising God’s order. We can seek to dissolve or break God’s name, to profane His justice and order either by a dishonest and false use of His name and order, or by separating that order that order from God and assuming it to be man’s creation.

Jose Ortega y Gasset, in a very, very important book written in 1932, The Revolt of the Masses, said that a new barbarianism, and a new barbarian were sweeping the face of the earth, and he said that a great many of the leaders of the new barbarianism were scientists, because they believe that civilization is a natural product. Quoting from Gasset, “that civilization is there in just the same way as the earth’s crust and the forest primeval.” In other words, they see it as a natural development in the history of evolution.

We despise God’s name when we separate him from His creation and ascribe its order and purpose in terms of something else. The Westminster Larger Catechism cited the wide application of this commandment. It declares the third commandment requires that the name of God, His titles, attributed, ordinances, the word, sacraments, prayer, oaths, vows, lots, His works, and whatsoever there is whereby He makes Himself known, be holily{?} and reverently used in thought, meditation, word and writing, by an holy profession and answerable conversation to the glory of God and the good of ourselves and others. Notice, parenthetically that Westminster Catechism says that it refers to whatsoever there is whereby He makes Himself known. But, to continue with the larger catechism, the sins forbidden in the third commandment are the not using of God’s name as required, and the abuse of it in an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane, superstitious, or wicked mentioning, or otherwise using His titles, attributes, ordinances, or works by blasphemy perjury, all sinful cursing, oaths, vows if lawful, and fulfilling them if of things unlawful, murmuring and quarreling at, curious prying into, and misapplying of God’s decrees and providences, misinterpreting, misapplying or any way perverting the word or any part of it, to profane, jest, curious and unprofitable questions, vain janglings, or the maintaining of false doctrines, abusing it, the creatures or anything contained under the name of God, to charms or sinful lusts and practices, the maligning, scorning, reviling, or anyway opposing of God’s truth, grace, and ways, making profession of religion in hypocrisy or for sinister ends, being ashamed of it, or ashamed to it by uncomfortable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking or backsliding from it.

Well, notice the scope of all this. We have very seriously limited the commandment. Notice also that the second part included the not using of God’s name as is required and misinterpreting,, misapplying, or any way perverting the word or any part of it, and also failing to acknowledge God’s decrees and providences. What does that include? All preaching that is a partial truth. All preaching that does not include God’s predestination, that sidesteps difficult portions of the Bible, difficult for man to take. All that is taking the name of God in vain. So you see, over the generations and the centuries, until our time, the wider ramifications of this commandment were clearly seen.

This commandment is, of course, inseparably linked to oaths. Calvin said of oaths, and I quote, “It consists in calling upon God to witness to confirm the truth of any declaration that we make.” What we call swearing, and Calvin called execrations, are falsely called oaths, he said, and are not worthy to be mentioned among oaths. The common purpose of oaths, of course, is on taking office or before giving testimony in a court of law. In the name of God as the absolute truth, we affirm in our oath, our intention to uphold God’s justice. The fact of the oath is basic to social order. This is why, in this country in the last century, you could not be a witness if you were not a believer, because you could not take an oath. Your word was not to be trusted, because you did not believe in someone to whom you were accountable. This is why the fact of the oath is basic to social order. It declares that there is an order and a person beyond man in this world who is the supreme judge over all creation, and whose word and order alone endure. In oath-taking, we appeal to that order and declare our faith in God’s eternal justice, and we declare our faith in that justice in the face of all human tyrannies.

Calvin said of the oath, and I quote, “We are justly said to profess our religion to the Lord when we invoke His name to bear witness to us. For thereby we confess that He is truth itself, eternal and immutable, whom we call not only as a witness of the truth excelling all others, but also as the only defender of it who is able to bring to light things which are concealed and in a word, as the searcher of all hearts.” The godly oath is virtually gone from the courtrooms, and from the oaths of office in the United States. Men now solemnly swear they will uphold their office, or tell the truth, but they swear by themselves, not by God. You are not asked to say, “I solemnly swear in the name of God,” but by yourself. In other words, you’re swearing that you are the upholder of the truth. This assumes that ultimate truth and order depend on man, not on God. Such a view is the logical consequence of humanism. It is erosive of society, because it denies that there is any ultimate truth and order beyond man.

Every man then become his own god and king. This is why it’s only in one area of our society now where perjury counts. You can perjure yourself in court, and ninety-nine times, or nine hundred and ninety, uh, well, only once in ten thousand times or a hundred thousand do the courts ever go after an individual for perjury outside of congress. Congress considers itself to be like a god, and therefore if you perjure yourself to congress, you are punished, but not otherwise.

But, to retain the name of God in oaths and to use it falsely is a claim to authority which is hypocritical. The name of God is then invoked to cover our pretentions to truth, power and justice. To take the name in vain can be rendered, very literally, you shall not lift up or take up the name of the Lord. God will not hold such a one guiltless or unpunished. A trust in lies is a part of a general lawlessness. According to Jeremiah 7:8-11, God declares, “Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.”

Now, of course, we’re familiar with that passage because the latter part is cited more than once in the New Testament. The temple, to be the house of God, is made instead, our Lord says, a den of thieves. When God’s name is falsely used, the faith in God and His order is gone, and all sins, Jeremiah says, are commonplace.

According to Cate, this commandment was also a prohibition of the belief that the mere use of God’s name would have magical properties. That is, appeals to God as a kind of general insurance agent, the coupling of God and country and like usages, under the illusion that this would place us under the side of justice and order. However, to bless and curse in the name of the Lord was virtually a proclamation of His revealed will and purpose to different categories of men. This is an important point. To bless and to curse in the name of the Lord is a proclamation of the word of God. To tell a rapist, a homosexual, a murderer or a perjurer that he is under God’s curse is thus to declare God’s word to him. Whereas, to tell someone who serves God faithfully that he or she is blessed is again to declare God’s word.

Our Lord condemns all trivial oaths in Matthew 5:33-37. He does not speak here of execrations but of oaths made for trifling reasons. Some, like the Quakers have taken this as a prohibition of all oaths, but such a view is possible only if we set aside the Old Testament and then misinterpret the New radically. Chadwick said, and I quote, that the “name of God is not taken in vain when men are conscious of His nearness.” Men may talk freely about someone when he is not in the room, but they fall silent when he walks into the room. If we are constantly conscious of the presence of God, we do not take His name in vain, nor do we doubt the reality of His justice and order. This is when God is real to a people, very near, then this commandment is obeyed, but when men treat the faith as an insurance policy, God is not close nor real to them, and they very readily and easily take His name in vain. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that we have been called to be servants of thy justice, thine order, thy kingdom. Make us zealous in thy service. Teach us to swear righteously, to uphold thy order. Teach us, oh Lord, to be faithful servants of thy kingdom, and to rejoice in the triumph that is sure to come. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] The commandment says God will not hold him guiltless, so obviously, God deals with people. Is man to deal with people who take God’s name falsely, are we given any jurisdiction to punish in that area?

[Rushdoony] If it’s perjury, we are, but apart from that, we leave it to God, and it is significant if perjury today, as I said, is so lightly regarded, because if you do not feel that a man’s word has to be accountable to something beyond man, then you’re not going to be serious about a man who gets up on a witness stand and testifies to an outright lie. You have subverted the whole basis of society when you treat that lightly. In times of faith, men have been so serious about taking an oath, that people have been sticken ill when they have taken a false oath because their entire being testifies against them. Yes?

[Audience] I’ve always had a hard time reconciling what Christ said about swearing not at all, by this and that, this and that, but the Old Testament clearly gives us weight, we should swear {?} and all that kind of stuff. But what do you think {?}

[Rushdoony] That’s a position of the Quakers, that you’re never to take an oath. You simply say, “I solemnly affirm,” not “I solemnly swear.” And that’s a misinterpretation, because what our Lord referred to there was trivial oath-taking, not oath taking in terms of God’s order, as in a courtroom where justice is at stake, but in their everyday affairs. “I swear that I’m really going to do this.” That’s the kind of thing that was commonplace in Israel. For ever little thing at that time, a person would say, “I swear thus and so,” and against that, our Lord spoke on the Sermon on the Mount.” Yes?

[Audience] It must come as a shock to some people to see old Perry Mason reruns where the end of the oath is, “So help me God,” when it’s totally absent from {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that tells you how quickly we have changed, because those Perry Mason videos are not that old, just twenty years or so. But it has dropped out. And, of course, the Bible has all but disappeared. It’s only in the presidential oath-taking, and any day now, we could expect that to go. It is interesting that the night before the election last November, in the last statement he made, George Bush said that the matter was now in the hand of God. And it came out in the press this way: The matter is now in the hand of the gods. They had to edit his statement, de-Christianize it. Any other questions or comments? Well if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that though the world be filled with disorder, it is thine order that shall prevail, thy kingdom which alone shall come and endure, and thy righteousness, thy justice which shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. How great thou art, oh Lord, and we praise thee. Make us joyful in thy reign. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.