The Inviolability of an Oath

"Any system of law requires certain basics to make it operative. One is a penalty for violations. Another, equally essential, is the inviolability* of an oath. It is utterly impossible to adminster justice, either in the punishment of wickedness and vice or the adjudication of civil disputes, unless men can be required to tell the truth on pain of heavy penalty. The requirement is met by an appeal to what men regard as sacred and inviolable. For Christians, it means an appeal to God. To appeal is to call upon. To call upon the name of God is to take a solemn oath or to swear. To do that in anything but the utmost adherence to the full truth is to split asunder the whole structure of administration of law in all its forms."

--T. Robert Ingram, from The World Under God's Law (St. Thomas Press, 1962, p.43)

* Secure from violation or profanation; unbreakability

You Cannot Avoid Some Reference to God in Any Vow

"However hard you try, Jesus said, you cannot avoid some reference to God, for the whole world is God's world and you cannot eliminate Him from any of it. If you vow by 'heaven', it is God's throne; if by 'earth' it is his footstool; if by 'Jerusalem' it is his city, THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. If you swear by your head, it is indeed yours in the sense that it is nobody else's, and yet it is God's creation and under God's control. You cannot even change the natural colour of a single hair, black in youth and white in old age."

--John R. W. Stott, from The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Inter-Varsity Press, 1978, p. 101)

When a Man Puts His Own Moral Worth Low, Men Will Take Him at His Own Valuation

"Besides exciting the disapproval and disgust of all good men, the person who habitually supports his assertions by an oath seems thereby to obtrude an acknowledgement that he considers his bare word unlikely, and indeed unworthy, to be believed, and when a person thus puts his own moral worth low, men will naturally take him at his own valuation."

--Robert Johnstone [1871], from Lectures on the Epistle of James (Klock and Klock, 1976, p. 398)

Aesop's fables: The Daw in Borrowed Plumes

An Unlawful Oath Is Not Binding

"An oath cannot bind to that which is in itself unlawful, because the obligation of the law is imposed upon us by the will of God, and therefore takes precedence of all obligations imposed upon us by the will of men or by ourselves; and the lesser obligation cannot relieve from the greater. The sin is in taking the oath to do the unlawful thing, not in breaking it. Therefore Luther was right in breaking his monastic vows."

--A. A. Hodge [1869], from The Westminster Confession: A Commentary (Banner of Truth, 2002, p. 289)

Then What Is It to Swear by Allah with One's Hand on the Koran (Qur'an)?

"Swearing by the name of God implies a belief and acknowledgment of His omniscience, omnipotence, and justice; it follows, therefore, that to swear by any other besides Him, must be utterly unlawful, and no less than idolatry."

--Robert Shaw [1845], from An Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Christian Focus Publications, 1992, p.237)



Question: Hmmm, then is it unlawful and idolatrous to take an oath with one's hand on the Koran?
Answer: YES

"In reaction to the news, conservative media pundit Dennis Prager criticized the decision in his November 28, 2006 column entitled 'America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a Congressman takes his oath on.'" [Very interesting account of different books used in oath ceremonies in the United States. What a cacophanous mish-mash of gods and their law-standards.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur'an_oath_controversy_of_the_110th_United_States_Congress

Is it "America" which decides "what book" a Congressman takes his oath on?

"Instead of 'So Help me God,' Ellison, an African American and of Islamic faith, will pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States ending with the phrase 'Allahhu Akbar' meaning God is Great in Arabic."
http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/3587

Which god was declared to be great by this "representative" of the people? The Christian God? or the Muslim god?

"Before that time [1985], the law was called 'Administration of oath upon the Gospels'"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275266,00.html

Why was the oath law called that?

"The whole concept of having someone take an oath with his hand on a book is to have him swear against something he or she considers sacred. To a Christian or a Jew, that would be the Bible - to a Muslim, the Koran. Forcing a Muslim to take an oath with his or her hand on a Bible would make it meaningless, IMHO."
http://dimensionsmagazine.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-15512.html

Is "swearing against something he or she considers sacred" the whole concept of having someone take an oath with his hand on "a book"?


It's almost like one's standard reveals who or what one's god is. The history of this nation has been marked by political polytheism (adulterous idolatry). What does the future hold for this nation in God's providence, I wonder?

Hindu temple

One of the Great Scandals of Life Today

"One of the great scandals of life today is the appalling increase in divorce and infidelity. To what is it due? It is that men have forgotten the teaching of Christ with regard to vows and oaths, and common veracity and truth and honesty in speech. How like these Pharisees and scribes we are."

--D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Eerdmans, 1959, p.269)

Divorce

An Excellent Way to Prevent Swearing

"...an excellent way to prevent swearing is to use a constant truth in our speeches, then we need not interpose an oath; the credit of our communication will be enough. Oaths give suspicion of men's falseness and lightness. If men were serious and sincere in their discourses, their word would be equivalent to an oath, and their very affirming would be swearing; whereas others in a doubtful case are hardly credited, though they swear never so deeply, because they swear so commonly; for having prostituted the highest and most solemn way of assurance to every trifle, they have nothing left wherewith to establish a controverted truth."
--Thomas Manton [1693],  from The Works of Thomas Manton Vol IV, James 5:12 (Banner of Truth, 1962, p. 438)

Vows

"Vows are as they are made, like unto scents: If they be of ill composition, nothing offends more; if well-tempered, nothing is more pleasant. Either certainty of evil, or uncertainty of good, or impossibility of performance, makes vows of no service to God or man...An unlawful vow is ill made, but worse performed." --Joseph Hall (1574-1656, n.d.)

***

A vow, which is not to be made to any creature, but to God alone, is to be made and performed with all religious care and faithfulness;8 but popish monastical vows of perpetual single life,9 professed poverty,10 and regular obedience, are so far from being degrees of higher perfection, that they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself.11

8 Psalm 76:11; Genesis 28:20-22 [I would have added Deut. 23:21]
9 1 Corinthians 7:2,9 [I would have added 1 Tim. 4:2-4]
10 Ephesians 4:28 [I would have added Prov. 28:19 and Prov. 30:8]
11 Matthew 19:11 [This one would have been good for note 9 above; for this one, I would have chosen Is. 55:9; Matt. 15:9; Rom. 10:6-7]

--The London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 23, Paragraph 5, GD's notes in brackets