THE next woe Jesus pronounces against the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law follows on from what Jesus has already said. Jesus deals with another hypocrisy which reveals the casuistry of the devil.

People swear or take an oath to give veracity to their word. We swear that what we say is true and that people can have confidence in what we say. When people hear some one swearing by something or other they assume that what they say is true, and people automatically take it for granted that their oath gives assurance that they will abide by their word. This is the point of swearing to tell the truth in a court of law. The way the Pharisees taught about oath taking reveals teaching which opens the gate to deception.

The Pharisees distinguished between the temple and the gold of the temple, and between the altar and the gift on the altar. By this they opened up the ability to deceive. A person could deliberately swear by the altar and not the gift on the altar, because he or she did not want to hold to their word, but at the same time wanted to escape the sin of deceiving people and telling lies. By acting like this, deception was being practiced, for such a person would be hoping that the person they were dealing with would not notice their deception, and so they would be deceived.

Jesus points out that if we swear to validate our word, then it does not matter what we swear by, for it is the act of swearing that is important, and to then break our word is vile. This is what Jesus is saying in verses 21 and 22. In the sermon on the mount Jesus makes his teaching even more clear. He tells us there that we should be content with yes or no, and be bound by our word.

In this sophistry we see at the core what is a dislike, even a hate, of the truth. In the sophistry of the Pharisees here, Jesus is exposing the dislike of the Pharisees to be compelled to be truthful and direct with people. We see this in politics. A politician is asked a question, and to avoid commitment we generally hear the politician avoiding a direct answer, and sliding around the question because they do not want to be committed. This is an evil in society and government, even though it may be understandable.

The principle found here has a relevance to the teaching of the truth. The Pharisees disliked to be held down to their word, and so they devised a means whereby they could gain people's confidence, without being committed to what they promised. In the realm of Christian teaching of the truth we have a similar problem.

People and teachers of Christian truth find that they can't accept the clear teaching which they find in the Bible revelation. What do they do? The means that is used is like the teaching of the Pharisees in our verses. They do not want to deny the truth of the Bible, so they find a means whereby they can be thought to be faithful teachers of the truth, but at the same time reject that which is distasteful to themselves in the plain meaning of God's inspired word in the Bible.

The means used is to explain away the truth by some devious or intellectual argument whereby the full truth can be avoided.

The avoiding of truth takes different forms in different times, but the root problem is the same. In our day in theological circles, and within the church at large, there is a peculiar hate of the idea of retribution in penal matters, and from this has grown the idea that all punishment has to be reforming in character. The idea that committing sin and wrong deserves punishment is made out to be untenable in a civilized society.

This has crept into the teaching of the church. People do not like the idea of God's wrath against sin, and that God punishes sin. Because of this they invent ways of getting around this clear teaching in the Bible. The idea in the church today is not to categorically deny the truth, but rather interpret the love of God in such a way as to exclude the idea that God would punish sinners for their sin. The trouble with such teaching is that it is just what everyone wants to hear, and so when the truth is taught that we are sinners under the condemnation of God, this is denied and people go on living and never finding the wonderful love of God in providing a sacrifice in Jesus Christ, which tells us that God has punished Jesus for our sins so that we might be saved from the punishment that we deserve.

Indeed the modern idea in religious thought is to paint the idea that God laid our sins on Jesus, and he died in our place, as immoral and disgusting.