The Call For Complete Honesty (James 5:12).
This command follows a series of commands and precedes the command to pray and praise. Those commands were as follows:
· Be patiently enduring (James 5:7).
· Establish your hearts (James 5:8).
· Do not grumble against one another (James 5:9).
· Take the prophets as an example of suffering and patient endurance (James 5:10).
Now he declares ‘do not use oaths but speak straightly and honestly.'
Underlying each of these commands is the contrast between faith and doubt. Patient endurance results from trusting and not doubting, being established is building up faith instead of doubts, grumbling against one another indicates a lack of wholehearted faith and an element of doubt, taking the prophets as an example will result in faith and no doubt, swearing oaths would be a sign that faith has crumbled, while openness and honesty is a sign of faith and confidence. It is the confident man who say ‘Yes, yes' or ‘no, no'.
Furthermore the thought of judgment is seen to continue with a call for complete honesty and avoidance of devious swearing of oaths, based on Jesus' teaching as found in Matthew 5:33-37. Once again men's words are seen as subject to examination. In order to avoid judgment men must avoid making oaths and must be totally reliable in what they say. This is not just because oaths are a misuse of divine connections, but rather because it is honesty and truth that must prevail. Deviousness must be avoided. For what men say, and how they say it, reveals what is in their hearts. This is in direct contrast with the casual and unwholesome words of the travelling businessmen (James 4:13), the fraud, dishonesty and breach of contract of the rich landowners (James 5:4), and the grumbling and murmuring of the saints, and it leads on into an emphasis on prayer and worship where such open honesty is required (compare Luke 18:9-14 for an example).
Like Jesus, James saw that the swearing of oaths, except in their most solemn form when men were acting as judges in God's name (e.g. Exodus 22:11; Numbers 5:19; Numbers 5:21), was to cheapen God, (consider the correct way to reverently bring in God's Name in James 4:15), but he is even more concerned with the fact that nothing honours God more than His people being totally honest and reliable, so that, as with God, their very word can be depended on, and so that their boldness is a witness to all the world. In a world of deceit, dishonesty and unreliability their truthfulness, honesty and reliability would stand out like a beacon. It was Christianity that established such values among ‘common people', and it is noticeable that where Christianity has waned such truthfulness, honesty and reliability has also waned.
It is also interesting to note how this fits into another sequence, and that is that, from James 4:11 onwards, as well as there being an emphasis on judgment, there is also an emphasis on the right and wrong use of the tongue. This can be seen in what follows:
· The brothers are not to speak one against another (James 4:11).
· The travelling businessmen spoke with glib and worldly confidence (James 4:13), and their words were evidence of an evil heart (James 4:16), when they should rather have spoken with hushed voices in the face of God's will (James 4:15).
· The cries of the day-workers have reached up to God revealing their trust in Him in contrast with the perfidy of the landowners (James 5:4).
· The true brothers are not to murmur and grumble against each other lest they be judged (James 5:9).
· The words of God's people must not be marred by oaths but are to be straight and honest lest they too be judged (James 5:12).
· Those who are suffering are to pray (James 5:13 a).
· Those who are cheerful and in a state of wellbeing are to sing praises (James 5:13 b).
· Those who are sick are to call, not for a doctor, but for the elders of the church, who are to pray for them so that they will be made whole both physically and spiritually (James 5:14-15).
· Those who have sinned against their brothers are to confess their sins to them as Jesus had said (Matthew 5:23-24). They were then to pray together that both may be made whole (James 5:16).
· Elijah prayed and closed the Heavens, and then he prayed and the Heavens opened for the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects (James 5:17-18).
· The faithful brother is to speak to one who has sinned so as to restore him, thereby saving a soul from death (James 5:19-20).
No wonder that Jesus said that ‘by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned'. Thus rather than this statement in James 5:12 being isolated it comes right in the middle of a series of statements about the use of the tongue, and caps off the section on judgment which commenced in James 4:11. Truth and honesty ranks above all (‘above all brothers'). Without it we cannot pray expectantly. And this is what the tongue should be all about, honesty and truthfulness and an avoidance of anything that suggests deceit. To swear an oath is to suggest that otherwise your words cannot be depended on. But those who have gained a reputation for telling the truth will not have to resort to oaths, and indeed should not. For it is to degrade themselves, and not be honest with God. And the result will be that they can approach God openly and with confidence. ‘But above all things, my brothers, swear not,
Neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath,
But let your yes be yes, and your no, no,
So that you do not fall under judgment.
Notice the ‘above all things'. This should warn us not to see this just as something slipped in. It rather indicates that it is central to James' thinking. He has come to the final example of what is to be judged. By being totally open and honest, and by always speaking the truth, and by avoiding misusing divine things and dragging God down to their level, they will avoid the judgment that will face so many. It also specifically confirms the need for us to watch our tongues, and is in total contrast to the perfidy of the rich landowners. The picture of the rich landowners is of men who were willing to deceive, and lie and cheat. Having made contracts with their labourers to pay them their wages they broke them. but the true brothers are to be those who speak the truth from the heart with no exemptions, and who can totally be relied on (compare Psalms 15:4).
John would put this another way in his letters. ‘God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth' (1 John 1:5-6). For to walk with God involves total openness and truth, it involves walking in the light.
‘Neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath.' This reads as though James is abbreviating Jesus' words in Matthew 5:34-36 with ‘any other oath' finally summing up the detail. This is not talking about the making of an oath as a witness in an official court of law, but decrying their use in order either to confirm the truth of the words spoken, or as a device for giving that impression while leaving a loophole by which they can escape from its binding nature (something which was very prevalent in Jerusalem).
‘Let your yes be yes, and your no, no, so that you do not fall under judgment.' What they are to ensure is that they speak truly and honestly without the need for oaths so that there will be no question of their words needing to be judged as false. Note how James has here again introduced the theme of the section which is judgment. But those people who make a great thing of oaths are in danger of dishonouring God (by referring to Him indirectly in a false manner, depending on the oath), dishonouring themselves (because they demonstrate that they are not to be trusted without an oath), or trivialising truth. The emphasis overall, however, is not on the oaths, but on the truthfulness and honesty that make oaths unnecessary. It is such who can come to God and pray in expectancy.