What did Jesus say about lying?

In the words that follow the Lord refers to the various phrases the Jews used to confirm their many oaths. "Swear not at all: neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black." It was a wrong idea to think one could happily use these substitute phrases, as long as one did not mention the name of God. Heaven is God's throne, the earth is God's footstool (Isa. 66:1) and Jerusalem is the city of God and of His King (Psa. 48:1-2). He who swore by his head, i.e. wanted to deposit his life as security against his oath, ought well to remember that God alone is Lord over life and death, and that he himself does not even have the power to change the colour of one hair of his head.

"But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." If our words are honest and true, they need no other confirmation than "yes" or "no." The sense of this double mention of yes and no becomes clear from a very similar passage in James 5:12: "Yes" should really mean "Yes," and "No" should really mean "No." All that is more than that is only a sign that one generally does not take the truth too seriously, and therefore "cometh of evil."

Jesus alone of men is the Truth; He is not only God, but the One Who reveals God to Man. In Him is no sin, nor did He sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.170 He was the manifest opposite, in all respects, of the devil, who, whenever he speaks falsehood, speaks out of his own store, because he is a liar and the father of it. Jesus is the truth, and makes it known to those who otherwise cannot know it. "But because I speak the truth, ye believe Me not." How awful, yet how just, God's judgment of such! For we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth; and what can be the end of these things but death and judgment?

But to all this their minds were blinded, and He questions why they did not understand. He Himself gives the answer: “Because you are not able to listen to My word” (v. 43). Basic, callous unbelief rendered them impervious to the plain, pointed declarations of His lips. They had given themselves up to the blinding power of the devil; and He pronounces upon them the awful truth that they are of their father, the devil, willfully determined to engage in the lusts that have ensnared their father (v. 44). We cannot at all say that every unsaved person is a child of the devil, though all are children of Adam and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). A child of the devil is rather one who has, by hardening himself against what he knows to be true, given himself up to the service of Satan. Not that he would admit this, but his own pride and deceit are prominent. Two things are here said of the devil. First, he was a murderer from the beginning; not from the time of his creation, but from the time of his attempt to “be like the most High” (Isa. 14:14). His murderous spirit is seen in his temptation of Eve: he was determined to accomplish her destruction. Secondly, he abode not in the truth, for the truth is not in him: he is a liar, and the father of it. Terrible designation! Of course it was by falsehood that he deceived Eve. Only Satan and antichrist are in scripture directly called liars, as well as these to whom the Lord speaks (v. 55); though the term is used to describe the general character of the inhabitants of Crete (Titus 1:12-13). One must be soberly careful in his use of this term.

"Again ye heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not swear falsely, but shalt render to the Lord thine oaths. But I say to you, Swear not at all; neither by (in) the heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is his feet's footstool; nor by (toward) Jerusalem, for it is the great King's city. Nor shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your word be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; but what exceedeth these is of evil (or, the evil one)."

Thus the Lord goes far beyond perjury or breaking a vow. He prohibits swearing altogether in the intercourse of daily life. Our word therein is to be, Yea, yea, or Nay, nay. That which is more than these has no sanction from God, and is therefore of evil, or the evil one, the enemy of God and man. All such asseveration as the Lord illustrates from the facts of Jewish habit arose from the constant experience of men in deceiving or evading. They therefore resorted to such means of insuring the truth. But these efforts defeated themselves; for we know from a reliable Jewish contemporary of the N.T. inspired writers that oaths by earth, heaven, sun, stars, and the entire universe, were not counted binding. Only those obliged the conscience which were by God's name direct and express; nay others might be transgressed. As the Lord supposed in those He addresses poverty of spirit and purity of heart, He proscribed absolutely all such swearing as offensive to God and incompatible with the place of His sons.

It is quite enough that in our converse with brethren or other men, our yea should be yea, and our nay nay. "That which is more cometh of evil." The believer is as responsible to speak as to act as in the presence of God. This is his habitual privilege, and safeguard. It may be forgotten by others, or by himself to his loss. The evil one is a liar and the father of it. No small opportunity would it be to him if the Christian were not always watchful to speak truly, and needed such expletives to gain credit for it.

In verse 31 we get their family character. They quite inherited the place their forefathers occupied. If we don't see that we cannot understand what follows, that the blood of Abel, etc.,was chargeable to them. They inherited the place. So with Babylon in the Revelation (Rev. 18:24). And all this is the language of the True and Faithful Witness, who will not lie, but deliver souls. Every word is in its place. You may remember that when they asked the Lord in John 8:25 "Who art thou?" Jesus said, "Absolutely that which I also say unto you." There was no difference between, but exact agreement with, what He is, and what He speaks, between Himself and His words.

We find here the two essential features of godliness which were found in Christ in infinite perfection. He was the light. Whatever He might say, He exactly reflected the full truth from God Himself; nay, He was it. We find a remarkable expression when our Lord was dealing with the Jews and bringing Himself out as the light of the world, in John 8. They asked Him what He was, and He says (according to the English version), "Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." But the true meaning is," Absolutely what I speak unto you." There should be neither "at the beginning," but "absolutely;" nor "what I said," but "what I am speaking." If these words are weighed, you will find the force of them. Our Lord is exactly and absolutely what He utters; His words convey with infallible certainty what He is. He certainly was truthful in love. Our Lord's words so completely gave out the inner man, He was so perfectly transparent, that not one thing in Him deflected from the truth; nothing seemed to be but exactly what He was. And this because there was no sin in Him neither was guile found in His mouth. There was no object but God before His soul, as He says Himself: "I do always those things that please Him." And you may rely upon it, that it is having Christ before us as the object of our souls in everything practically, which alone gives us power of truth. The moment we have anything of our own as an object, so far we slip aside, and that comes out which is not the full truth, for Christ alone is the truth, and He alone gives us the truth in perfect love; and it is only in proportion as we are filled with Him, and have Him to the exclusion of all our own evil, that we ourselves walk in the truth. Let us have our hearts fixed on any one thing or person save Christ, evil slips out, and it is good for us to know and own this. It was never so with our Lord. He could say, "I have set the Lord always before me." And He has given us Himself always to set before us.

In chapter 8 Jesus speaks of Himself as the Light of the world, and this thought is carried through chapters 9 and 10. We see in chapter 8 the light exposing to the very roots of the moral being, the origin and character of His enemies; they were of their father, the devil, and apostasy, falsehood and murder characterized them as these things did him; he abode not in the truth, he was a liar and a murderer, so were those Jews who resisted Jesus. But in contrast with them, Jesus was from above, the living expression of the doctrine He taught; with Him there was no falsehood, and he who followed Him would not walk in darkness, but would have the light of life. The one who continued in His word would know the truth, and the truth would make him free, for whom the Son made free would be free indeed, for the Son makes free by placing man in sonship before the Father’s face, and in the light of His eternal love.

But we must carefully remember, that our Lord in no way forbids an oath before the magistrate or judge. This is not of evil; but of good, being of divine authority. For men swear by a greater, and the oath is a term to all dispute as making matters sure. To refuse it is to deny God's authority in any who represent Him in earthly things, and hence called by His name and translated "judges," as in Ex. 21:6, Ex. 22:8-9, 28. See also Ps. 82:1, 6. The principle is asserted in Lev. 5:1, to which the Lord, far from setting aside on the mount, bowed when adjured by the high priest (Matt. 26:63-64), though silent before.

Hear also what our Lord Jesus Christ says on this subject. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Out of what heart? Is it the heart of some hideously depraved and abominable wretch wholly unfit to appear in decent society? Nay; it is out of the human heart the heart of the writer and of the reader of these lines.