What does it mean to take the Lord's name in vain?

The third commandment forbids taking God's name in vain (v.11). This may be done seriously or flippantly. One may seriously swear by God that he will do a certain thing, and then not do it. People are so irresponsible that such things become commonplace to the point of then using God's name flippantly, so that they don't care how offensively they talk. But God is not mocked: He will execute judgment on all who are ungodly, not only for their ungodly deeds, but for "all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Jude 15).

The third commandment forbids the taking of God's name in vain. An oath invoking God's name is a most serious matter. Elijah made such an oath to Obadiah, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand” (1 Kings 18:15), and that oath was kept. But men would dare to use God's name often when not even intending to keep their word, thus totally in vain, which is gross evil. We know that people today swear by God with no concern about what they are doing. In fact, the Lord Jesus goes further than the law, by telling us “do not swear at all” (Matt. 5:33-37). For man had been proven by the time the Lord Jesus came, to be so untrustworthy that his promises concerning what he would do in the future were of no value. It would be different to swear to the truth of something that has already taken place, when one knows the facts.

Another commandment was, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain." To take His name in vain is not merely uttering it in vulgar oaths, but what is equally, if not more offensive to God, the associating it with idols. This was done in Egypt. One or more of the Divine attributes was applied to the sun, to the moon, and to each of their idols. Nay, the incommunicable name of self-existence was found, as Plutarch records, as an inscription in one of their temples. "I am all that has been, is, and ever shall be." Where did the Egyptians get the idea of self-existence? There was evidence of the Creator's eternal power and Godhead in the things that He had made; but man lost sight of Him, and fixed his eye upon the creature, and looking only there ignored its evidence. And his mind, outside the testimony of creation, was incapable of conceiving it. Where else could the Egyptians have had this absolute, and to man incomprehensible, yet necessary expression of the One Supreme Being, than from Moses, who said "I am" had sent him? What more likely than when the Egyptian priests had witnessed the power of "I am" by the hand of Moses they transferred that name to their god? Is not this the most offensive feature in idolatry, the giving the glory of God to another, and His praise to graven images? (See Isa. 42:8). But this gives evidence that whatever notion the heathen had of One God, it came first from a source opposed to idolatry. Afterwards fable being mixed with truth, the name of the Absolute was given to idols, and the truth which condemns the worship of idols was used to maintain it. No deeper dishonour can be to the Creator God.

Firstly, then, it is incumbent upon all who name the Name of the Lord to depart (or “withdraw”) from iniquity. We must not link up the Name of the Lord with evil in any form. The confusion and disorder of Christendom has become so great that, on the one hand, we may easily misjudge that a person is not the Lord's who at heart is a real believer — but, “The Lord knows them that are His.” On the other hand, the one that confesses the Lord is responsible to depart from iniquity. If he refuses to do so, he cannot complain if he is misjudged. In a day of confusion it is no longer enough that a person confesses the Lord. His confession must be put to the test. The test is, do we submit to the authority of the Lord by departing from iniquity? To remain in association with evil and name the Name of the Lord is to connect His Name with evil.

How solemn, too, the repeated seal impressed on observing and doing His commands, "I am Jehovah." Obedience is thus demanded, as profaning His holy name is quite forbidden, that He might be hallowed in His people. For indeed it was Jehovah hallowing them, He that brought them out of the land of Egypt to be their God: I am Jehovah. Such was their place as His people here below on the earth, a witness to the nations. Can any thing indeed be more empty from the nature of the case than the profession of God's name without habitual reference to His word and obeying His will? Even an earthly law has its sanction if infringed, and what people call passive resistance is active evil and folly. Can men who profess the true God forget the solemnity of an everlasting judgment, not for ungodly deeds only but for ungodly words, as if they were independent of God, and their tongues or aught else were their own? If they walk in the ways of their defiled and defiling heart, and in the sight of their eyes which turn from the word of God, is it not indisputably just that for all these things God should bring men into judgment? How much more for despising His saving grace in Christ, which has appeared to all men, and enjoins men, that they all everywhere should repent and believe the glad tidings!

The third commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain," and also the ninth commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour," contained the moral basis for the command not to swear falsely, i.e. to commit perjury. But there are other passages in the Old Testament in which the people of Israel are warned of thoughtless swearing. Leviticus 19:12 says: "And ye shall not swear by My name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God" (cf. Num. 30:3-4; Deut. 23:22; Zech. 8:17).

(4) He proceeds now to another matter, in which again what was tolerated under the law is now forbidden in the new morality which He is enforcing. "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths," plainly speaks of vowing. There had been great abuse of it, as Israel's history makes manifest: men not hesitating to vow recklessly to God at the dictate of their pride and passion and self-will, to find themselves then entangled by what seemed now their duty. Careless profanity had come in at the heels of this, and God's name been profaned by light appeals to it on every occasion; modified by conscience or the lack of it, by every kind of circumlocution and indirect expression of what they dared not openly give utterance to.

The Lord sweeps into His prohibition all these evasions of the third commandment, putting them into the same category, with that which was once permitted. Man's utter weakness, so fully and simply demonstrated by his inability even to change the color of a hair, is made (at least in part) the basis of the prohibition. God might swear, for He could accomplish, and knew, too, all the consequences of that to which He pledged Himself. Beautifully we find Him doing it when seeking to assure the soul of His creature, so ready to doubt the perfect faithfulness even of his God. "Wherefore God, willing to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things" — His word being really as certain as His oath, but not so to man ― "wherein it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us" (Heb. 6:13-18).

(V. 12). The Apostle has warned us against impatience in the presence of wrongs that would seek to revenge the wrongs in forgetfulness that “the Judge stands before the door.” By thus taking our case into our own hands we may fall into condemnation (verse 9). Now he warns us that there is another way in which we may forget God and come under condemnation. In complaining against men, we may forget the presence of God; but also in defending ourselves we may so forget what is due to God that we seek to confirm our statements by irreverently invoking the Name of God, or heaven, or earth. It is the utmost irreverence, in the heat of passion, to use divine Names to seek to gain credit before men. The Apostle therefore says, “Above all things, my brethren, … let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay.”

Had she forgotten, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain" (Ex. 20:7)? Blessing her boy for thieving! And then again, on his restoring the money to his mother, she further says, "I had wholly dedicated the silver unto Jehovah, from my hand, for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image," in direct contravention of the command, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Can we in any way imagine God accepting aught offered in contravention of His will and word? Yet here we have His name on the lip, and things dedicated to Him for uses which are an abomination in His eyes.

In the third place the name of the Lord is safeguarded. Though Jehovah Himself was unseen, His Name had been manifested, and His supreme place in their midst would soon be disregarded if His Name were to be used in an unworthy way.