THE THIRD COMMANDMENT
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain."—Exodus 20:7.
The name of God, in Scripture, is
always a revelation. By every title in which God made, Himself known to man,
He revealed some attribute of the Divine character. The names of the Hebrew
people were intended, in every case, as a prayer or a prophecy, and were based
upon parental hope. Something like the same principle holds true of the names
of God. Men learned some new facts concerning His nature or His methods with
each new name or title by which He made Himself known to them. Bearing that in
mind, a new gleam of light falls upon this commandment—"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."
The Command
If men use the name of God; they
must use it in a way which is true to its meaning and intentions; and any use
of the name of God which denies these, and the character of God thereby
revealed, breaks this commandment.
Turn to Isaiah 48:1 : "Hear ye
this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel and are come
forth out of the waters of Judah; which swear by the name of the Lord, and make
mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth nor in righteousness."
That is the supreme form of breaking this commandment; swearing by the name of
the Lord, but not in truth; making mention of the God of Israel, but not in
righteousness. These people used the name of God, but did not obey the
revelation contained therein, and so violated the third commandment.
In Matt. 7:22, 23, "Many
will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by
Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works? And then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work
iniquity." Here, again, are people using the name to prophesy, using
the name to cast out devils, using the name to do mighty works; but they themselves
are unknown to the King. That is a subtle form of the profanity against which
this commandment utters its warning. A man takes the name of God in vain when
he does not use it in the way that God intended it should be used, when he
himself is not true to the revelation of God that the name makes.
"The
Lord will not hold him guiltless"—the Hebrew word there is clean—"the Lord will not hold him to be clean
that taketh His name in vain." This is a solemn assertion. The test of
moral cleanliness is the attitude of a man to the name of God. He is clean or
unclean as he uses the name of God in truth or for vanity. So that the man who
never uses the name of God at all, the man who, through sincerity of
questioning doubt, has dropped the name of God out of his vocabulary, has a
great deal better chance of being clean than the man who is always talking
about God, but is all the time denying Him in his life. This is, indeed, a very
searching test. God says a man's relation to His name is the proof of what that
man is, in the fiber of his being, as to cleanness or uncleanness.
How wonderfully the Lord's Prayer throws
light upon this subject! Of course, by the Lord's Prayer is intended that which
is commonly so called, the prayer which He gave as a pattern to His disciples.
It would be best to examine this prayer in its true proportion; for repetition
seems to have robbed it of half its real beauty. Notice its opening petition, Matt. 6:9, 10: "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth." That is most
probably a false punctuation. As a matter of fact, after the invocation, "Our Father which art in heaven"--the
approach of the soul to God—there are three petitions, all linked together
like a triptych, and then a sentence following which conditions the three, and
not the one only.
Our Father which art
in heaven,
Thy name be hallowed,Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
As in heaven, so on earth.
The phrase, "As in heaven, so on earth," has reference, not merely
to "Thy will be done," but
to "Thy kingdom come," and
to "Hallowed be Thy name." These
thoughts in the Lord's Prayer—the hallowing of the name, the coming of the
kingdom, the doing of the will—are different phases of the same thing, for a
man hallows the name by submission to the kingdom, and by doing the will.
Hallowing the name is not simply holding it in reverence.
One of the names by which God is
known is that of King, and men hallow the name of King when they submit to
God's kingship. Another name is that of Father, and they hallow the name of
Father when they do the will of their Father, which is in heaven, as Jesus did.
Men today are breaking this
commandment in three ways—by profanity, frivolity, and hypocrisy.
The sin of profane swearing
prevails to this moment, and there is no more insidious habit. It is very
often the sin of thoughtlessness.
Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
Some men do not know when they do
swear; they were born in the midst of the most foul moral atmosphere, and
began to talk in blasphemy from their earliest days. That is a very terrible
thing; but such men are not nearly as guilty as others who have been brought up
in a pure moral atmosphere, and have, nevertheless, fallen into the habit.
Much would be gained if men would
think of what they are doing in profane swearing, especially where the name of
God is involved. An expression made use of with terrible frequency is "God damn you." A man is
annoyed in some way by another, and gives ready tongue to this oath. It is
taking God's name in vain, because the man who says it does not mean it. There
is not a man who says it who would like to see it carried out with respect to
his fellow-man in all its terrible meaning. It is trifling with the name of
God, invoking Him to do something which it is never intended He shall do. That
is not the most shocking aspect of the vain use of the name of God in that
particular expression, for men are not only asking God to do something which
they do not wish Him to do, but to do something that He never does. God never
damned a man. The idea is an awful heresy. God's work is the work of salvation,
and if a man is lost it is the man's own suicidal act. God is not casting men
away into eternal loss. The awful passing out into utter darkness of the man
who is without God, and who is therefore lost, is the man's own fault. No man
goes into that darkness except by his own act. God is not doing it. The idea
that He damns men is being thrust into the minds of men by their own profanity
of language, and it is a libel upon the love of God and upon all the excellences
of His character. The false idea involved in the profane phrase already
mentioned takes its effect upon those who hear it as regards their thought of
God, and this effect is demoralizing and debasing. Oh, that every man who has
fallen into the habit of profane swearing, having become its slave almost
unconsciously, would take heed to the words of Sinai, thundering in our ears today,
"Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain"!
Another form of taking God's name
in vain roots in some sections of society. This is a light and frivolous use of
the holy name, a prevalent and fashionable joking about God. Stories are told
in which the name of God is made use of in such a way as to affect men with a
false humor. Such tales should be shunned as men would shun the fire of hell.
In every instance where men permit themselves to look at sacred things in a
frivolous light, there is evil reaction upon the heart and consciousness; they
are robbing themselves of that sacred sense of adoration and reverence for God,
without which there is no real worship and no acceptable service. That man is
unclean through and through who has lost his reverence for God and His holy,
sacred name. The man, who does not tremble in the presence of God, though he
trusts while he trembles, never worships and never works as he ought to do.
The last and most subtle form of
breaking the third commandment is committed by the man who says, "Lord, Lord," and does not the
things that the Lord says. Prayer without practice is blasphemy; praise without
adoration violates the third commandment; giving without disinterestedness robs
the benevolence of God of its luster and beauty. Let these thoughts be stated
in other words. The profanity of the church is infinitely worse than the
profanity of the street; the blasphemy of the sanctuary is a far more insidious
form of evil than the blasphemy of the slum. Is there a blasphemy of the church
and the sanctuary? The prayer that is denied by the life, the praise offered to
God which is counteracted by rebellion against Him when the hour of that praise
has passed away, that is blasphemy that is taking the name of God in vain. If a
man passes into the sanctuary and preaches and prays and praises with eloquent
lips and beautiful sentences and devotional attitude, even with tears, and goes
home to break the least of these commandments, that man blasphemes when he
prays; but if he deceives the world, he never deceives God! If a man takes the
name of God for vanity, if truth is not behind his worship, he had better not
worship at all. The form in which this third commandment is broken most
completely, most awfully, most terribly, is by perpetually making use of the
name of the Lord, while the life does not square with the profession that is
made. There are men who, if told that they were profane swearers, would be
terribly shocked. They have never allowed an oath to cross their lips in their
lives, nor do they know what it is to make use of profane or vulgar language,
and they make their boast in their freedom from these things. Yet these men are
breaking the third commandment more often and more terribly than the most
profane swearer.
Not only is it a more awful thing
than actual swearing to take the name of God upon the lips, if a man is not
true to his profession, but his example is far more pernicious to religion than
is that of the swearer. The man who professes with his lips to honor God, and yet
denies Him in his life, will do far more to hinder the coming of the Kingdom
than the man who openly blasphemes and makes no profession of honoring God. The
most subtle and awful form of breaking the third commandment of which any man
can be guilty is that of hypocrisy.
And what is the last name, the
name into which in the smallest syllables and sweetest sound God has compressed
most of His heart, most of His power, most of His love? Go back again to that
message delivered of old, and hear it there, "Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from
their sins."
Here is a man who takes the name of Jesus, and sings about
it, but is not saved from his sins. That man is breaking the third commandment.
A man imagines that the religion of Jesus is a cult.
He admires Christ, talks about His teachings, criticizes His
conduct, and patronizes all that He said and did, but he is not saved from sin.
The man is a blasphemer. Unless the last name, the name of Jesus, gathering
into itself all human beauty and all Divine attributes—unless, as it is used,
it is the keynote of the soul, the talisman of deliverance from evil—then had
the name better never be mentioned, for so it is taken in vanity. May it be to
all more than that, and may they be able to say of that name—
Jesus the prisoners'
fetters breaks,
Bruises the serpent's
head;Power into strengthless souls He speaks,
And life into the dead.
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