The Ninth Commandment
opening song: Christ the lord is risen today (vs 1 & chorus)
Call to worship:
Pastor Bobby Owens
John 14.1-7
Song:
O church arise
Historical reading:
pastor zachary mcguire
Westminster Shorter Catechsim Q&A 77-78
song: Holy, holy, holy
Confession & Pardon (w/ 10 commandments):
pastor brett eckel
song:
Doxology
song:
Lord, I need you
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
The 9th Commandment
Exodus 20.16
Introduction
“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” These are the words President Bill Clinton said when he put his hand on the Bible and testified under oath to a grand jury in 1998. Clinton was not the first U.S. President to face impeachment and he was not the last but in the late 90s Clinton was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The 42nd President not only shaped America’s cultural attitude about sexual ethics when he lied under oath about his adultery with Monica Lewinsky, but the leader of the free world redefined truth with his testimony. Under oath the President testified that nothing was going on with he and Lewinsky. Listen to Clinton’s explanation from footnote 1128 of the Starr Report:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is…if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not -- that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. . . . Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
“It depends on what your definition of the word, ‘is’ is.” Clinton argued that he did not lie under oath because he took the question to be in the present tense and at that moment he was not in an adulterous relationship with Monica Lewinsky. What a snapshot of the relationship our Western, individualistic, postmodern culture has with the truth. The sentiment of this era in America, and the rest of the West, is “live your truth.” No one can tell you who you are, or what’s right for you except for you. Live your truth.
Yet it is in the midst of our confused culture that the ancient Word of God still speaks. In the 9th Commandment our sovereign God commands us: you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. God commands us to be a people of truth and the Kingdom of Christ creates a people of truth.
The 9th Commandment
In order to accurately apply the 9th Commandment we have to remember the covenantal horizon at this point of the redemptive narrative. YHWH redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt through his mediator Moses and now at Mt. Sinai God gave his people the old covenant (or the Mosaic covenant). Under the old covenant the 10 Commandments – and all of the 600+ laws in Genesis-Deuteronomy – were both law and Scripture. For Israel the 10 Commandments were not merely God’s Word, they were also the theocratic law of the land.
Legally, the 9th Commandment regulated testimony in court, but theologically the 9th Commandment requires honesty. First, legally the 9th Commandment regulated court testimony. In ancient Israel conviction of law breaking was impossible without witnesses and the fate of the accused rested in the hands of those who testified. In Deuteronomy 19 God says that if someone bears false witness, he would receive whatever punishment would’ve been issued for the defendant:
15 “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. 16 If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot (Deut 19.15-21).
That means if someone were to bear false witness in a capital case, then it would cost him his life.
Every culture that has flourished historically has had some form of legal system predicated upon honestly. In the American legal system we swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In Israel under the old covenant honesty was to be the baseline for the legal system. But the 9th Commandment did not merely pertain to the legal system specifically; theologically it applied to all of life generally.
In the 9th word God’s people are required to deal honestly with family, neighbors, and in business. A more literal translation of the Hebrew would be something like, “Do not answer your friend emphatically affirming deception.” The 9th Commandment requires honesty and forbids lying, deceit, slander, gossip, and backbiting. We saw earlier from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that the 9th Commandment requires that you do everything in your power to protect your neighbor’s name. All people are made in the image of God and must be respected as such. The 9th Commandment is placed between the restrictions against stealing in the 8th Commandment and coveting in the 10th because when you bear false witness against someone it is a means of depriving them of something that rightfully belongs to them – most fundamentally, the truth. John Calvin said, “The 8th Commandment ties your hands; the 9th Commandment ties your tongue.”
Because people bear the image of God, they deserve the truth because the truth belongs to God. Everyone understands that if someone publicly spits on an American flag others will be offended, not because a piece of cloth was disrespected, but because the flag represents a country and to disrespect the flag is a statement against that which the flag represents. The same is true when we are untruthful with those who represent God by bearing his image. When we are dishonest with people, we are dishonest with God.
As all of the 10 Commandments do, the 9th Commandment reveals the character of God. You shall not bear false witness because God is truth. There is no truer truth than God. To despise truth is to despise God. Titus 1.2 says: God never lies.
Lies are antithetical to the character of God and a mark of the enemy. In John 8.44 Christ rebuked the Jewish leadership with these words:
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Satan has indeed been a liar from the beginning. In Eden YHWH told Adam if he ate of the fruit of the tree, Adam would surely die (Gen 2.17). When the serpent deceived Eve his words to her were, you will not surely die (Gen 3.4). Humanity fell in sin because we believed the lie of the serpent.
God hates lying. And lies lead us to hell. In Psalm 101.7-8 God says, no one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes. Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all the evildoers from the city of YHWH. Listen to what Revelation 21 says about the eternal destiny of liars:
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death (Rev. 21.8).
That is really bad news; you know why? Because you’re a liar and so am I. We are all guilty of breaking the 9th Commandment. We have all lied. We have broken the 9th Commandment in thought, word, and deed. We have broken the 9th Commandment by what we have done and we have broken the 9th Commandment by what we have left undone. The 9th Commandment shows us that we are guilty and we all rightly deserve eternal conscious punishment in hell.
Jesus Followed and Fulfilled the 9th Commandment
The law reveals the bad news but thanks be to God there is good news. The good news is that Jesus Christ both followed and fulfilled the 9th Commandment on our behalf. Jesus followed the 9th Commandment in thought, word, and deed. Jesus kept the 9th Commandment by what he did. Jesus never broke the 9th Commandment by leaving anything undone. Jesus never bore false witness. Jesus never lied. Jesus always told the truth.
Jesus not only followed the 9th Commandment but Jesus is the fulfillment of the 9th Commandment. The 9th Commandment may give us a rule, which if we follow will create human flourishing (which is true). And the 9th Commandment also reveals that we are guilty law-breakers (also true). But most fundamentally, the 9th Commandment was given to point us to God incarnate – the Lord Jesus Christ.
St. John gives us a glimpse of this in the opening words of his Gospel – In the beginning was the Word (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος). If you were to take a NT Greek class and you were to start memorizing vocabulary, one of the first words you’d learn would be λόγος, and the gloss for λόγος would probably read something like, “word; reason; account.” There are a lot of different cultural statements packed into John’s declaration – In the beginning was the Word (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος) – one of them pertains to Greek philosophy. In Greek culture and philosophy the λόγος was the meaning of life; the truest truth; the greatest witness to metaphysical reality; that which is most ontologically pure. John says that’s what Christ is. Christ is the λόγος.
Not only does Jesus not bear false witness but also Jesus Christ is the truest witness to all of existence. Any truth that has ever been spoken in the history of communication is a reflection of who Jesus is. Jesus is the personification of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Colossians 1.15-20 says that the world was created for Jesus so that means all truth is God’s truth. There is no such thing as religious truth versus secular truth. Anything that is true reflects the maker of heaven and earth – The Lord Jesus.
We read in our call to worship from John 14 where Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus not only speaks the truth; Jesus is the truth. He is the very embodiment of the 9th Commandment. Anything antithetical to Jesus is a lie because Jesus is the truth. Everything pertaining to Jesus is the truth.
The 9th Commandment and the Church
So the most important step we can take to keep the 9th Commandment is to repent of our sin and place our faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8.32). The truth is that God is the holy creator and that in Adam we have sinned against God. The truth is that God sent his Son Jesus to live a sinless life, die as a substitute for his people, and to resurrect on the 3rd day to usher in his Kingdom.
The truth is you must repent of your sin. You must acknowledge that you are a sinner and you must turn from your sin. The truth is you must place your faith in Jesus alone. You must take this knowledge of who Jesus is and what Jesus did, you must assent to the validity of these truth claims, and you must transfer your trust to Jesus alone.
This is a room full of liars and our only hope in life and death is the gospel. We look to Christ and we repent of our sins. And when we sin again, we look to Christ, and we repent, and we keep running back to the truth. When God saves us through the good news of Jesus we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and he enables us to love the truth. The Kingdom of Christ creates a people of truth.
Remember under the old covenant the 9th Commandment was both law and Scripture. Under the new covenant the 9th commandment is Scripture but not law. In America we do rightfully have laws against perjury but lying in general is not against the law. Yet the Word of God commands and compels us to be a people of truth.
But we do not live in a culture of truth. This has always been the case. Scripture differentiates between the church and the world. St. Augustine wrote of the city of God versus the city of man. These 2 groups of people can be traced all the way back to the garden where God told us that there would be the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Cain was the seed of the serpent; Able was the seed of the woman. And from that point foreword every person who has ever lived has either believed God’s promise or not; have either believed the truth or not.
Our Western culture, to one degree or another, has embraced postmodernism, which contends there is no ultimate truth. We are encouraged to “live our truth.” What’s true for you may not be true for me but as long as you don’t hurt anyone else it doesn’t matter what you think, what you say, or what you do.
The problem with this worldly philosophy is how can we trust that the claim “there is ultimate no truth” is true. The statement that “there is no ultimate truth” is, in fact, an ultimate truth claim. But what is the standard by which this ultimate truth claim is made? There is none.
But as Christians we know the ultimate standard in existence. We can say for certain what is true and why it is true – because, as Francis Schaffer said, “God is there and he is not silent.” Truth is not a sociological construct, which is a byproduct of naturalistic evolution. Propositional truth has been revealed in the Word of God. Jesus prayed to his Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth” (John 17.17).
Because we know the author of truth the 9th Commandment requires that we must be people who are honest – both as individuals and as a church. 2nd Corinthians 1.17-18 commands that our yes is yes and our no is no. Ephesians 4.15 calls us to speak the truth in love. Verse 25 then says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Dr. Al Mohler, the President of Southern Seminary said, “Churches are islands of truth in an ocean of lies.” May it be so of you and may it be so of Christ Community Church!
Not only does the 9th Commandment require that we speak the truth (lower case t), but the 9th Commandment requires that we speak the Truth (capital T). The 9th Commandment not only requires us to be honest but it also requires that we speak the truth of the gospel. We have been given God’s saving message in the gospel with a commission to take it to the world. In Matthew 28.19-20 the Lord Jesus says, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Romans 10.14 and 17 says, How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?...faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. God’s redemptive mission is to bring his kingdom to earth as it is in heaven and we’re a part of that as we make disciples of Jesus by speaking the gospel of Jesus.
Conclusion
The Kingdom of Christ creates a people of truth. The gospel tells us that the liars are redeemed through the one who was falsely convicted and murdered. At Jesus’ trial the Jewish leadership couldn’t find two witnesses to convict him. So they bore false witness against Jesus. The ultimate truth in the universe was falsely testified against and murdered in the place of liars. But now we, the liars, through faith in Christ, stand in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.