Gordon Clark: Oaths (Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics)

1973. In Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Carl F.H. Henry, ed. Washington D.C.: Canon Press. [Reprinted in 1988 by Baker Book House.] Oaths

OATHS. Oaths as a moral problem and the conscientious refusal to swear (Quakers and some others) result from an unqualified application of Christ's command, "Swear not at all." However, this passage in the Sermon on the Mount (q.v.) is connected with commands concerning legitimate vows. Since in the same passage the sixth and seventh commandments are not abrogated, but extended to cover Jewish evasions, so too here Christ's command must not be interpreted as repealing OT oaths and vows. He was extending, or, better, applying the OT to the practice of repeatedly swearing on trivial occasions. Christ's accepting the oath at his trial confirms this interpretation.

The OT, in the places referred to, approves of oaths or vows seriously made, See also Gen. 24:2ff.; Exod. 13:19; Josh. 9:18-20. Not only so, God himself swears (Isa. 45:23; Heb. 6:13, 16, etc.).

There are also some examples of sinful oaths: Saul's in I Sam. 14:24; Herod's in Matt. 14:7, Peter's denial, and the oath of Paul's enemies in Acts 23:12. 

Best known among Protestants for making and keeping solemn oaths and bows are the Reformed Presbyterians, whose constancy under Claverhouse's massacres earned the Cameronians the name of Covenanters.

Gordon H. Clark.