Question 61: What is forbidden in the third commandment?

Answer: The third commandment forbids all profaning and abusing of anything whereby God makes himself known.

DAY 1: Profaning the name of God in worship (Leviticus 20:3; Malachi 1:6, 7)

We have previously spoke about how we show exalt and glorify the name of the LORD. This week we will look at what the third commandment forbids us to do. First, we will look at Leviticus 20:3. There we find reference to an idol that was worshipped in the land of Canaan by the name of Molech. According to Keil and Delitzsch he was “called by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians Melkarth, Baal-melech, Malcom, and other such names, and related to Baal, a sun-god worshipped, like Kronos and Saturn.” The main focus of this particular god was that of sacrificing children to it. The idol itself was a bronze statue that had a hollow belly, which a fire would be kindled in. Its arms were then outstretched above the fire and thus the arms would become red hot. The children were often “dedicated” to Molech by what the Bible refers to as “passing them through the fire”. In some circumstances it actually meant the sacrifice of the child in the fire. However, it was a form of baptism: a fire baptism. The child would be unharmed physically, but would be passed over the flames much like we might move our finger over the flame of a candle. Often times though mere dedication was not enough. With loud chanting and drums children would either be slain and then offered in the arms of Molech or simply laid in the hot arms of the idol to die there. What a horrific and perverted form of worship this was.

God had not required of the children of Israel a sacrifice of their children. They were not to take and bring their children to the temple and lay them on the altar of God and think that it would be acceptable. Animals took the place of people in the sacrificial system. This should tell us something about the value of human life. Though it appears that Israel did not participate fully in the worship of Molech (actual child sacrifice) until the time of Ahaz, they did pass their children through the fire. For we know that Solomon had built a high place upon a mountain east of Jerusalem for the worship of Molech to please his foreign wives (1Kings 11:7). However, at the time of Ahaz the child sacrificial system was in full force and the idol of Molech was erected in the Hinnom valley, which later became the dump outside the city of Jerusalem. This place was later used as an illustration of Hell by the Lord Jesus when he used the term Gehenna (place of burning) (Matt. 5:30; 10:28).

Maybe the question comes to your mind as it does mine, “How did the people of God get to such a place in their lives where they would literally offer up their babies to a metal image and burn them alive?” The answer is simple: sin. However the process whereby they arrived here was long, generational, and irresponsible. It seems obvious that fathers and mothers failed to lead and teach their children of the true God. They failed to correct wayward children and thus their hearts were inticed to sin against the living God by being enticed and carried away to worship other gods. God sees this as serious sin. His pronouncement of judgment upon such people that would involve themselves in the worship of Molech was nothing short of death.

The sin of the person in worshipping a false god and then adding to that sin in the murder of their own children to do so was hideous. But it was the sin of then coming from this idolatrous worship and the slaying of their infants to the true worship of God that is in view here. Notice that this specifically identifies the people of Israel (vs. 2). Also in view is the defiling of God’s sanctuary (vs. 3b) and the profaning of His holy name (vs. 3b). When the Israelites involved themselves in the worship of Molech they were unclean and thus when they entered the sanctuary of God they brought uncleanness in with them which demanded that it be cleansed (SEE Lev. 15:31; 16:16). It was not that God would not judge them for their sin, but it when they played the hypocrite and then tried to come and worship God with unclean hands that they profaned His name. The terms used here for defile (tame' taw-may') and profane (chalal khaw-lal'). We saw the use of the word chalal in our previous lesson when we looked at Malachi 2. It is has the same stem as that word and means, “to profane, make common, defile, pollute; to violate the honour of, dishonour; to violate (a covenant); to treat as common”. The term tame means, “to defile; sexually religiously; ceremonially; to pronounce unclean, declare unclean (ceremonially); to profane (God's name)”. We can see that what these people did was clearly seen by the people of Israel, but was also seen by those with whom they had engaged in worship of Molech. They had counted God as just another god to be worship and the ordinances of His worship as just the ordinances of another god. Therefore, verse 2 tells us that they should be stoned with stones or as verse 3 says, “cut him off from his people”. This refers to him losing his life for such blasphemy.

Also, when we go forward into Israel’s history, as we did previously, we find that Israel was unwilling to worship God as He had prescribed and thus would suffer the Babylonian captivity. Once freed from that captivity, the people still continued to treat the worship of God in a very cavalier fashion. Finally, God has had enough and sends the prophet Malachi in their midst and warns them of impending judgment. The main charge leveled against the people of Israel can be found in 1:6. In this passage we see that God compares Himself to a father and a master. He says that a father receives honor from his son and a master from his servant. However, He tells that people that He is not receiving honor from them as their Father, nor is He receiving it from them as their Master. As a matter of fact, God says that the priests despise His name by offering defiled food on His altar (vs. 7). The interesting thing to note is that these offerings were brought in by the people. Therefore, it also showed the contempt of the people for God, His name and the ordinance of the offering. The priests were so corrupt that they would accept and offer such defiled foods knowing that they were unacceptable to God, but offering them anyway.

God sees such flagrant disregard for the proper worship of Himself and for the honor that is due His name. In fact, He sarcastically asks if their ruler would accept such an offer (vs. 8). He tells the people that the other nations will one day glorify His name(vs. 11). However, the people of Israel have profaned it (vs. 12). Therefore, they eventually bring a curse upon themselves (2:2), as we saw previously.

God has said that His worship is to be pure, holy and according to His word. Therefore, when we look back at Israel and we see that though they carried the name of God and claimed to be the people of the promise, they often took the name of the Lord their God in vain, thus bringing the opportunity for the nations around them to blaspheme the name of God as well. Let us be on guard against falling into the same sin. May God grant us His grace to worship Him as He has prescribed that we may glorify His name and not profane it.

DAY 2: The use of oaths (Leviticus 19:12; Matthew 5:34-37)

In our society today we are familiar with someone who approaches the stand in a courtroom and puts their hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth. The purpose for this was simple. It was to make the person aware that when they spoke, God heard. Their words were in the very presence of God. However, because of the sinful nature of man, he suppresses the truth about God and when many people get away with purgery, deception, and outright lying, many people become emboldened in swearing falsely.

As Solomon has said, “There is nothing new under the sun”. In all of human history men have made oaths. Therefore, God speaks to the issue of oaths. In Leviticus 19 our passage is in the midst of commands concerning stealing, false dealings, lying (vs. 11) and cheating or robbing their neighbor by not paying him at the end of his work day (vs. 13). We know from our own experience and from what we see in the Scriptures that man is prone to sin in order to get gain. However, God has given the command not to swear by His name falsely. Notice that He does provide the purpose behind the swearing and that is that His name is brought into the midst of the oath in order to seem to give it more weight. However, what He is addressing is a person who has no fear of God, deceiving people by using God’s name in the oath, in order that they may take advantage of them by appearing to be honest and trustworthy. What happens when this takes place? Again, these people take the name of the Lord in vain and profane it. Once again this person would be guilty of the same thing the people did in Malachi. They would dishonor the name of God and would give cause or reason for others to blaspheme God.

It was not that an oath could not be taken. Nor was it that it was wrong to make that oath in the name of God. Rather the key here is the word falsely. The word here is sheqer (sheh'-ker). It means to deal with fraudulently, deceptively, or in vain. It can literally be understood as “false tongued”. The issue is, “What is the motive behind the oath.” For instances of legitimate oaths please see Numbers 30. Jesus Himself was even placed under one of these legitimate oaths by the high priest at His mock trial (Matt. 26:63).

Speaking of Jesus, what did He say? After all, Leviticus concerns the things of the Old Covenant. What about the New Covenant? Things still remain the same. Matthew records the words of Jesus concerning this matter in 5:34-37. Again, notice that the issue is not to make an oath falsely. However, they were to perform their oaths to the Lord (vs. 33). In verse 34 He begins to speak specifically to the particular ways in which many had no doubt made false oaths for the sake of dishonest gain. They were not to swear by heaven, earth or Jerusalem. Evidently these people thought that by not taking the name of God outright in their oaths they were free from guilt. However, Jesus takes and ties those very things to God: heaven is God’s throne; the earth is His footstool; and Jerusalem is His city. So these people were only deceiving themselves in thinking that they were not breaking the third commandment. James delivers almost the same words in 5:12.

Man continues to be under the delusion that he is in control of his own destiny and that he somehow has power to make things turn out the way he wants. So much is this myth of autonomy entrenched within him that he will even make an oath and in that oath he will swear by his own head. Jesus points out the folly of such an oath. Man doesn’t even have the power to make one hair white or black, much less back up his oath if he is testifying falsely.

Verse 37 leads us to believe that Jesus was addressing the fact that many of the Jews used the language in the proceeding verses in their ordinary everyday conversation. Rather than applying such serious oaths to serious situations, they used oaths to deceive and quite possibly used them without even any type of intention to make an oath. What I mean by that is that oaths became so common place in their language that they were not even taken seriously when spoken. Much like language that we hear today where someone is constantly saying, “I swear…” and then they continue on in their sentence, not even giving thought to what they are swearing about. Therefore a righteous man’s words will be good and trustworthy in themselves. Anything other than that, Jesus says, comes from the evil one. In other words, the kind of conversation Jesus is condemning is not from God, but rather from the evil nature of man. When we say “yes” our word should be in line with our character as believable. The same should be true when we say “no”. Therefore, we should not use the name of the Lord flippantly in our conversation whereby His name is made commonplace because of our lack of reverence for Him. May God help us by His grace to take seriously the oaths we make before Him and to guard our tongue that we may not take His name in vain.

Scripture: Exodus 20:7; Malachi 1:6,7; Leviticus 20:3; 19:12; Matthew 5:34-37; Isaiah 52:5.