Introduction
In the first and second commandment we learned to worship the one, true God, and to worship him as he is. “Worship me where I make my Name dwell,” the Lord had told his people. “Praise his holy Name,” sing the psalms.
When it comes to worship, the Bible talks about the Name of God. The Name of God, as revealed in the Old Testament, is Yahweh—or, as our Bibles usually render it, “the LORD” with four uppercase letters. In the New Testament, we are taught the precious Name of Jesus. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
A name helps us talk about someone. A name can express a truth about someone; “Yahweh” means “he is who he is”, and “Jesus” means “he saves”. Once you get to know someone, hearing his name can bring to mind a picture of his face, the sound of his voice, memories of time spent together.
The third commandment says: “You shall not use the Name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” Don’t use the Name in a meaningless way, or worse. Don’t abuse the Name, for dishonorable purposes. That is the negative version of the commandment. The positive side is: use the Name of the Lord, your God, in a proper way. Purposefully. Respectfully. Worshipfully. Honor the Name of the Lord.
Freedom to honor the Name
1. The glory of the Name
2. The sin of blasphemy
3. The confessing community
The glory of the Name
We use the names of people to honor them. Their name is their reputation. Inventions and scientific theories carry the name of their author. We have theorems of Pythagoras and Fermat. We have Newton’s Laws of Motion and the principle of Le Châtelier in chemistry. We use Allen wrenches and Phillips screwdrivers. Clothing and buildings can be Victorian or Elizabethan. We sometimes call ourselves Calvinists, in honor of the theologian John Calvin (although thankfully our goal is not to follow Calvin, but to follow Christ). Some names call to mind a bad reputation. You wouldn’t want to be called a sadist, or machiavellian, or Arminian, since De Sade and Machiavelli and Arminius have a bad reputation.
In the same way, God’s Name is associated with the things he has done. His Name is his reputation. He has done many wonderful things and is proud of these things. He wants us to connect his majestic works to his Name. You see the beauty of nature and the vastness of the sky—praise the Lord who made it! You hear the stories of the Bible, of slaves set free from Egypt and enemies conquered—praise the Lord who saves his people! You hear about the cross and about God’s Kingdom—praise the Lord who gives new life!
The Lord cares about his reputation. It is a recurring theme in the Old Testament that the Lord saves his people, over and over, not because they give him much reason to do so, but because he wants to maintain his reputation. His very name—”I am who I am”—suggest constant faithfulness, and so he was constantly faithful to the nation of Israel, no matter how poorly they treated him. He won’t have other nations mock him because he could not save his people.
In Is. 48, the Lord shows this passion for his good Name: “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my Name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” (Is. 48:9, 11)
Amazingly, the Lord staked his honor, his reputation, his Name on saving the people of Israel in the Old Testament, to which he added believers from all nations in the New Testament. That is what he is proud of. That is his glory. That is how he wants to be known. As the God of abounding grace, of deep compassion, of everlasting faithfulness, and of powerful salvation.
We, who know the Lord, know these things about him. We have experienced his grace and compassion, his faithfulness and power. We confess that it is only because of his mercy that we have not perished. The only hope-giving foundation of our life is that his goodness and love endure forever. As those who have benefited so much from who the Lord is, we of all people should be the first to not only honor his name, but to proclaim it far and wide.
If you understand your salvation, it is only natural to speak of the Lord with love and excitement, to sing songs about his victory. We teach our children the precious name of Jesus, and the songs, simple yet profound, that uphold his reputation. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…!” If anyone deserves our devotion, if anyone deserves that we talk about him with love and passion, if anyone deserves it that we are proud to carry his name, it is the God who saves us, whom we especially know in our Lord Jesus Christ!
The sin of blasphemy
If you understand this, you will also realize why it is so bad when we abuse the Name of the Lord. Older Bible versions speak of “using his Name in vain”; literally, the Hebrew uses the word shâwe, which means “emptiness, nothingness, worthlessness”. So the third commandment forbids using the Name of the Lord in any way that is meaningless and empty, or that makes him seem meaningless or worthless. If we do that, we commit the sin of blasphemy, and that is a very serious matter.
In the Ten Commandments, the Lord himself underscored the seriousness of this sin when he said: “I will not hold anyone guiltless who abuses my Name.” Don’t think you can get away with it. Don’t think that the sin of blasphemy will be overlooked or waved away like it doesn’t matter. It matters. A lot.
The catechism, in q&a 100, says that it is such a grievous sin that he commanded it to be punished with death. This is based on the Bible story in Lev. 24:10ff. It tells us that an Israelite man “blasphemed the Name and cursed.” When Moses asked the Lord what to do with this man, the Lord said: “Let all the congregation stone him. Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death.”
If anything, this should teach us not to brush away the third commandment as a minor thing. The catechism is right when it calls blasphemy and abuse of God’s Name, “horrible sins”. We can understand this. Suppose you have taken a poor kid from the neighborhood under your wing; for years you have helped him with advice, given him things he needed, stood up for him when he was bullied, encouraged him when things were hard at home or at school; and after all that, this kid goes around and tells his friends that you’re a horrible person, or mocks you openly. Few things would make us more angry than that, than such a blatant display of ungratefulness, such a rejection of all the love and care that you have shown… Well, when we abuse the Name of the Lord, we do the same thing. We badmouth the one who saved us and gave us life. We mock the God who poured out his love on us and made us what we are. That is indeed a horrible thing to do.
Now when we talk about “taking God’s name in vain”, we often think of thoughtless swearing, of using God’s name as an expletive. People may say “o God” or “Jesus”, not at all intending it as a prayer, but as a meaningless phrase to express surprise, dismay, or some other emotion. This use of God’s name as an expletive is indeed “in vain”, in the sense of meaningless and thoughtless. If you are in the habit of doing it, I encourage you to think about how great and holy these names are, and not to let them escape your lips in such a meaningless manner.
But expletives are not the main concern of the third commandment. The cursing of the Name in Lev. 24 was not just a meaningless “o God”. It was a deliberate badmouthing of God, of purposefully saying evil and dishonoring things about him. This is extremely serious because it is a direct and public denial of the Lord, and makes him look bad in the eyes of the people around you. This is the cursing that the catechism especially condemns in q&a 99.
Next, it mentions perjury and unnecessary oaths. When you swear an oath, you solemnly declare that you will do something, for instance that you will speak the truth; and you invoke the Lord as your witness. In our courts, people simply say “so help me God”; but the real point of an oath is: may God, who knows the truth, punish me if I lie, or if I don’t live up to my promise. Perjury is deliberately lying under oath. In perjury, you call God as your witness and then make him part of your lie. That shows a blatant disrespect, not just to the court and to the truth, but to the Lord himself. The catechism is right in calling this a horrible sin. In an unnecessary oath, you swear to God in a rather unimportant matter, even flippantly. If you do that, you drag God’s holiness down to the mundane and silly. That, too, is sinful disrespect.
In the course of history, people have been so fearful of breaking the third commandment that they would completely avoid speaking God’s name. Instead of swearing in the Lord’s name, they would swear “by heaven”, “by the temple”, “by Jerusalem”, just so they wouldn’t incur guilt if they said anything wrong. Jesus opposed this in his preaching, and so does the catechism in q&a 102. There are situations in which we must call on the ultimate Witness of the truth, and that can only be God. He alone knows the heart; he alone can bear witness to the truth and punish me if I swear falsely. Avoiding oaths is also a dishonoring of God’s name!
We should not avoid using God’s holy name, but when we use it, it ought to be in a pure and holy way. If you say that you serve the Lord, but secretly and knowingly go against his will, you have used his name in an unholy lie. If you claim that God wants you (or someone else) to do something, but it is merely your preference, you have used his name in a meaningless way. If we understand how great God’s name is and what all it means, we realize just how terrible it is to try to make him our servant.
The confessing community
The third commandment is a serious warning against abuse. But positively, it is an invitation to speak of the Lord freely, out of love and respect and admiration of him. There is no tabu on the word “God” or the name “Jesus”. We don’t have to, as so many Jews did and still do, replace the name Yahweh by words as “the Lord” or “the Name” or “heaven”. He has proclaimed his glorious name, and we may use it.
In fact, we must use it. If you refused to ever say the name of your friend or your spouse, that would be insulting. Likewise, it would be an insult to the Lord to avoid speaking his name, which he revealed to us so powerfully. Psalm 103 makes this connection naturally: in verse 7 it mentions that “he made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel”, and naturally verse 8 turns that revelation into a song about him: “the LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!” In our liturgy we sing the name of the Lord God, we sing the name of Jesus, over and over. At the end of our service we want to hear, not just that there is blessing for us, but that the LORD blesses and keeps us, and that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is with us.
Of course, we must use the holy name of God only with fear and reverence, because it is such a special and precious name. But use it, we must. The catechism lists three important reasons why, three purposes for speaking and singing the name of the Lord.
First, that we may rightly confess him. God has revealed who he is; the prophets and apostles have proclaimed the meaning of the name of the LORD, and the glory of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We don’t have to guess at what he is like, or what his will is for our lives; we know, because he told us. So we can sing songs of worship, mentioning freely his wonderful name; we can take the name of the LORD of our lips and sing our heart out about Jesus without worrying about taking the Name in vain, because we can speak the truth that honors him. In fact, we may not remain silent, but must worship the Name and proclaim it to others.
A second purpose for which we speak God’s holy name is to call upon him. For us, prayer is not like a pagan ritual of many words and incantations, of secret names and formulas. We can pray to God as he is, knowing that he listens to us as a father listens to his dear child. In our prayers we may mention his name freely, as long as we pray with proper reverence. In our prayers we specifically ask that the Name of the Lord be hallowed, be made holy in our lives and on earth. Also, as the Lord Jesus himself taught us, we raise our prayers explicitly in the name of Jesus. When we do that, we fulfill the third commandment positively, and honor the Name, and we can be certain that this pleases the Lord.
And when it is necessary, as q&a 101 describe, for us to swear an oath, when taking up a public office or when we are witnesses in court, we freely call upon God’s name, as the God of truth who will reward the righteous and punish the wrongdoer. In such contexts, if we mean what we say and are committed to the truth, we honor the holy Name as well.
The third purpose the catechism lists for using the holy name of God is to praise him in all our words and works. In everyday life, the third commandment is not just a warning, prohibiting cursing, but it is also a positive commandment and encouragement. Don’t be shy to mention the name of the Lord. It should be natural for us to mention him in our conversations. An unbeliever may say, “I am so happy to be out of the hospital”; a Christian will say, “I thank the Lord for healing me.” An unbeliever plans study, career, or new house “if I have enough money someday,” but a believer plans these things “if it is God’s will for me”.
Conclusion
The name of the Lord is holy, and the third commandment is a solemn warning not to treat it otherwise. But if you know the Lord, the third commandment points the way of freedom. Yes, you may speak freely of him, because he has shown who he is. Especially the name of Jesus Christ is dear to us, and it is our privilege and duty to speak of him, so that this great Name is honored in all our lives.