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. Deu.
5:11
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him,
and shalt swear by his name.
Deu. 6:13.
Hallowed by thy Name. Mat. 6:9, The First Petition.
In these two commandments and the first Petition
of the Our Father, we learn that
1. God does not take kindly to the profanation of
His name,
2. that you may not avoid Oath-taking to avoid perjury
and
3. His Name will be made holy and revered.
You shalt swear by his name. This too is a
command. We are commanded to take Oaths in
God’s Name. But when we do, it ought
to be done in solemnity, reverence and fear.
Thus, the duties required by the Third Commandment
are greater than merely refraining from obvious blasphemy. We
are prohibited from taking the Name of God in vain,
irreverent or superstitious (sic.) means. Therefore,
we must refrain from using God’s name in all
instances which through rote repetition it has lost
any significant religious meaning. If, when
taking an Oath, or even when you pray, you invoke
the Name of God or His Christ without due reverence,
you have committed a violation of the Third Commandment. This
requires repentance, and fleeing to Christ for forgiveness. We
have all done this, myself included, so let us pray
together to refrain from such trivial use of His
Name in the future. Before we can expect change
in the public profanation of the Name of God, we
need to privately refrain from profaning it ourselves.
Any nation will be blessed to take God’s name
in their Oaths when done with reverence, honour and
solemnity. Similarly, any nation that does
not take God’s name in their Oaths, or which
blasphemes God’s name in their Oaths, is cursed
and under judgment. Perhaps, then, a review
of America’s habitual Oath taking and invocation
of His Name to determine whether our Nation has profaned
the Name of God is in order.
Official policy of the United States government about
the use of God’s name in public is defined
in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1972). According
to the “Lemon Test”, Oaths, religious
expressions, prayers, invocations like “God
save this honorable court,” prayer vigils,
placards, scenes of Moses on the Rotunda, Ten Commandments
monuments (sometimes), &c. do not violate the
separation of Church and State because they serve
a secular purpose and do not have as their primary
effect the advancement or inhibition of religion. In
these pluralistic States, you will be permitted to
invoke God’s name and aid only when it has “lost
through rote repetition any significant religious
content,” or, as Chief Justice Roy Moore has
repeatedly pointed out, when you don’t mean
it. Going one step further than the Chief Justice
has to my knowledge, you may take the name of the
Lord God only when you profane it. TV is full
of such obvious profanations of God’s name
under the doctrine “freedom of speech.”
However, we cannot seek to avoid the profanation
of His name by removing it from the culture. Removing “So
help me God” from Oaths would not avoid profanation
of His name. As the scripture demonstrates,
profanation occurs when we refrain from “using
of God’s name as is required” Westminster
Larger Catechism Q.113; Deu. 6:13; Mal. 2:2. Absence
of His Name when it is required is as much a violation
of the Third Commandment as when we use His Name
inappropriately.
Thus, the removal of Oaths and God’s Name from
the culture would not solve our blasphemy problem.
So if we are required to take Oaths in God’s
Name, and America does in fact do this both officially
and by historical precedent, perhaps a review of
the duties required in those Oaths is in order to
determine whether we have profaned God’s Name. The
federal government in America is established on a
series of Oaths. The President takes an Oath
to preserve, protect and defend the United States
Constitution. U.S. Const., Art. II, §1,
cl.8. By the terms of the Constitution, “Senators
and Representatives [of the United States], and the
members of the several State Legislatures, and all
executive and judicial officers, both of the United
States and of the several States, shall be bound
by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.” U.S.
Const., Art. VI, cl.3. States’ officers
take their own Oaths. Lawyers take Oaths to
their States’ constitutions as well as the
Federal Constitution. At every admission ceremony,
whether “So help me God” is administered
in the Oath, Oaths occur that place a “solemn
obligation upon the minds of all reflecting men,
and especially upon those, who feel a deep sense
of accountability to a Supreme Being.” Joseph
Story, Commentaries on the United States Constitution
(Abridged by the Author), §969.
So rather than merely being content to impose an
Oath upon Federal officers, by putting State officers
under Oath to the terms of the Constitution, we have
either glorified God and multiplied our expected
blessing, or compounded our trespass against Him. Given
the gravity of Oath taking, why are State officers
bound to the United States Constitution? Isn’t
the United States Constitution an instrument of the
Federal government? There are several reasons.
There are times when the Executive of a state may
be called upon to make an appointment to the Senate
if the Legislature is out of session, or he may be
required to issue a writ of election, or officer
the militia in the fulfillment of a proper and Constitutional
Federal law. State’s Judges may be asked
to render decisions on the Federal Constitution. The
Legislatures, at the time of the ratification, appointed
Senators, constituted the Electors for President
and served some other functions. Since the
States were parties of the contract (U.S. Constitution),
it is reasonable to expect that they would be loyal
to it as well as the State government.
The key is to look at the object of the Oath and
the Oath-takers loyalty. It is not the Federal
government – it is the Constitution, under
God (because if the Constitution has an ungodly provision,
we cannot keep that provision without offense to
God). There are times when the Federal Government
oversteps its bounds. When it does, it becomes
incumbent on the State authorities to call it back
into line, according to the terms of the Constitution
to which they jointly have sworn an Oath. Placing
onto Governors, States’ Legislators and Judges
the duty of compliance with the United States Constitution,
in addition to their own Oaths to their States’ Constitution,
all lesser magistrates have had imposed upon them
the Oath-bound duty to interpose themselves between
the Federal government and the people within their
jurisdiction when the Federal government has overstepped
its bounds. If they fail to interpose, they
have breached their Oath, committed perjury and profaned
the Name of God.
Before the year 1800, the Federal government overstepped
its Constitutional boundaries when John Adams passed
the Alien & Sedition Acts, creating federal crimes
that were not permissible according to the Constitution. On
December 24, 1798, Virginia interposed itself stating “that
the acts aforesaid, are unconstitutional; and, that
the necessary and proper measures will be taken by
each for co-operating with this State, in maintaining
unimpaired the authorities, rights and liberties,
reserved to the State respectively, or to the people.” Virginia
Resolutions, cl. 7. The Officers of the Commonwealth
had all sworn an Oath to the United States Constitution. Therefore,
the Officers of the Commonwealth were required, if
called, to enforce the Laws of the United States
in their jurisdiction. Yet Virginia declared
her refusal to cooperate with this law if called
to it. How could Virginia do this without violation
of the Oath?
According to the Supremacy Clause, U.S. Const., Art.
VI, §2, the Constitution and only laws made
in pursuance to it are the Supreme Law of the Land. Therefore
an unconstitutional law is no law and to permit the
Alien & Sedition Acts to stand would be to act
contrary to their Oath taken to the United States
Constitution. Virginia would not participate
in the execution of the Acts and would actually work
against its enforcement by others within its borders. Virginia
would not profane the Name of God by allowing the
Alien & Sedition Acts to stand in the Commonwealth.
Why is this important? Oath-taking is an act
of Worship codified in the United States Constitution. It
is an act of Worship of the God who declares in His
Word how He wants to be worshiped. Any violation
of that Regulative Principle is a profanation of
His Name. Any violation of the Oath of office
profanes God’s Name.
The oath of office … cannot be unheeded without
perjury.
Oaths of office. … Every magistrate,
who violates the laws, which he has sworn to execute,
is guilty of perjury. Every legislator, who
has sworn to maintain the Constitution under which
he is acting, and then is led away by selfish or
sectional considerations, is perjured. And
the executive officer, who for fear or favour, for
bribe or reward, fails to do all he has sworn to
do, is also a perjured wretch. The commonness
of these sins does in no degree whatever abate their
enormity. William S. Plumer, D.D., Law of God,
(1864), reprinted by Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg,
Virginia (1996), pp. 392, 268. Emphasis mine.
The only way to avoid profanation of God’s
name is to take Oaths in His Name, with due reverence,
and seek His aid, “So help me God,” in
the fulfillment of your Oaths. But when, as
a State official, you enforce or connive at the enforcement
of a federal law that is unconstitutional, you have
committed perjury of your Oath of Office and The
LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.
When an attorney seeks to enforce a Statute or Regulation
against an adversary that is unconstitutional, he
has committed perjury and The LORD will not hold
him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
When a police officer executes a roadblock; issues
a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt or any other
tools of the petty blue-light tyranny, he has committed
perjury and The LORD will not hold him guiltless
that taketh his name in vain.
When a Sheriff prevents the law abiding citizens
of his country from owning or carrying firearms;
does not stop the FBI from coming into his county
to execute a federal warrant; refrains from shutting
abortion mills where he knows murders occur on a
regular basis; &c., he has committed perjury
and The LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh
his name in vain.
When a State Legislator fails to offer Articles of
Interposition striking down Roe v. Wade as an unconstitutional
federal usurpation of powers, or does not try to
stop federal monies from being spent in his state
for faith-based initiatives or constitution education
programs, &c. he has committed perjury and The
LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.
When a governor cashes a check from the United States
Department of Treasury for education or other unconstitutional
programs in his state, or he fails to stand between
the Federal government, doctors and women intent
on murder and the unborn citizens of his State, he
has committed perjury and The LORD will not hold
him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
When the State Legislature fails to pass Articles
of Interposition striking down all unconstitutional
federal usurpations including the unconstitutional
judicial usurpation in Roe v. Wade, it, as well as
each individual member who did not offer or support
such a measure has committed perjury, and The LORD
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name
in vain.
When the President refuses to enforce immigration
laws; grants amnesty to border criminals; expresses
his intention to stand behind Roe v. Wade; expresses
his intention to enforce the Regulations of the Department
of Education, Environmental Protection Agency and
other unconstitutional regulative agencies; spends
monies on the National Endowment of the Arts; keeps
national forests and federal property that is other
than forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, the
District of Columbia; nominates Judges who are known
to have taken an Oath contrary to the United States
Constitution to affirm Roe v. Wadeas the law of the
land; he has become a perjured wretch. The
LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain.
Whensoever an American citizen, Christian or not,
votes for any magistrate who has expressed his intention
to commit perjury, or has demonstrated his intention
to profane the Name of God through past unconstitutional
acts, he has committed perjury and The LORD will
not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
Christian, we are a perjured Nation. Our magistrates
continually violate their Oaths of office and Evangelical
conservatives continue to vote them in. The
name of God is blasphemed among the heathen through
you. Rom. 2:24 We are, as a perjured
Nation, worse off than the heathen nations. Do
not excuse yourself by claiming to vote for the lesser
evil, nor salve your conscience claiming that you
would have been outvoted. Is not the power
of God greater than a supermajority of Americans? Is
it not within the power of God to pull the foundations
from under the wicked? Psa. 73.
The above referenced author, William S. Plumer, in
the same work wrote, “[Profanation of the Lord’s
name] diminishes reverence for God, relaxes the force
of solemn oaths, and prepares men for perjury and
general irreligion. If the people of this nation
continue thus to insult the Most High, we may look
for even more dire calamities than are now, (1864)
in the midst of civil war, poured upon us out of
the vials of God’s wrath.” Plumer,
Law of God, 274. Plumer, a Southerner, believed
that the nation was involved in war because it had
profaned the Name of God. Would God embroil “His
people” in war for their sin? Consider
the burden of Habakkuk who watched as Judah profaned
God’s Name and asked God when He would act. God
responded that he was calling up the Chaldeans to
remove Judah from the land. For the time has
come that judgment must begin at the house of God:
and if it first begin with us, what shall the end
be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And
if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the
ungodly and the sinner appear? 1 Pet. 4:17-18.
I pray that the profanation of God’s Name in
America will stop and He will not call forward a
bitter and hasty nation (Hab. 1:6) to destroy America
and dispossess Americans from the land. If
He does, the Christian Remnant can rest in God’s
sovereignty. But the Evangelical Conservatives
best take warning and flee to Christ for forgiveness. He
can, has, and may again, use a nation that hates
Him but has not dragged His name through the mire
to destroy one, like the United States, that has.
--
Scott T. Whiteman is a Reformed Christian, husband,
and father of three. He is a practicing attorney
in the State of Maryland, and served as Campaign
Manager for Michael A. Peroutka as he ran for President
in 2004. He is available for radio or TV interviews,
or for speeches, by contacting him at (410) 760-7897
or scott@theamericanview.com
As Published in The National Reform Association’s
Journal, The Christian Statesman, Vol. 148, No. 4
(July-August 2005) at 25.
