Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; February 8, 2026
Readings: Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15 (children’s talk); True Christian Religion §297
In today’s sermon we’re going to continue to explore the second commandment—“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Ex. 20:7). A question that comes readily to mind when we look at the second commandment is, “why is this one of the ten commandments?” It makes sense that God’s name is important, it makes sense that we shouldn’t say rude things about Him… but why is this one of the ten? Why does it stand alongside “you shall not murder” or commit adultery or steal (Ex. 20:13-15)?
The question that I invite you to reflect on as we work through today’s sermon is, “what is this commandment here to protect?” All of the commandments are here to protect something. In general, the first three—or maybe four (see TCR §456; AE §1026.3)—commandments are here to protect our relationship with the Lord, and the rest are here to protect our neighbor. But more specifically, what is the second commandment protecting? And why is that thing that it’s protecting worth protecting?
We’re going to turn now to a reading from True Christian Religion. This passage, which is printed on the back of the handout, is simply a discussion of the literal sense of the second commandment. [Read §297].
That passage starts by giving us a nice, clear definition of what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain: to take His name in vain is to misuse it. The Lord’s name, like anyone else’s, is meant to be used when we’re talking to or about Him. Using any of His names when we aren’t talking to or about Him is a misuse of His name.
Of course, people do this all the time. The Lord is called the Lord God Jesus Christ (AR §839; TCR §§638, 791), and all four of these names are routinely used to intensify statements—to express the speaker’s shock, or anger, etc. Essentially they’re used as swear words. Which is pretty clearly a misuse of these names. If you shout the Lord’s name because you dropped something on your foot, you’re not actually talking to Him, are you?
Now, people might still say, “what’s the big deal—what’s harmful about using God’s name this way?” One way to think about it is to consider what would happen if people started using your name this way—if they started shouting your name when things went wrong. Honestly it might be funny at first, but wouldn’t you eventually start to wonder why your name was getting attached to pain and anger?
The reading goes on to say that misusing the Lord’s name is especially problematic when we use it in “false statements or lies… [or] to avoid being blamed.” And this makes sense: saying “I swear to God I didn’t do it” when you did do it is obviously wrong. The reading also says that it’s especially bad to use the Lord’s name in curses. We might think we don’t really curse people all that often anymore; but in fact people do fairly often call on God to damn people or things. And think about what that means. When we ask God to damn someone, we’re saying that we want Him to abandon His justice and His mercy and throw that person into hell. Is that something we should be saying? Really thinking about the meanings of the words we say is a theme here.
The reading also says that it’s not wrong to use the Lord’s names when we do so sincerely and thoughtfully. It isn’t wrong to make promises in His name, so long as we understand the significance of promising in His name, and we mean what we say. Notably, when people are married in New Church wedding services, they make their vows in God’s name: in the liturgy we find the words, “In giving this ring I wed you, and take you to be my wife [or husband] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom and Husband of the Church” (§239). It also isn’t wrong to use the Lord’s names in worship services—we’re supposed to use His names in worship. The point is that we shouldn’t be afraid of saying His names; and, when it comes to God’s names, it’s especially important to be mindful of the meanings of the words we say.
One last thought about this external or literal level of keeping the second commandment: probably the most common misuse of the name of God is in the stock phrase “oh my God.” People say this all the time, and how often do they mean what they say? And yes, this is probably one of the less harmful ways of misusing God’s name. But also, what are the consequences of mentally connecting God with empty words—words that we don’t mean when we say them?
But enough about the literal sense of this commandment. As you heard in last week’s sermon, all of the ten commandments have multiple layers of meaning: there are spiritual and celestial commandments nested within the literal sense of this commandment. The spiritual sense of this commandment rests on a bigger idea of what the Lord’s name really means. In True Christian Religion we read:
In the spiritual sense the name of God means the whole of the church’s teaching taken from the Word, and through which the Lord is invoked and worshipped. All of this is summed up in the name of God. (§298)
In other words, the name of God means more than just His name: it means everything that is from God, everything that He stands for. This includes the Word, because the Word is God’s truth. So in this deeper sense, not taking the Lord’s name in vain means not misusing or being contemptuous of anything that is in the Word.
The way another passage puts it is that the name of God does not mean the name itself but His quality; “and the quality of God or the Lord is everything that is from Him by which He is worshiped” (AE §959.4). Everything that is from the Lord has His quality in it. Every teaching in the Word has His quality in it; it bears His name. So it should be treated with reverence.
And there are lots of statements in the Word that make it obvious that “the Lord’s name” has to mean more than just His literal name. For example, in Matthew He says, “where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (18:20). What does it mean to be gathered in His name? If three people get together, and they say out loud that they’ve gathered in the name of Christ, and then they proceed to do evil things, have they really gathered in Christ’s name? Is He there in the midst of them? To do something in His name is to stand for and abide in what is His. “His name” is a shorthand for everything that is His—and none of it should be misused.
In the highest, or celestial sense, taking the Lord’s name in vain means the same thing as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (TCR §299; SH §8882; AE §961.15). And this is what we’re told, in the book of Matthew, about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:
Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matthew 12:31, 32)
To understand this, we have to understand that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is more than saying bad things about the Holy Spirit. If “the Holy Spirit” is just a phrase to us, then saying bad things about it is just saying bad words about some other words. The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that the Lord is talking about is when we disdain the Holy Spirit itself—and we can’t do that unless we’re aware of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the spirit that goes out from the Lord and gives us life; it’s the spirit of truth that fills His Word. When we meet that Holy Spirit—that living, moving Spirit of God—we are very much on holy ground. And if we then proceed to blaspheme that Spirit, if we reject it or treat it with contempt, we’re dragging what is holy into the mud. We’re rejecting not just words, or ideas, but the spirit of God Himself. That’s profanation; and that’s why the Lord says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, and why the second commandment says that the Lord “will not hold Him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7).
All of that might sound scary, but we should remember that the Lord’s Holy Spirit isn’t something we come face to face with unless we want to. If we simply disregard the Spirit in the first place, we can’t profane it. It takes dedication, on our parts, to find the Holy Spirit: it takes a commitment to the Lord and His teachings. The point is that if you do that work, and you find yourself in the presence of the Lord—in the presence of living holiness—don’t choose that as the moment to reject Him and blaspheme Him.
But now let’s go back to the question that was asked at the beginning of the sermon: what is the second commandment there to protect? We might say that it’s there to protect the name of God, or the Word of God; but the truth is that God doesn’t need to be protected. God won’t be offended if we abuse His name. The second commandment is there to prevent us from damaging our own relationships with holy things. Because what have we done to ourselves if we cripple our ability to feel reverence? If we cheapen the thought of God by associating Him with empty or angry words? Misusing His name isn’t necessarily the same thing as cheapening the very thought of Him, but it does open the gate on a road that leads in that direction. You could say the second commandment is there to remind us not to destroy our sense of the sacred.
People sometimes say that nothing’s sacred anymore, but if you look closely, virtually everyone has something they hold sacred. There are words and phrases that people refuse to say, because saying them would simply be too offensive. That absolute refusal to violate something is essentially the same thing as holding something sacred. What is it that people are holding sacred when they refuse to speak offensive words? Another thing that can feel sacred to us is a very small child. The thought of hurting something so fragile and innocent is unacceptable.
People sometimes speak as though reverence is outdated and can be done away with, but there’s no good reason for that to be true. Reverence that has to look a certain way, or that has to involve a certain kind of old-fashioned seriousness, might be outdated. But the heart of reverence is simply the awareness that we’re in the presence of the sacred—something too precious to be trifled with. There’s often a kind of reverence in the way that we hold little babies. What else do we hold with that kind of reverence?
The Heavenly Doctrine says that everyone, whether they’re religious or not, has a God in effect—because we all have something that we put above all other things, and “Anyone or anything which is loved above all is, to the lover, God and Divine” (TCR §293). By the same measure, we all have things we hold sacred, things we just won’t mess with because they’re too important to us. Shouldn’t the Lord be among those things? Shouldn’t He be first among them?
And if the Lord is sacred, shouldn’t we protect our ability to recognize that He is sacred—to feel reverence in His presence? To feel a trace of reverence even when we speak His name? At very least, we mustn’t cheapen Him and our sense of the sacred by speaking of Him thoughtlessly or contemptuously.
The Lord is a loving God who is near to us, and we don’t need to be afraid of Him; but He is also God forever, and the ground beneath His feet is holy. How can we draw near to him if we aren’t willing to see that He is what He is? He is our Father in the heavens; hallowed be His name.
Amen.