Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; March 22, 2026
Readings: Mark 14:55-64; True Christian Religion §321
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We’ve been working through a series of sermons on the ten commandments, and today’s topic is the eighth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex. 20:16). It’s definitely a bit jarring to switch to this topic right after rejoicing in the baptism of a little child who’s never told a lie in his life. And at the same time, baptism is actually a perfect counterexample to false witness, because baptism is all about choosing the truth. The waters of baptism correspond to truths; and when we or our children are baptized, we’re testifying to a desire to be washed by those truths, and a desire to stand in the company of the angels, who love the truth.
The spirit of false witness that we’re going to talk about now is the dead opposite of that love of truth; and it’s that much easier to see why we need to shun false witness when we also see the power of standing for the truth.
When we teach the eighth commandment to children, we often paraphrase it as, “you shall not lie.” That’s a valid paraphrase, because in a broad sense this commandment does forbid all kinds of lying; but technically what the commandment forbids in its literal sense is bearing false witness, or lying when we’re a witness in court, or some similar situation. It isn’t hard to see that this is an especially destructive kind of lying.
There are a number of stories in the Word that involve bearing false witness in this narrow sense. King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, but Naboth wouldn’t sell it to him; so the queen orchestrated Naboth’s death, and she did this by hiring men to testify, falsely, that Naboth had “blasphemed God and the king” (1Kings 21:1-14). Something similar happened to the Lord Himself, and that’s the story that we’re going to hear now. This reading is from the gospel of Mark, and it picks up right after the Lord has been arrested in Gethsemane: [read 14:55-64].
This trial is a mockery of justice in so many ways. First of all, it says right at the beginning that they “sought testimony against Jesus, to put Him to death” (v. 55). So they’d already sentenced Him, before the trial even began. Now they’re working backwards, trying to justify their verdict; but the only justifications they can come up with are lies. The story says that “many” bore false witness against Him (v. 56); maybe those false witnesses were council members, who were motivated by their hatred of the Lord, or maybe they were random people who were paid to come in and tell lies, like the scoundrels who were paid to accuse Naboth of blasphemy. In any case it would have been obvious—everyone in that room would have known—that the accusations against the Lord were false, because no one’s testimony agreed with anyone else’s. But they just kept going, kept slinging mud until something stuck.
The best accusation that they could come up with was this claim that the Lord had said that He would destroy the temple and build it again in three days (v. 58). The Lord had said something sort of like this: when His disciples had called His attention to the workmanship of the temple, He had told them, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (13:2; cf. John 2:19). Those words were a prophecy, and the prophecy was literally fulfilled about forty years later, when the Romans levelled Jerusalem. But the Lord said that the temple would be destroyed, not that He would destroy it—and that’s not a small difference. This accusation made against Him is a textbook example of twisting the truth.
This whole trial is an extreme example of the perversion of justice; but it’s an important story because it so vividly illustrates what happens when people are willing to subordinate the truth to what they want. Without honesty—without the truth—justice falls apart, and so much else falls apart with it. People know this. Perjury, or giving false testimony when you’re under oath, is a crime in virtually every country in the world. Perjury can earn you a prison sentence. So people do take this stuff seriously. Nevertheless, lies are still told; in court, in the public sphere; in this country and in others; and yes, those lies do damage to justice and the rule of law. If we’re bothered when other people tell lies, that’s a good sign; and if we want to see justice done in the systems that we’re part of, then it’s appropriate to say so, to show our neighbors and our leaders that we value truth and will not be content with lies. But, obviously, we as individuals have no power over other people, and are not responsible for what they choose to say. What we actually have power over is whether or not we will stand for the truth ourselves.
We already touched on the idea that, although in a strict sense the eighth commandment only forbids lying in court, it really forbids all kinds of lying. The Heavenly Doctrine says as much, and says it very clearly. We turn now to the reading that’s printed on the back of the worship handout, which is from the chapter on the ten commandments in the book True Christian Religion: [read §321].
Something that stands out about this passage is how it stresses that the things it says not to do are things that cause harm. It says that the eighth commandment forbids “lying and hypocrisy… with evil intent,” and that it forbids criticizing and slandering our neighbor “so as to undermine his honor, name and reputation.” The things the Lord forbids are forbidden because they’re hurtful. But is lying always hurtful? Is it possible to tell a lie with good intent? It isn’t that hard to think of situations in which lying seems like the kinder choice. The classic, stereotypical example is a wife asking her husband, “how do I look in these clothes?” There are answers that the husband should not give, no matter what he actually thinks. But this example is overused, and just to pick on it a little—if the husband feels like he has no choice but to lie, then something unhealthy might be going on. What really matters here is that the husband treat his wife like he loves her and values her beauty; and if he’s wise, he can probably find a way to do that and still share some of his actual thoughts.
But—continuing to use marriage as an example—sometimes husbands and wives don’t feel like they’re in love with each other at all. When this happens, should they act like they love each other, or is that lying? The Heavenly Doctrine says that when a couple is in a cold state, it’s useful and commendable for them to nevertheless act like a married couple, and to simulate friendship (ML §277ff). This might feel false. In any context, acting nice when we don’t feel nice might feel false. But it’s not lying; it’s simply choosing not to act on what we feel. It’s replacing behavior that reflects how we really feel with behavior that reflects what we know is right; so it’s replacing one truth with another, more useful truth. Choosing to say what’s useful instead of saying everything is not lying. The hells that prey on our consciences want us to think it’s lying; they want us to think we have to lie sometimes. But they’re wrong, so ignore them.
There are other examples we could look at—other situations in which a person with good motives might choose not to say the whole truth. We might do this to protect people. If a child asks a question and the real answer is something they’re just not ready for, it isn’t against the eighth commandment to give that child an incomplete answer. Or to pick a really mundane example, sometimes people will ask you how you’re doing, and you’ll say “fine,” even though the truth is more complicated. Maybe it would be useful to be more honest; but choosing to say “fine” is probably fine.
The point is that the eighth commandment is about more than just whether or not the truth is technically spoken: it’s about the choice between the love of truth and the abuse of truth. Will we yield to the truth, so that it can shape our words and actions; or will we subordinate the truth to our own opinions, or to what’s profitable or convenient for us? It’s possible to stand for the truth without saying much at all; and we can subordinate the truth even when the words we speak are technically true. We can quote Scripture with harmful or selfish intent—and that is lying, though the Scripture itself is always true.
Misusing or falsifying Scripture probably involves breaking the eighth commandment not just in its natural sense, but in its spiritual sense. The Heavenly Doctrine says that we break the eighth commandment in its spiritual sense when we persuade (or attempt to persuade) others that what is true is false, and what is good is evil—or vice versa, when we persuade people that evil things are good and false things are true (SH §8908; Life §87; TCR §322; AE §1019.2). The harm that we can do when we muddy the water like this is obvious. In the highest or celestial sense, breaking the eighth commandment means, “speaking blasphemy against the Lord and the Word, thus chasing truth out of the church” (TCR §323). Again, it isn’t hard to see that when we reject and revile the truth at its source, we’re doing something harmful. Bearing false witness, in all its different forms, is forbidden because it’s harmful. And fundamentally, the thing that it harms is the truth.
To conclude this sermon, we’ll consider some thoughts about the power of standing for the truth. We know that the truth matters: we know that justice falls apart when truth is not held sacred, and that when justice goes, a whole lot more goes with it. Even so, we sometimes talk about truth like it’s just a bunch of ideas. Especially in religious contexts: we talk like “truth” is just what the books say, or those long doctrinal words that the priest is always using. But that’s not what “truth” means. It’s not just so many ideas: the truth is what’s real. The truth is solid ground beneath our feet, air that we can breathe and light that we can see by. To know the truth is to know the difference between good and evil, between health and sickness, between innocence and guilt. Truth can be inconvenient, it can be hard, sometimes it cuts; but it’s real nonetheless. And there’s something so liberating about choosing what’s right and what’s real, even when that means that we don’t get what we wanted. The Lord said, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). And truth has this power because He is in it.
When the Lord was in the world He spoke the truth, though it cost Him His life. When He was on trial, they bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies were incoherent. They couldn’t convict Him of anything until the high priest asked Him, “Are you the Christ?” (Mark 14:61). He answered with the truth: He said, “I am” (v. 62), though He knew full well that they would regard that truth as a lie, and treat it as a justification for killing Him. But how could He do less than speak the truth? He is the Christ; He stood for the truth and He became the truth. And in the end, that truth rang out, because they couldn’t kill Him at all.
What all of this means is that when we say the truth, the Lord is there. In short, telling the truth is even more powerful than it seems.
We’ll close this sermon with one more reading from the Heavenly Doctrine:
When a person abstains from false testimonies understood in a moral and spiritual sense, and shuns and turns away from them as sins, the love of truth and the love of justice flow in from the Lord through heaven. And when, as a result, the person loves truth and loves justice he loves the Lord, for the Lord is truth itself and justice itself. And when a person loves truth and justice it may be said that truth and justice love him, because the Lord loves him; and as a result his utterances become utterances of truth, and his works become works of justice. (AE §1020.2)
Amen.