"By your words"

I write this time about something I cannot but flinch at addressing. Something in which I cannot but feel more deeply than usual my own sense of serious inadequacy. It is the matter of the tongue, of our words, of what we say and how we say them and what we don’t say. It may be that we all have a similar feeling of awkwardness about this matter, knowing our failings. But this doesn’t help me feel any better at all about this matter. The fact is, by our words we will be condemned and by our use of words we will be counted as righteous. The importance of our words cannot be overstressed. Judah were condemned "because their tongue and their words are against the Lord" (Is. 3:8). All their idolatry, perversion etc. was summarized in their words. Again and again Isaiah and the prophets say that the reason for Israel’s condemnation was their words, even those they said under their breath - "your tongue hath muttered perverseness" (Is. 59;3). "Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue" (Hos. 7:16). "The inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins" (Mic. 6:12,13). Truly "death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof" (Prov. 18:21).

The Hebrew word usually translated "tongue" is also put by metonymy for the person - because a man’s words reflect who he really and essentially is. And this means we shouldn’t justify our bad speaking by feeling that underneath, we aren’t really like that. We can’t shout and scream hard words at our partner or children or brethren and think that really, underneath we love them. Let’s not think that the way words come out is something involuntary. Job and his friends (Job 4:2) all justified their inappropriate words by reasoning that a man just couldn’t but speak out what he felt given the situation. But they all learnt in the end how far better it would have been not to have spoken as they did. They laid their hands upon their mouths. Words can be controlled. We are responsible for them, because a man’s words are counted as who he is:

^"Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler [same word translated ‘tongue’] is no better" (Ecc. 10:11).

"Let not an evil speaker [s.w. tongue] be established" (Ps. 140:11).

"Ye are taken up in the lips of talkers [s.w. tongues]" (Ez. 36:3).

Our Words Are Our Judgment

It is a common theme that the wicked snare themselves, falling into their own pit, rather than God specifically snaring them (e.g. Ps. 7:15; 9:15; 57:6; Prov. 26:27; 28:10; Ecc. 10:8). From their own mouth and words men will be judged (Mt. 12:37; Lk. 19:22 cp. 2 Sam. 1:16; 1 Kings 20:40). It could even be that the Lord cites the condemnatory words of the rejected uttered during their lifetimes and leaves these as their condemnation. Woe, therefore, to he or she who has said unrepentantly that they don’t want to be in the Kingdom if brother x or sister y are going to be there. "He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life, but he that openeth wide his lips [in this life] shall have destruction" at judgment day (Prov. 13:3). The link between the final verdict and the words we use today is that clear. When the Jews spoke out the judgment they thought should come on those who killed the Master’s Son, the Lord cited their words back to them as descriptive of their own forthcoming condemnation (Mt. 21:41,43). This is just as David was invited to speak words of judgment on a sinner, and was told: "thou art the man"(2 Sam.12:7).

Whatever we have spoken in darkness will be revealed for all to hear and know (Lk. 12:2,3) - our words will, as it were, be cited back to us before others in that day. The Lord says this in the context of warning us not to have the leaven of hypocrisy in the matter of our words - there’s no point in saying one thing to one person and something different to someone else, because our words will be gone through at the judgment and will be open for everyone to hear. We should live, He implies, as if we are now before the judgment, speaking things we wouldn’t be ashamed for anyone to hear. Note in passing how he says that hypocrisy in our words is like leaven that corrupts and spreads within an individual and a community. Once somebody starts being hypocritical with their words, someone else does. And we’ve all seen plenty of this, in office departments, classrooms, men working together, women running childcare groups together, in families…and even in ecclesias. Someone has to break the cycle of saying one thing to one, and something different to someone else.

The idea of dishonest words being like yeast, a source of corruption (Lk. 12:1-3), takes us to Mt. 12:32-37: "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him…Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh… every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified [then], and by thy words thou shalt be condemned". The fruit of the tree equals the words as in Prov. 12:14; 13:2; a corrupt man will speak corrupt words, and these will be the basis of his condemnation. By contrast "the fruit of our lips" should be praise (Heb. 13:15). "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth" (Eph. 4:29) refers to the Lord’s words - the corrupt fruit is corrupt words. But the idea is that we bear the fruit now - our words now are our fruit. The Lord puts it all another way in Lk. 6:44 when He says that men don’t "gather" good fruit from a corrupt tree. The language of gathering is very much that of judgment to come; and yet the fruit is produced and gathered now, in the words / fruit that comes out of our mouth. This is why right now we can judge a false teacher by his corrupt words [this is one of the contexts of the Lord’s words about corrupt trees and fruit- we see the fruit now]. The corrupt man will speak villainy (Is. 32:6). But corrupt words don’t just mean expletives - the false teacher would be too smart to use them, he comes in sheep’s clothing.

Lk. 6:41-44 gives us an example of "corrupt" words, words which create a corrupting spiritual influence in a man or in a community. One may say to his brother that he must cast out the splinter from his eye, although he has a plank in his own. And the Lord goes on to say that a good tree doesn’t bring forth corrupt fruit. The corrupt fruit, as in the above passages, means ‘corrupt words’. And in Lk. 6:45 the Lord concludes by saying that "for of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh". The corrupt fruit are the corrupt words of Lk. 6:42.- saying, ‘My brother, I’m very sorry, but I just have to correct you, you are so obviously wrong and stupid to walk round with a splinter in your eye, I can correct your spiritual vision, because I see perfectly. At the moment your spiritual perception [‘eye’] is just hopeless. Your understanding of this passage and that verse are totally wrong, your standards of dress and behaviour are an affront to our holy God. Without me, and listening to what I tell you, you’ll never stumble your way to the Kingdom’. The Lord understood ‘the eye’ as ones spiritual vision (Mt. 6:22,23). These kinds of words, in essence, are the real leaven; they corrupt / pull apart, over time, communities as well as individual faith. These criticisms work away within a brother or sister, deaffirming them as believers, deaffirming them for who they are, raising doubt and not hope, humiliating them that they haven’t made the Christadelphian grade until they are corrupted.

We have a specific example of a man being punished in judgment for his words, and it may well be the basis for the Lord’s teaching here: "When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it" (Is. 10:11,12), and there follows a long quotation of his words. These words were the ‘fruit of his heart’ - out of the abundance of his heart his mouth had spoken. And these words were almost cited back to him at the time of his condemnation. We know, however, that it is quite possible for human actions and words to not reflect the heart. Consider how Sennacherib invaded Judah but in his heart "he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so" (Is. 10:7). This is why the Lord clearly condemns the thought as being as bad as the action, even if the action isn’t actually committed. Ps. 55:21 laments how words can not reflect the true state of a man’s heart: "The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords".

So why, then, is there so much emphasis on spoken words as the basis for judgment to come? Surely it is that, although thoughts will also be judged I for one flinch at this; because when I have to own up to having said inappropriate words, my flesh wants me to think that in my heart I didn’t mean them. And yet, ruthlessly, I must press the point: bad words reflect a bad heart. We can’t justify them. We must repent of them and by the influence of knowing God, through and in His Son and His word, we must change the state of mind that leads to them. And we should be, on one hand, simply worried: that bad words came out of a bad heart. And a good man cannot bring forth such corrupt fruit. There is, with some especially the problem of temper, saying things in hot blood well beyond what they really mean. But, here again, the words of hot blood do reflect something of the real man or woman. The tongue is a fire that can lead to condemnation, whatever and however we justify its words as a relatively harmless outcome of our personality type. This may be true, but the words that result aren’t harmless.

Speaking of the sudden destruction of the wicked at the future judgment, David reflected: "So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves" (Ps. 64:8). Unsound speech will be condemned, or perhaps (will) lead to our condemnation (Tit. 2:8). The implication seems to be that our words will be quoted back to us during the judgment process. Brother, sister, think about this. It doesn’t need me to tell you what words we should or shouldn’t be saying. This thought alone will elicit from us acute self-awareness and self-knowledge in this matter, If we meditate upon it - that our words will be cited to us at judgment day. By our words we really will be justified or condemned. The false prophets were judged according to their words: "Every man’s word shall be his burden" at the day of Babylonian judgment (Jer. 23:36); Gal. 6:5 alludes similarly, at the judgment, every man shall bear his own burden - i.e., that of his own words. We truly ‘make the answer now’. The Saviour came more to save than condemn (Jn. 12:47); it is men who condemn themselves as being unworthy of eternal life. It is their words, not His, which will be the basis of their rejection. We must so speak as those who will be judged, knowing that he who showed no mercy in his words will receive none (James 2:12,13); our words of mercy or condemnation - and perhaps the way we say them, will be the basis upon which we will be accepted or rejected. "A fool’s mouth is [will be] his destruction, and his mouth calleth for strokes [i.e. condemnation at the judgment, Lk. 12:47,48]" (Prov. 18:6). By our words we may be shouting out for condemnation. "In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride [with which he will be beaten at the day of judgment]; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them" from such a fate (Prov. 14:3). Our words are as fire, and are to be connected with the fire of condemnation (James 3:5,6), which they will have already kindled (Lk. 12:49). Likewise wrongly gained wealth is the fire that will burn those who have it at the last day (James 5:3). James is picking up a figure from Is. 33:11, again concerning the final judgment: "Your [own] breath [i.e. words], as fire, shall devour you". Their breath, their words, were as fire which would in the end be the basis of their condemnation. Nadab and Abihu kindled strange fire, and it was with that fire that God burnt them up, in symbol of His destruction of all the wicked at judgment day (Lev. 10:2).

Quite simply, by our words today we are deciding our eternal future. The rejected will have cried out for their own condemnation through their words. Consider:

We have dwelt on the negatives - the need to avoid bad speech. But we must match this with a speech salted with salt, a figure for the peace that there should be between us (Mark 9:49,50). As salt was added to the sacrifices to make them burn acceptably, so good speech is vital for our final acceptance. And not only must we speak words of comfort, love and grace, but words of power and meaning. The Lord said that we will give account for every idle / useless word we speak (Mt. 12:36,37). The same word is used in Mt. 20:6 about the idle, unworking labourers doing nothing. The Lord may be warning that if our lives are just empty words, we must give account for these words. We can so easily be as the son who says he will go work in the vineyard but doesn’t go (Mt. 21:30). For we live in a world of words that lack power, bereft of meaning. Promises mean nothing, there is no substance and underpinning to words. Yet we are to speak "as the oracles of God", reflecting the Father’s speech in our own.

We must realize that it is perfectly possible to have an appearance of spirituality and yet make no real effort to control our words: "If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain" (James 1:26). Peter likewise teaches the possibility of controlling the tongue: "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile" (1 Pet. 3:10). And yet straight away we run into a seeming contradiction with James 3:7-10: "Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh".

James himself appeals in his letter for us to bridle the tongue. But here he seems to say that the tongue is uncontrollable, and "we" - he includes himself - use it to both bless God and curse men. And he goes on to say that this shouldn’t be so, because a good tree brings forth good fruit, i.e. words. Inappropriate words from our mouths indicate that there is something fundamentally wrong with our spirituality. How can we reconcile this? I suggest that James, despite being a leading brother, is showing a chink in his own armour, and thereby empowering his message all the more. He is saying that he himself has to admit that "we", do sometimes say inappropriate things. The tongue can be bridled, it can be as Peter puts it ‘refrained’. But in practice no man seems able to totally tame it. And this is why James also says in this very context that we shouldn’t be eager to be teachers, because it is almost inevitable that we will use words wrongly and thereby offend our brother, with all the Biblical implications this carries: "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man" (3:2). James, a teacher in the ecclesia, a Master in Israel, says that "we", himself included, at times offend others because "the tongue can no man tame". And yet it can be bridled, refrained, tamed, just as a horse can be tamed by use of a bridle. Surely what James is saying is this: ‘This matter of the tongue worries me no end. I know I, and all of us, could tame our tongues. It’s vital we do. But inappropriate words do still come out of me, and you. And it worries me, because a good tree doesn’t bear such bad fruit. It seems no man among us can tame his tongue as he ought. Oh wretched men that we are. Me especially, because I’m your teacher, James the brother of Jesus Himself. Yes, let us strive the more earnestly in this matter. But who in the end shall deliver us from this bondage of corruption, this seeming inability to live and speak and do and be as we should? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord and His saving grace’. Amen.

Duncan Heaster