Psalm 15 enumerates some probable deeds that keep us near God. This Psalm motivates us to fulfil our oath, even when it hurts or brings us loss, as an eligibility criterion to dwell with God. After taking an oath, if a person knows that fulfilling it will affect him, he should not change his mind. It often misleads people to stick to their wrong decisions and lures them to fulfil their own words rather than the word of God. Judas Iscariot was a victim of this concept and his focus was on fulfilling his word given at the cost of 30 silver coins, rather than fulfilling the word of God that says to love your God with all your heart and mind. Ample opportunities were there for him to turn to God but he did not want to break the promise given to the evildoers. In many ways, we are also committing the same mistake, thinking that we are taking those vows to gain our eligibility to dwell in the presence of God.
Answers Are Expedited
People make vows to hasten God to give favourable replies to their prayers. The scripture does not support this concept. While the scripture does warn us to fulfil our vows without delay but it never tells us to use our vows to derive an answer from God swiftly. Taking an oath needs sincere commitment and the scripture tells us so. The scripture is not teaching us to make vows but tells us the need to fulfil them if we have taken one. Hence, it is all about our sincerity and determination.
If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty.
Deuteronomy 23:21-22 (NIV)
Peter did ask the same question to the lying couple, Ananias and Sapphira. Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God (Acts 5:4).” When they did not intend to give the whole proceeds of the land, then why did they vow to do so?
It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.
Ecclesiastes 5:5 (NIV)
The Laws Of Vows
The scripture does not insist on us making vows, however, paves a way to make one’s vow null and void. The scripture vests this power in a hierarchy as in certain cases, this person can nullify a vow on behalf of the person who undertook it. When a daughter takes an oath before God, the father has a say to keep or cancel it. Likewise, the authority is vested in the husband when the wife takes an oath before God (Numbers 30:5&8).
Concerning man, the scripture tells him to fulfill what he vowed, and many characters in the Old Testament adhere to this despite losing the lives of their dear ones. In the Old Testament, men saw themselves as superior to women and they did not have anyone above them in a hierarchy to cancel their vows. Hence, men also understood the scriptures in line with the views of their contemporaries.
When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.
Numbers 30:2 (NIV)
People forget that God is above them, and He is gracious to cancel their vows beyond their capability to fulfill them. The scripture counts the vows as a fool’s deed (Ecclesiastes 5:4), and making a vow beyond our capability is also viewed as a sin. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is before making such vows (Ephesians 5:17). In the Old Testament, the provisions of the guilt offerings and sin offerings paved the way to get a pardon from God from such evil. People do not realize that improper vows are sins, and there is always a remedy for our sins. Unfortunately, we stick to our vows and fail to ask God to forgive us for making vows in haste and with vested interests.
…or if anyone thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil (in any matter one might carelessly swear about) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt— when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned.
Leviticus 5:4-5 (NIV)
Precedences From The Scripture
Vows, in the Old Testament, derived blessings to someone and curses to some other. We often remember Hannah, who clung to her prayer and vowed to give her firstborn to the services of God.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life, he will be given over to the LORD.” And he worshiped the LORD there.
1 Samuel 1:27-28 (NIV)
With this precedence, many women pledged to give their firstborn for the services of God when they were barren. In Hannah’s life, God had a purpose to bring forth a new prophet for the Israelites and to replace the old priest and his descendants. If God had not closed the womb of Hannah, she would have bore children like Peninnah, and she would not have been ready to give her son to God.
God led Hannah on a different path to set apart Samuel for His Service but it is not the case with everyone. With vested interests, women vow to give their children when they are yet to be born and later are unable to fulfill their commitment because it was their assumption and not God’s plan. While it is not the plan of God, convincing their children to commit their lives to the services of God will become impossible. Later, they will feel guilty for not fulfilling their vows and attribute every displeasure in their lives to their vows.
Substitutes For The Vows
Apart from the laws concerning various offerings, people made vows themselves. In both cases, God, in His mercy, gave alternate provisions as substitutes. In Leviticus 27, when it becomes difficult to dedicate a person to the services of God as vowed, some monetary value was fixed as payment to release the person from their vow.
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate a person to the LORD by giving the equivalent value…
Leviticus 27:2 (NIV)
Usually, this monetary value is according to the age of a person and the volume of workload he could offer. It is their earnings, the daily wage or so, to make them feel the financial pain in place of their withdrawn vows. From the perspective of God, it is not monetary benefit but the amount of heartache one faces for not adhering to their own words. Likewise, people vow to give the whole amount of their first-month salary to God but somehow because of their situation, fail to offer it. They live with guilt for the rest of their lives and attribute the failure of their career to their unfulfilled vows.
Is Vow Mandatory?
Vow reveals the genuineness of our hearts through its fulfillment. Whether we make vows or not, God demands the truth of our hearts.
All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Matthew 5:37 (NIV)
In the Old Testament, the Nazarite Vows were sacred because it was not a vow made by man but a demand from God to dedicate people to His Service (Numbers 6:1-21). The phenomena of vows have become null and void today, and God opened the way to all people to become His priesthood through the obedience of Jesus to His Father. If we stick to our confession of our initial faith, say yes to yes, and no to no, the vow is not a matter at all.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2:19-22
Above all the offerings, God gave as a substitute to vow, He gave His only Son as the substitute for us, and there is no need to make any vow except to commit our lives truly to God. To surrender our lives to God, we need not pledge but should have the instinct to submit our lives to God once we become His children by believing in Jesus. As fish swims with an instinct once it is born, we should also walk instinctively in light with Jesus, when we are born again. Our Father in heaven, has given us the instinct to call Him Abba Father, and what more can one do to claim Sonship than the Son did on the Cross?
People took the pledge to discipline themselves to achieve their assigned purpose. But children of God have the instinct to accomplish the will of God, and no vows are mandatory to discipline because we have become righteous not by our deeds but by the work of Jesus and by the love of God. We receive this portfolio through faith in Jesus and have not earned it because of our deeds. Do we have an instinct to live like Jesus? Like the genes of the parents are found in their children, the holiness of God will be in His children.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9-10
The Jordan Valley 
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