Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:9-20 ESV
Because faith and hope are intimately bound together, Abraham could just as easily have been called the man of hope as the man of faith. Abraham’s entire life of faith was predicated upon his hope in God’s mighty promises to him. To be specific, God promised to give Abraham an offspring, to make him into a great nation, and give his offspring the land of Canaan. Abraham only saw the fulfillment of the first promise before his death, and even that promise came twenty-five years after God made it to him.
Of course, the Scriptures never attempt to portrait Abraham as a sinless man. He was just as needful of redemption as we are today. However, Abraham’s faith and hope in God’s word is worthy of our imitation, for like him, we too are called to believe God’s very great promise, that we might endure to the end just as he did.
THOUGH WE SPEAK IN THIS WAY // VERSES 9-12
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things–things that belong to salvation. What ought to immediately notice about this verse is the distinct tonal shift, even calling his readers beloved, and that is not accidental, as if the author of Hebrews were manic-depressive. Being carried along by the Holy Spirit and out of love for his congregation, this pastor is using both the rod and the staff, both rebuking and comforting. Of course, we should be familiar with this pattern because it is how all parental discipline ought to look. The rod of correction is a physical warning against the death that lies at the end of the path of folly and disobedience. But punishment rather than discipline has been meted out if the path of wisdom and love is not presented immediately.
Similarly, we the readers of this sermon-letter have been stricken with the rod of correction. First, we were rebuked for stalling in spiritual infancy and needing to learn the same theological ABC’s over and over again. Then we were warned of what made spiritual immaturity so dangerous: it made one ripe for falling away from the faith. Indeed, last week’s warning against apostasy was intended to startle and awaken us from our spiritual drowsiness and lethargy, but as we noted, the author had no desire to incite despair in any of his reader, which we can clearly observe in this verse.
Here the author makes it clear that he has greater hope in the case of his readers. But his hope of better things pertaining to salvation is not unmoored or frivolous. Indeed, it can be all too easy to others saved simply from compassion and the dreadfulness thought of eternal damnation. The author is giving way to no such thoughts. His confidence in his readers ultimate salvation is rooted in their past and present fruitfulness, which is what he expresses in verse 10: For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
Notice first what kind of fruit the author described. They displayed love for God’s holy name by serving the saints. Their greatest devotion was toward the glory of God’s name, which ought to be true of every Christian. We see this in places like Ephesians 1 that make it clear that the purpose of our salvation is God’s praise and exaltation. However, we also ought to be reminded of this marvelous truth each time we pray through the Lord’s Prayer. As Thomas Watson noted, every petition in the Lord’s Prayer is necessary only for this life, but the first petition is eternal. God’s kingdom will one day come, His will shall be done on earth as in heaven, God Himself will be the eternal portion of His people, the tempter and temptation will be destroyed, and grace will reign forevermore. Yet even when we have no more need to pray for provision, pardon, and protection, we will still pray for God’s name to be hallowed, to be set apart and exalted ever higher. Indeed, there is no such thing as a Christian who does not cherish and esteem the name of God our Savior. Of course, that love is never wholly and perpetually pure throughout this life, but it is there and growing throughout the Christian’s life.
Yet their love for God’s name was displayed through their serving of the saints. Here we see a reflection of the two greatest commandments: loving God and loving our neighbor. They were doing that, and they were especially loving the saints, that is, their brothers and sisters in Christ. This likely referred both to their love for one another within their own congregation as well as their support of other congregations of believers in other cities. Indeed, I think it most likely that the author was sent out by them for that very purpose of serving some other group of Christians. This is just as crucial for the life of a Christian as the love for God’s name. Of course, our love for the saints is secondary to our love for God, but our love for God must always overflow into our love for God’s people. Christians are made saints, holy ones, because Christ died to redeem them. If God so loved the saints, how can anyone claim to love God and not also love what He loves? 1 John 4:20-21 makes this very point:
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Next notice when the readers exhibited this fruitfulness. The words have shown point toward their past, but verse 10 concludes by saying as you still do, which brings their fruitfulness into the present. Both are key to the author’s confidence that they will not be among those who fall away from the faith. Although they have becoming dull of hearing and have not pressed on toward spiritual maturity, they have not been and are not yet like the land that only yields thorns and thistles after the rain. Instead, they are still producing a crop of righteousness for the benefit of the saints out of love for their heavenly Father.
But though his readers are still bearing fruit that they belong to Christ, their gradual descent into immaturity is still a real threat. Thus, after reminding them of their faithfulness in the past and in the present, he exhorts them regarding the future in verses 11-12:
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
It is fitting that the author exhorts earnestness in his readers. John Piper notes that:
The opposite of earnestness is drifting in the Christian life. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1). Most “former Christians” drifted away from the faith rather than departing suddenly. As Jesus said, little by little “they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). One of God’s remedies for this dreadful danger of drifting away is the abundance of warnings in his word to make us earnest or vigilant—or, as Jesus said, “awake” (Mark 13:37).[1]
Although he rejoices in their past and present faithfulness, the author’s desire is that their earnestness for the faith would continue until the end. He desires this because “Scripture knows nothing of biblical assurance or of salvation apart from an earnest pressing on with the business of persevering in faith in Christ.”[2] Such an earnestness is described in verse 12. First, we should note whom this exhortation is written to and in what their earnestness is rooted, which Dennis Johnson answers, writing:
Having reassured the congregation as a whole of God’s knowledge of their labor and love, our preacher directs his final challenge to “each” individual member. Within a generally healthy congregation there may be someone harboring “an evil, unbelieving heart” (3:12), at risk of failing to reach God’s rest (4:1) and grace (12:12-15). Therefore our pastor expresses his strong desire that “each one of you” would “show” (endeiknymi again) in faithful conduct “the same earnestness” (spoude, strenuous action) that had distinguished the beginning of their life in Christ, that each would endure all the way “until the end” (echoing 3:14). Such endurance is sustained not by self-reliant willpower but by the “full assurance of hope” drawn from “considering” and “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (3:1; 12:2).[3]
Earnestness is not sluggish. This ought to draw us back to 5:11, which used the same word to describe the readers’ hearing. They were sluggish in hearing. They were drifting away from their earnest pursuit of maturity through the goodness of God’s Word. Earnestness or persevering diligence is, as Piper said, the very opposite of sluggishness, and it ought to mark the Christian life.
Our earnestness ought, instead, to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 11 is essentially one great list of Old Testament saints whose faith and patience in inheriting the promises of God, yet before that chapter, the author gives us the example of the man of faith, Abraham, in the following verses.
GOD MADE A PROMISE TO ABRAHAM // VERSES 13-15
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.
Throughout the telling of Abraham’s life in Genesis 12-25, God often reiterated His initial promise (from Genesis 12) to the patriarch all over again. We find such instances in Genesis 13, 15, 17, and 18, yet the author of Hebrews cites the final of these accounts from Genesis 22. By that chapter, Abraham had finally received his long-awaited offspring, his dear son Isaac; however, God disrupts his happy life by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac.
In one of the greatest displays of faith found in Scripture, Abraham obeys God and was prepared to plunge a knife into the heart of his son. Hebrews 11:17-19 reveals the true depth of Abraham’s faith in God’s promise:
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
You see, after trying himself to produce a promised offspring, Abraham learned that God intended to fulfill His promises through Isaac. Therefore, Abraham reasoned that if God intended for Isaac to be sacrificed then He also intended for him to be raised back to life. How great was Abraham’s faith in God’s promise!
But after having figuratively received Isaac back, since Abraham had already offered up his beloved son in his heart and mind, God reiterated His promise one last time to the man of faith, saying,
By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.
Genesis 22:16-18
R. Kent Hughes writes,
The pertinence of this to the little Hebrew church as it braced for the tempests ahead is expressed in the next line: “And thus Abraham, having patiently waited obtained the promise” (v. 15). This is an implicit call to the church for a faith that is so firm it enables steadfastness through the uneven seas of life. Abraham’s faith saw the unseen. He saw a living God who was sovereign in all of life—he saw his sacrificed son resurrected and living on—he saw himself fathering a sea of humanity—he saw a blessing for the whole earth. And because he saw this, he was gloriously long-suffering through many years.[4]
As Abraham embraced his figuratively resurrected offspring Isaac, he embraced and obtained God’s very great promises, even though he would not see them literally fulfilled with his own eyes. God had given Abraham his beloved son, his child of impossible birth; how could God not also give him everything else? Is anything too hard for the LORD?
HOLD FAST TO THE HOPE SET BEFORE US // VERSES 16-20
With this great example now before our eyes, the author turns back toward us, his readers. Here he explains why God swore by Himself to Abraham and how it applies to us:
For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Verse 16 expresses a general truth about oaths in general. An oath invokes a higher authority as a pledge of confirmation. Oaths are only necessary because in our fallen state we can rarely be trusted to let our word speak for itself. The higher authority was invoked in order to make the consequences of lying more fearful. Therefore, the implicit question underlying these verses is: if it is indeed impossible for God to lie, why did He make an oath by Himself to Abraham?
Before discussing how the author answers that question, we should first remind ourselves exactly why it is impossible for God to lie. Titus 1:2, of course, confirms this statement by saying directly that God “never lies.” However, never lying is a bit different than being impossible to lie. Yet it is indeed impossible for God to lie because His Word is truth (John 17:17). Our words are judged to be true or false depending on how they relate to reality. To say that the sky is blue is, therefore, true, while saying that it is magenta is false. Nevertheless, the sky is blue regardless of what any of us say. The difference with God is that He is the sky’s painter. He chooses exactly which shade it will be. Indeed, the sky is blue because God said so. If God were to say that the sky is purple, He would not be lying because they sky would be purple. To be true our words must conform to reality, but God is truth Himself meaning that reality conforms itself to God’s Word. Thus, it is not a frivolous and pleasant-sounding platitude to say that it is impossible for God to lie; it is simply the reality.
Back to our question: since it is indeed impossible for God to lie, why did He make an oath by Himself to Abraham? The surface level answer is that He made an oath by Himself because there is no higher authority by which God can appeal. Going deeper, God made the oath as an act of condescension, to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose and that they might have a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. God wanted to show His promise more convincingly to the promise’s heirs, for their encouragement.
But who are the heirs of the promise? If we glance back through God’s promise to Abraham again in Genesis 22:16-18, we will notice that it is more about Abraham’s offspring than about the man of faith himself. The blessing begins and ends with God’s commendation of Abraham’s obedience and then God promises to bless the patriarch, yet then a threefold promise is made to Abraham’s offspring (that he would multiply, possess the gate of his enemy, and shall be a blessing to all the nations of the earth). Although Isaac was certainly Abraham’s promised offspring, they both knew that a far greater fulfillment would come to pass. Galatians 3:16 tells us explicitly who that promised offspring is:
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.
But the word heirs here in our text is plural, and indeed by the end of verse 18, the author makes it clear that he is describing us. If the promise was particularly to Christ as the offspring of Abraham, how is it also ours? Again, Paul tells us plainly in Galatians 3:29: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” If we are those who have fled for refuge under mighty fortress of Jesus’ exalted and holy name, then we are also heirs of the promise. Christ is Abraham’s offspring, and we are in Christ. Thus, the same promise that secured Abraham’s faith throughout his earthly pilgrimage is also ours, although far more clearly than the patriarch was ever able to behold.
Abraham’s whole life was one of holding fast to the hope set before him, walking by faith in realities that were still yet to come but that God had promised. Just as an anchor keeps a ship from drifting away by the tide or tossed to and fro by the winds, God’s promise anchored the man of faith throughout his life. Indeed, whenever God gave him Isaac, Abraham held a tangible anchor of God’s promise in his hands. If God had given Abraham the offspring that He promised him so long after it was physically possible, could Abraham not trust God to do everything else that He said?
In the same way, the promise of God still stands. Though Christ was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, He triumphed over His enemies, and His body is ever multiplying, filling the earth as the blessing for all nations. Although the persecution that was about to befall the author’s congregation was real, they would ultimately be victorious. Just like Christ emerged triumphantly from the grave after His suffering, so shall His church. Many times, we are granted temporal triumph, for although the early Christians certainly feared being snuffed out by the Roman government, it is the church that still endures today, not Rome. Yet one day, Christ’s triumph shall be complete and final. He will return to make all things new, to separate the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the chaff, and every knee shall bow before Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord. Then we will dwell on the new earth with new, resurrected bodies, and God Himself shall dwell with us. Eden will be both restored and multiplied. Our walk with God by faith will then be by sight.
Is that your hope? Hebrews 11:13-16 makes it clear that that was Abraham’s hope. He endured by faith because he held fast to the great hope set before him. And just as his hope was anchored in his offspring, so is ours, for we have a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. I have apportioned so little time for these last words because they are essentially the thesis for chapters 7-10.
But here is what we ought to see clearly. Just Abraham held the anchor of all God’s promises in his son Isaac, so do we have the anchor of all God’s promises in Christ. Just as an anchor is cast down into the sea and fastens the ship to the earth, so Christ has ascended into the heaven as our anchor into the heavenly reality. Indeed, He anchors us into a reality that is firmer than the earth beneath our feet, for the earth itself will pass away and the heavens will melt before the coming of our Lord. But in Christ, we are anchored into the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (12:28). We are anchored onto God Himself as our Father, who alone is unchangeable and unending, through Jesus Christ our Lord who “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (13:8).
Therefore, brothers and sisters, as we come to the Table that has been prepared for us by our King, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (13:28-29). And here before us, we have a visible testimony of Jesus’ once for sacrifice, where the fire of God’s wrath fell upon Him in our place. Come taste and see by faith the goodness of the Apostle and High Priest of our confession and set your vision upon the blessed hope that we will one day taste and see His goodness by sight.
[1] John Piper, Providence, 595.
[2] Robert Paul Martin, Hebrews, 321.
B. C. Newton 