- CHAPTER 8: Jesus, Keeper of God’s Promises

IS THERE ANYONE AMONG US, any human being, who has not experienced the sadness and disappointment of a promise not kept? More than a few times we have heard an apology, an excuse, perhaps a downright fabrication: “I’m sorry. I thought I could do what I promised you, but I find it is not humanly possible.”
That is the language and the experience of human beings. Quite the opposite is our experience when we relate with God. All of God’s promises are sure. They are as reliable as His character. Here is how the writer of the letter to the Hebrews puts it:
When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. (Hebrews 6:13-15)
I must confess that in my ministry I keep repeating some of the things I know about God and His faithful promises. Why do I insist that all Christians should know for themselves the kind of God they love and serve? It is because all the promises of God rest completely upon His character.
Why do I insist that all Christians should search the Scriptures and learn as much as they can about this God who is dealing with them? It is because their faith will only spring up naturally and joyfully as they find that our God is trustworthy and fully able to perform every promise He has made.
God is unchanging
This word concerning God’s total faithfulness is a vibrant, positive message in the Hebrews letter. Those to whom it is primarily written were being persecuted. They were suffering. The enemy of their souls was busy planting doubts about God’s plans for them and God’s promises to them. Probably Satan was sowing doubts about the very character of God who had revealed Himself in a new covenant of grace, sealed in the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Let me share a conclusion I have come to in my study of the Scriptures. I have come to believe that all the promises of God have been made to assure us weak and changeable humans of God’s never-ending good will and concern. What God is today He will be tomorrow. And all that God does will always be in accord with all that God is!
Our Lord will never have to send a message to us, saying, “I am not feeling well today; therefore, I shall not be dealing with you today on the same basis as I dealt with you yesterday.”
You may not be feeling well physically today. Have you learned to be thankful anyhow and to rejoice in the promises of God? God’s eternal blessings do not depend on how you feel today. If my eternal hope rested on how I felt physically, I might as well begin packing for a move to some other region! Even if I do not feel heavenly, my feelings in no way change my heavenly hope and prospect.
I dare not relate even a fraction of my faith and hope to my emotions of the moment and to how I feel today. My eternal hope depends on “God’s well being—on whether God Himself is able to make good on His promises. And about that there is no doubt.
God does not play on our emotions
Now that I have brought up the subject of our human emotions, I should add this further word. I do not know how familiar you are with the ways of God and the tender movings of His Spirit. But I will tell you this quite frankly: God does not play on our emotions to bring us to the point of spiritual decision.
God’s Word, which is God’s truth, and God’s Spirit unite to arouse our highest emotions. Because He is God and worthy of our praise, we will find the ability to praise Him and to glorify Him. Some religious and evangelistic techniques are directed almost entirely to the emotions of those who are listening to the appeal. They are psychology, not Spirit-directed conviction. They are unrelated to the sweet, tender ways of the God of all mercy and all grace.
I have to disagree with religious appeal that supposes if someone in the audience can be moved to shed a tear, a saint has been made. Or that if a husky listener can be touched emotionally to the point that he must blow his nose as though it was Gabriel’s trumpet, all will be well with his soul.
I warn you that there is no connection whatsoever between the human manipulation of our emotions, on the one hand, and, on the other, the confirmation of God’s revealed truth in our beings through the ministry of His Holy Spirit. When in our Christian experience our emotions are raised, it must be the result of what God’s truth is doing for us. If that is not so, it is not properly religious stirring at all.
Jesus has supreme authority
Throughout this letter, the writer leaves us in no doubt concerning the supreme authority vested in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son. Early on, he states the thesis of the letter: Because the message concerning Jesus Christ is true, we must give it our full and complete commitment.
The Holy Scriptures are like that. The Bible is frank, logical, honest. Certain things are true, the Bible is saying, and here they are. And because those things are true, these are your obligations. That is the way God has seen fit to work in His communication with the men and women of this planet.
In the past, there have been those who have looked at what the Bible has to say, and they have reasoned like this: “No argument. Christ carries the supreme authority of God. That leaves us no room to be concerned, no reason to be disturbed. Everything is in God’s hands!”
But God’s Word declares that it is not quite that simple. God has made everyone of us with a free will. He has made us capable of choosing or rejecting. For us to ignore the authority that God has given to His Son is a grave offense, indeed.
Because of His love for us, God already has taken the initiative. He has left us without room for human excuse. If God cannot get us concerned about His own things and our shortcomings, He cannot do anything at all for us. If His grace and mercy cannot move us, He cannot save us. This brings us right back to our starting point. Our Christian hope and the promises of God all rest upon the very character of the triune God. We are New Testament believers. We are saved through the terms of a new covenant. That new covenant is based in the love and grace of the One who created us and then gave His life for our redemption.
Of His own free will God has made a pledge and given us a covenant. A Christian is a Christian and remains a Christian because of the bond between the persons of the Godhead and himself or herself.
Psalm 89 states the theme
Note this theme in Psalm 89. In that psalm, the Holy Spirit has dictated a plain message. He goes far beyond the reference to King David. Rather, he is describing David’s greater Son, even Jesus, the eternal Son and Lord of all.
The reference is to the kind of covenant a faithful God has made with the people of His choice. The statements made by God to David’s progeny and David’s people are almost unconditional. God does not make unconditional promises to our race, but these in Psalm 89 are as nearly unconditional as any we will ever find.
The Holy Spirit is not speaking concerning the earthly David who would die. He is speaking of a Son, of whom He says:
He will call out to me, “You are my Father,
My God, the Rock my Savior.”
I will also appoint him my firstborn,
the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
I will maintain my love to him forever,
and my covenant with him will never fail.
This Son could be none other than Jesus. And the unfailing covenant God makes with Him is ours. It will never fail because it is God who has promised, and God can be counted on.
I hope what I have been reviewing here is plain. A promise—any promise—is nothing in and of itself. The value of the promise depends on the character of the one who makes it. We know only too well the history of men and women. They make promises and covenants, but often those promises and covenants are broken. They are not kept.
Why covenants fail
There are a number of reasons why human covenants are not kept. Sometimes the person making the covenant has no intention of keeping it. It fails because of the duplicity of the one who promised. In other cases, covenants fail through ignorance. A person makes a promise upon the basis of his or her prospects. But things go badly—physically, financially, intellectually. He or she is unable to fulfill the obligation.
In still other instances, covenants fail because human beings are changeable. A man promises but later changes his mind. He refuses to live up to the terms of the covenant he made. Covenants sometimes fail because the ones who made the promises die. Human mortality causes covenants to become void.
Men and women are well aware of their failures and frailty. They know their weaknesses, their duplicity, their tendency to be less than honest. So they add an oath to their covenant—an appeal to Someone greater than themselves: “So help me, God!” I have always considered it a little humorous that sinful men who cannot trust each other call on God or the Holy Bible to witness that a sinful being is not going to tell a lie. I suspect there is a chuckle in hell whenever a person in one of our courts promises before God that he or she will “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
With all of that by way of background, let me tell you my theory. I believe God made an accommodation and went along with our way of doing things. When during Abraham’s time He made a promise to save His people, God took an oath to confirm the covenant. And because He could call on no one greater, He swore by Himself! Our faithful God has so sworn for all who will be heirs of the promise.
Shall we not trust Him?
Are we going to trust God? Are we going to commit our entire future to Him? What more assurance do we need than the character of God Himself? It is God’s own eternal Person and His faithful character that tell us our salvation is secured through the blood of Jesus Christ, our Savior. It is because God is who He is that we can trust Him and be assured that His covenant will never change.
How rewarding it is to be able to make a proclamation like this! Our forgiveness, our hope for salvation, our confidence in the life to come rest upon God’s unchanging love and faithfulness.
I must confess in behalf of all of us that we humans are not as wise as God is. For example, there are men and women forever wishing they might find someone able to predict the future for them. No one can do so with accuracy. Also, we frequently fail to live up to our promises.
But there is no such failure with God. He knows everything that can be known. He is perfect in wisdom. God never has to excuse Himself with a “Well, my intentions were good, but I failed.” His ability to deliver on His promises is tied directly to His omnipotence. If God was not omnipotent, He would be unable to keep His promises. He could not give any of us assurance of salvation.
This attribute of God we call omnipotence does not really mean that God can do anything. It means that He is the only Being who can do anything He wills to do. We understand up to a point that God is perfect in love and wisdom, in holiness and strength. Still, it is impossible for us to comprehend what the Lord God means when He says, “I am the holy God.” We may, however, come to the understanding that “holy” is the way God is, and that He has made holiness the moral condition necessary to the health of His entire universe.
Because holiness is God’s being, He cannot lie. Because He is God, He cannot violate the holy nature of His being. God does not will to lie. He does not will to cheat. He does not will to deceive. He does not will to be false to His own dear people.
Or to put it positively, in the very perfection of His character, God wills to be true to His children. Because He is perfect and because He is holy, His believing children are safe. Confidently knowing that the Lord God omnipotent reigns, and knowing that He is able to do all that He wills to do, I have no more doubts. I am safely held in the arms of the all powerful God.
There is no better way to conclude a discussion like this than in the definition of this omnipotent God given in Hebrews:
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7:17-20)
We are in the midst of the storm of life. The believing saints of God are on board the ship. Someone looks to the horizon and warns, “We are directly in the path of the typhoon! We are as good as dead. We will surely be dashed to pieces on the rocks!”
But calmly someone else advises, “Look down, look down! We have an anchor!” We look, but the depth is too great. We cannot see the anchor. But the anchor is there. It grips the immovable rock and holds fast. Thus the ship out rides the storm.
The Holy Spirit has assured us that we have an Anchor ,steadfast and sure, that keeps the soul. Jesus—Savior, Redeemer and our great High Priest—is that Anchor. He is the One who has gone before us. He has already entered into the calm and quiet harbor, the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.
Where Jesus is now, there we will be—forever. The Spirit is saying to us, “Keep on believing. Pursue holiness. Show diligence and hold full assurance of faith to the very end. Follow those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.
“He is faithful!”