#DailyDevotion Jesus, The Anchor Of Hope For Our Souls

Heb. 6 ¹³God promised Abraham, and since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself ¹⁴and said: I will certainly bless you and make you many people. ¹⁵And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham got what God promised. ¹⁶People swear by Someone greater to guarantee what they say and to silence anyone who opposes them. ¹⁷So God, wanting to make it perfectly clear to those who would inherit His promise that He wouldn’t change His plan, bound Himself with an oath ¹⁸so that we who have fled to Him would have two unchangeable things, in which God cannot lie, to give us a strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. ¹⁹We have this hope like an anchor for our lives, sure and strong and reaching behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become like Melchizedek a high priest forever.

So remember that author has been and continues here to state the case that Jesus is better than the High Priest and even greater than Melchizedek, because Melchizedek is a shadow of Jesus Christ. So this section is just one more link in that argument.

So we have here a section showing the certainty of God’s promise and word. God had promised Abraham he would have a son. He promised him many descendants and they would settle in the land of Canaan. He promised all nations would be blessed through his seed (singular Gal. 3:16).

Now he says Abraham waited patiently. Indeed, the promise was made when he was 75 and Isaac was born when he was 100. It would be another 1700 years till the promised seed who all nations would be blessed by would come into the world (depending on your biblical dating). Abraham had to be patient indeed. Perhaps if Abraham can be patient for so long, we too could learn some patience from him as we await God’s promises to be fulfilled for us.

Now perhaps is the greater thing mentioned here. When God makes a promise who does He swear by? Why would He need to swear at all? But God did make an oath to Abraham and since there is nothing higher for Him to swear by, He swears by Himself. We may swear on our mother’s grave, by all that is good, and sometimes we may swear by God if it is important enough and true. But who would accept us swearing by ourselves? We are fickle people compared to God. The LORD says in Num. 23, “¹⁹God is not a man who lies or a mortal who changes His mind. When He says something, will He not do it? When He promises, will He not keep it?”

So we who have fled to God and placed our hope in Him “two unchangeable things, in which God cannot lie, to give us a strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.” Those are God’s promise and His oath. Our hope is sure and certain and reaches beyond the temple curtain, that is in heaven, which is Jesus Christ. He entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with His blood as the atoning sacrifice. With Jesus as our High Priest we can have a sure and certain hope, like an anchor for our lives. It keeps us grounded no matter the storms that come into our lives. It keeps us from drifting away from God our Savior.

Heavenly Father, grant us Your Holy Spirit, that our faith may be fully anchored in Your promise concerning Your Son Jesus Christ, that by His innocent suffering, death and resurrection, our sins have been atoned for and we have the promise of eternal life and inheriting Your kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.