PROMISE
[p. 342] PROMISE
I have in mind to speak about promise, dear brethren, and I have selected this passage as a very appropriate one as I hope to show, and one calculated to establish us in the subject; for the very thought of the subject by itself is establishing; and we need establishing, every one of us. The introduction of Abraham in this section is intended particularly to establish us in the matter in hand, because the matter in hand and the subject proposed were worked out peculiarly in Abraham. It is said here that after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise. That is, he had that experience. God is pleased to signalise His children and His servants, and it is because they have signalised themselves, in answering to the divine proposal that may be intended in them. The idea of promise is peculiarly linked up with Abraham and he signalised himself in the thought of promise. As we have read, he obtained it. This epistle is intended to set us up in the obtaining of things set out in our souls, that they are not mere academical things, but things of real value in the soul and to be sought after, stretched out for. This marked the history of Abraham; he obtained the promise. He obtained other things, too, but this is what is stressed here, and I bring it forward so that we may have in mind, if we have set out in any spiritual way, not to lag behind or give up in weariness but to stretch forward to secure the prize, so that we may not seem to come short. Many do appear in this way, and it is not, of course, in any sense in one’s mind to criticise but rather to point out that we need to have ideals, and God has ideals and pursues them and follows them [p. 343] up and secures them, establishes them, makes them verities in the souls of His people.
Abraham is selected purposely as a particular saint that is to be spoken of at this time and it is in relation to promise. Now the idea of promise is very wide and extends back to the very roots of time; and, therefore, God has made a wise selection in bringing forward Abraham so as to exemplify this point in him. As I was saying, the subject is very wide. If we only had time we could enlarge on it very much, enlarge on it for three days, anyway, as we sometimes do in subjects with the brethren. I think it is a good limit of time, because we have opportunity to expand our affections and minds into a subject, to grapple with a subject and see what is worked out in it so that we may partake of the thing that is worked out.
Now, as I said, the subject is wide and it is seen particularly in the initial books of scripture. It is seen in the higher scriptural records but very little, very little enlarged on in the epistle to the Ephesians, for instance, and in the epistle to the Colossians and the epistle to the Philippians, and these are very significant facts as to our subject. You will find it largely spoken of in the great epistle to the Romans, the great gospel epistle; and also in the epistle to the Galatians. And now this epistle that I have read from, Hebrews, is full of it, and it is clearly, dear brethren, because these epistles — Romans, Galatians and Hebrews — are dealing with young Christians; not simply young in years but persons who have not been Christians very long and whose experience in Christianity is not very deep, as if God is grappling with that state in His saints; that we should not remain in shallowness, content to know just enough to get through. God is not satisfied with that at all. He has gone to great pains to set the truth out for us and He expects us to correspond in some way to what He has done. The blessed God is labouring all [p. 344] the time, and the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual among the saints are labouring all the time. Maybe some of you do not know that, that some saints are labouring all the time, but they are. Paul laboured all the time, day and night, and many like him. It all is to set out what God’s thought is, that the saints may not be shallow or mere excuses for Christianity, but grounded in it, growing in it, too, enlarged in it, enjoying it. It is worth enjoying. It is something worth going in for. There is nothing else worth going in for. We shall find as we grow older, as we no doubt will in the mercy of God, and as going on in the truth, we shall find what has just been said.
And so it is that these epistles that I have mentioned are full of this truth, and the book of Revelation too. “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen what must shortly take place”, Revelation 1:1. These things involve promise, because the saints need to be sustained by promises. So the Lord says, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward with me”, Revelation 22:12, and again in Revelation 22:16, “I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies”. Not elsewhere, not to men who have made prophecy a study; not that God is at all against the study of the prophetic books, but He is concerned about people who are affected by the prophetic word, moved by it. And therefore the Lord says, “I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies. I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star”. And, “Yea, I come quickly”. These are promises, and so also is the word to Philadelphia. “I come quickly”, He says, Revelation 3:11. That epistle, called the epistle to Philadelphia, is full of promise. “Behold, I make them of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews, and are not, but lie; behold, I will cause that they shall come and shall do homage before thy feet”, Revelation 3:9. Think of that. Would you not like to be among them? You say, Worshipped by those that say they are Jews and are not? Yes. The Lord says, I am going to make them to do it, make them worship before thy feet. And why? Because, He says, I want them to know that I love you. That is His word to the Philadelphian saints: “they ... shall know that I have loved thee”, Revelation 3:9? I wonder how many of us love Jesus. And then, How many of us know that Jesus loves us and that Jesus loves the assembly? “They ... shall know that I have loved thee”. Jesus died for the assembly. These are the great subjects of knowledge to the persons who are spiritual, those who love Christ; and these meetings are to make us spiritual.
Well now, as I have said, these books are particularly marked by promise: the epistle to the Romans because it is a basic gospel epistle; the epistle to the Galatians because it is a recovering epistle; it is the Lord going after the saints that are going wrong as to doctrine; not exactly in worldliness although worldliness usually goes with bad doctrine, but the Galatians were getting bad doctrine. And then, the Hebrews were about to give up Christianity altogether, some of them, not all of them, but there was a general trend among the Hebrew Christians at that time to give up Christianity, and hence the thought of promise is so prevalent in the epistle to the Hebrews. These are three outstanding epistles that we should all read and study and concern ourselves with, so that we may be established in the truth of God and not fall away. Hence, in Hebrews the writer says, “if he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him”, Hebrews 10:38? You say. What does it matter? Who is speaking? Only Paul, maybe. But it is the voice of God; it is the voice of Jesus. He is representative of Jesus. As Paul says (I believe it is Paul who wrote the epistle) that we may be sure it is the mind of Christ.
[p. 346] If any one draws back from pursuing Christianity you may be sure the Lord has no pleasure in you. That is most serious. “If he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him”.
Well now, coming back to my text about Abraham as the one that is especially signalised to treat of this subject, he connects it with Abraham as introduced here, and God is spoken of in the word here as intervening by an oath; a most remarkable thing. And what for? It is as Hebrews 6:17 says, “Wherein God, willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, intervened by an oath”. God has intervened in what He is saying and doing by an oath so as to show the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose. In other words, what He has said He means, and if you do not believe it you are disbelieving God. You do not want to be left like that, as a disbeliever of God. No one here, I am sure, would like to be left on the earth as a disbeliever of God. If you are, you shall certainly be left here for a while but not very long. We have been speaking of most solemn things this afternoon: what unbelieving persons are fitted for, destruction. What an awful thing to be fitted for destruction! You know, the word ‘destruction’ there does not really mean what is ordinarily meant in the sense of destruction, as if they are obliterated and entirely wiped out of existence. It does not mean that at all. The persons remain. The beast and the false prophet were taken alive and cast into the lake of fire. That is what happened. There is no idea of their being destroyed. They are fitted for destruction, but it is destruction in the sense in which the unbeliever, the ungodly is consigned to eternal perdition. It is suffering; “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched”, Mark 9:48. It is not destruction in any other sense than that; and so, if you are an unbeliever in God, a disbeliever [p. 347] in God, these things will follow in time. And you do not want to continue, if there is one here who is a disbeliever in God, you do not want to continue in that state. It is an awful thing. Think of it for a moment! You are showing yourself to be fitted for destruction, and such destruction as I have described. Therefore, God has intervened or interposed by an oath in this treatise, this wonderful treatise of the epistle to the Hebrews. When he comes to this matter of the promise he stops, as it were, and says, Now I will swear on this matter. You say. Well, what does the word ‘swearing’ mean when God is in question? Well, it is Scripture. The reference is to Genesis 22 in which there were two interventions of God. The first one was when Abraham had raised his hand or his arm to slay his son Isaac, and the angel intervened from heaven to say to Abraham, Now I know what you are. I want to read it. That is the first intervention in that chapter. It is the chapter that is alluded to in my passage; Genesis 22. You all remember the journey by Abraham and his son Isaac to Mount Moriah. What a journey it was of father and son. It is God’s way of telling us of His own affections for His beloved Son in view of the death of that beloved Son, and so that you young people would begin to think of these things. It is a beautiful, a most wonderful passage in Genesis 22. In Genesis 22:6 it says, “And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said. My father!” Would that the dear young men and young women, boys especially, and girls would let their hearts out a bit and think of the feelings of God; the Father and the Son in this passage. “And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the sheep for a burnt-offering? And [p. 348] Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself with the sheep”. It is not ‘a’ sheep; it is “the” sheep, a full-grown creature, “for a burnt-offering. And they went both of them together. And they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built the altar there, and piled the wood; and he bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slaughter his son”. Notice that. He “took the knife to slaughter his son. And the Angel of Jehovah called to him from the heavens, and said, Abraham, Abraham! [p. 349] And he said, Here am I. And he said, Stretch not out thy hand against the lad, neither do anything to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me”, Genesis 22:16.
Now, this is the first intervention. God has interposed here. He interposed when Abraham lifted up his hand with the knife in it, as if God waited to see the effect of His work coming out there. And that is what it was. “Stretch not out thy hand against the lad”. That voice came out of heaven. It was God intervening to stop the action. It was a question of God’s work in His servant, in His child, as you might say. Dear brethren, that is what is in mind in what we are saying now. It is the work of God in our souls. Is it there or is it not? If it is not there we are simply valueless. Not that I am seeking to discourage anybody, but that is the truth. Without the work of God there is nothing, and God is saying here of Abraham, I know there is a work in that man; I know my work has taken effect in that man, and hence He establishes the procedure. He says the thing is out; the truth is out, that is what is out, that Abraham is genuinely a subject of the work of God.
Well, it says, “And the Angel of Jehovah called to him from the heavens, and said, Abraham, Abraham!
and he said, here am I. And he said, Stretch not out thy hand against the lad, neither do anything to him; for now I know” — as if He did not know before, but He did know before. He is now bringing out what He knew was there, and that is His work in His child, as we might say, in Abraham — “for now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me”. We had already today what Paul was to God, to Christ: an elect vessel to Him. “And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt-offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh; as it is said at the present day, On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”, Genesis 22:14.
Now, as I have already intimated, Abraham is here clearly brought into evidence as a subject of the work of God and God says, That is all I want now, and I challenge my own heart as to what God finds in me now. He says, I have more to say; I have more to work out in you, but I want to say something now, and that is the first intervention of God in the passage. There is no oath there. It is not the time for the oath yet. Abraham did not really need it yet. Abraham would be assured from the voice of the Angel that he was a subject of God’s work and that God was pleased with him. God has just said to him, “now I know”. That is, He knew as the word says, “now I know that thou fearest God”. Let every one of us challenge his heart. Do we fear God? God says to Abraham, I know it now. Well, you say, He knew it before. Surely He did. He knows everything but He would bring this out and have Abraham to understand that He fully understood what the action of Abraham really meant, that he was an obedient man, that he did what he was told to do. As I said, we are challenged, every one of us, by this word.
[p. 350] God is saying, when you are obedient I will tell you, and when you are not obedient I will tell you. God is not going to keep us in a state of disobedience without telling us, nor is He going to leave us in a state of obedience without telling us. He would say to us, I have pleasure in you in that you are obedient. So it is with children, young people. There is the first commandment with promise, and that is to be obedient. God tells you He has pleasure in you as obedient to your parents. He has pleasure in you. You may say, well, there is obedience to God; yes, but obedience to parents, too; they are representative of God and obedience to parents is really in a sense more valuable in the eyes of God than professed obedience to God. He has set up parents for a purpose. The relation of parents is divinely set in order to bring out what the work of God is in the child. It is a remarkable time. The things that have happened just now are most remarkable and I am certain the children are in mind, the generation coming. What are they learning? What are they learning from their parents? Their parents are greatly distressed in the things that have happened abroad among the nations. Every right-minded parent is distressed about these things and he is thinking of his children; how the conditions are affecting his children; and so God speaks of obedience as a commandment with promise. God makes a promise in regard to obedience to parents. “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee”, Exodus 20:12. Not to join the war, nor the army or the navy or the air force. No. I am not saying a word as to what the governments are doing; far otherwise; but I am saying something to children who have parents who are Christians, that the promise that God makes to you is in regard to the land which the Lord God has given you to enjoy. But how to [p. 351] enjoy? To enjoy in faithfulness to Him, in obedience to Christ and obedience to parents and to the brethren. It is a question of faith and obedience. The “obedience of faith to all the nations”, Romans 16:26. That is what God is aiming at. It is a great moment especially for parents; to join in in this matter with God. God would say to us that He knows; He knows what the parents are going through. “Now I know”, He says to Abraham. Not that He did not know before, but He wants Abraham to know that He has just come to see that Abraham is a godly man; that he fears God. It is one of the greatest things to get into your soul that God knows. Just now He has come to see and He knows you are godly and fear Him; He comes out of heaven to tell you. There is no oath attached to that. The second time refers to something else. It is an oath, as if God were to say, Abraham has much more. Not indeed that God did not know, but God speaks as man sometimes. “I speak as a man”, Paul says, and so does God sometimes speak as a man. So the second time it is an oath, and it is as if God were to say to parents here and children, too, that He has come to see something in you, in all of us, more than He thought was there. You say, Well, I should be thankful that I came here today if I just thought that was so, that God has found out something in me that He never saw in me before; not that God would speak just that way, but I am paraphrasing what is said in this chapter. Surely we all want to have the sense that at an occasion like this God is among us and that God is saying something; that God is assuring us that He has some little encouragement, using that word with some reserve, in the fact that we are here and enjoying the truth and in some little way laying ourselves out to go in for it. For the Spirit is here to show us all the truth. He shall guide you into all the truth, the Lord Jesus says, John 16:13.
[p. 352] And now, if it is evident today that there is progress, heaven is moving. Heaven indeed moved here. God moved first to tell Abraham that He knew now that Abraham feared Him; but the second movement is to tell him more than that. It is to swear to him. Understand what I am saying. I am speaking from Scripture. The word ‘swear’ is used. What is it used for? He intervened by an oath. That is the word, that the immutability of His counsel should be understood by His people. That is what it says here as I have just read to you. “Wherein God, willing”, notice that, showing the disposition of His mind, “willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, intervened by an oath”. He has come in, as it were, a second time in the scene. The first time He is so pleased with Abraham that He tells him, I have just found out that you are a godly man; that you fear Me; not that He did not know before. That is the first visit in the chapter. It is to assure Abraham’s heart. The second visit is what I have already alluded to. It is to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose. Hence, it is not simply that He says something, but He swears it. Let us understand the idea of an oath.
Well now, this second intervention refers to more than the first, as I have already said. I will read it in Genesis 22:15, “And the Angel of Jehovah called to Abraham from the heavens a second time, and said. By myself I swear, saith Jehovah”. Now that word ‘saith’ is peculiar; it has a peculiar force. It is said to be a Hebrew word introducing an oracular discourse. It is not used in the first visit; it is the second visit. God is, as it were, clothing this second visit with great things so as to assure us of what is before us and what He is saying. And so the note reads, as I said, ‘The Hebrew word introduces an oracular discourse and is an affirmation’. That is to [p. 353] say, this matter of the oath is a permanent thing and God would show this to the heirs of the promise, notice, the heirs of the promise, not simply the believers; not simply everybody in this hall, but the heirs of the promise. We are all before God in this; it is an affirmation and He is swearing about it. What He is saying is for you and it is for you to go in for it, to lay hold of it, to enjoy it.
Well now, I want to bring out another thing further in this passage from verse 15 down. It reads thus, “By myself I swear, saith Jehovah, that, because thou hast done this, and hast not withheld thy son”. It is not now that he has slain his son, but he has not withheld him. He is ready to give him up. God is saying this as if He a second time stopped him in the procedure, and He would say, I want to say something more to Abraham. I have not said enough to Abraham; I want to confirm all I have said to him and to enlarge it that it may be in his soul for ever; that he may be to Me what he has never been to Me before. That is the principle, and hence the oath.
Well now, another thing that comes to my mind is this second intervention of God and what attached to it is accompanied by an incident that gives character to the whole passage. I am not referring now to the fact that Rebecca is mentioned in the chapter which is of great importance, too. Rebecca is mentioned, meaning the assembly is in the mind of God. The whole scene is being clarified; and, of course, as I said before, Abraham is to be made acquainted with all this, to be assured of it; to know that he is the subject of it; that he is to be a great saint. And so as I said, Rebecca is mentioned as begotten, because it is a question of the assembly, and Isaac — Christ and the assembly. As Paul says with great emphasis, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”, Ephesians 5:32. This is the great eternal [p. 354] thought, and Paul was full of it, as we had it today. “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”. Well, that is what happens. The assembly in type comes into view in this wonderful chapter, but what is more important is that the incident I allude to refers to Isaac as not coming down from the mount, as if Jehovah were to say, Isaac and Abraham went up to the mount, but Isaac is not said to have come back from the mount. Surely that is a further bit of information in this setting. Someone has gone up; as Moses went up on the mount in the wilderness. Jehovah said, You come up and be with me on the mount. The others, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders of Israel were to go up, but not to the mount. They are not said to have come to the mount. Perhaps you do not understand what I am speaking of, but I will speak of it for a moment further. Moses went up. Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel went up and stayed at a certain point, but Moses went up alone. Of course, they must have gone up to the mount, but the words of Scripture are to be noted at all times, and it is not said that Aaron, Nadab and Abihu went up to the mount. They went up; that is all; but Moses went up to the mount and remained there forty days and forty nights; a most extraordinary thing. And so here, Abraham returned to his young men from the place where the altar was built, but not a word about Isaac. He does not come down. You say, Well, he must have come down because he is seen down later. Very good. But it does not say here that he went down. Abraham went down and his young men. What about Isaac? He is raised up in a figure, Scripture says; he is received back from the dead in a figure. These are the things that confirm our souls.
Well now, the time is pretty near gone. If you will pardon me for referring to it in this way, but I [p. 355] want to get this great thought that is set out in this passage: the second coming of Jehovah out of heaven and announcing things with an oath and accompanying that, that Isaac did not go down from the mount. Abraham went down with his young men but not Isaac. Rebecca is seen as coming in later in the chapter, and I want you all to come into this great scene, dear brethren, in your souls. And that is what is meant in Abraham being introduced in this chapter, Hebrews 6. As I said, Isaac did not come down. The whole scene is set for the soul. Abraham is illuminated and Isaac has gone through the experience of death to some extent at least, in a figure, but he has gone up to heaven. I mean, that is the understanding of the mind, the spiritual mind. Why has Isaac not come down? He has not come down. The Lord Jesus is seen going up into heaven in the first chapter of Acts. He is seen going up into heaven. They saw him go up, but they did not see him come down. He is coming down. “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven”, Acts 1:11. He is coming back. “Behold, I come quickly”, Revelation 22:7. That is the promise. That is one of the leading promises in the book of Revelation. And so it is, dear brethren, that the word here in Hebrews 6 has its counterpart in the fact that Isaac did not come down; figuratively he has gone up. Our Isaac has gone up to stay until the time of the restitution of all things. The ‘all things’ have been spoken of by the prophets; saints have studied prophecies ever since, more or less, especially lately. They have all been spoken of, but the Lord Jesus is going to fulfil all these prophecies by coming back. He has gone up and we are left here. Rebecca is here. We are here to hold the ground as believers; not only so many individuals, but collectively. It is a collective thought. Rebecca is the assembly. We [p. 356] are here, however few we may be, we are here to hold the ground, to hold the ground in faith. The second visit out of heaven is to assure us, and so here, as I said before, in verse 17 it says, “Wherein God, willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, intervened by an oath, that by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we might have a strong encouragement who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us, which we have as anchor of the soul”. Now, dear brethren, that is the point; an anchor of the soul. Jesus has gone in; Melchisedec has gone in; our Forerunner has entered, has gone in, and we have the hope instead. It is a real matter, and I would challenge our hearts as to hope. Hope makes not ashamed, we are told, for the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Romans 5:5. Hope is the principle mark of Christianity. There is faith, of course; there is love, of course; but hope. We have often noticed that in the epistle to the Thessalonians, in the second letter the apostle does not say anything about hope. He does in the first, showing there is a measure of decline. May it not be so. These meetings are to strengthen our hearts in the hope of the coming of the Lord; Jesus Christ our Hope. “Behold, I come quickly”. The midnight cry has gone out. “Behold, the bridegroom; go forth to meet him”, Matthew 25:6. That is the idea. Hope is in our hearts. The Old Testament passage that I have enlarged on implies that Isaac has gone up. He has gone up. The assembly in the end of the chapter is here. She is seen to be begotten in relation to Abraham. She is one of his relatives and the ground now is to be held by the saints, and it is to be held in hope. There is already hope in our hearts and these meetings inspire our hearts in the reality of the truth that is administered us; real facts we are dealing with. The [p. 357] Lord Jesus is really to come; His coming is imminent. The Lord may come at any moment. There is nothing at all to stay it as far as I can see. “Behold, I come quickly”.
Well, there is much more that could be said, but I just close with that, so that the dear brethren may have hope in their hearts, and that the matter of promise so full and so blessed and so varied may stay our hearts whatever else may happen; whatever losses may be sustained, whatever discouragements, whatever disappointments. And there are many. Our hearts are sustained by the fact that our Jesus, our Isaac has gone up and the Holy Spirit is here. This leads me to other things. The idea of promise in Ephesians is the promise of the Spirit. There was a promise at the beginning of Christianity but it is not simply that now. It is a reality now: the Holy Spirit of promise. It is a reality that is here and our hearts are sustained in hope. Hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us, so that we are sustained in hope, dear brethren, and in that, to enter within the veil. If we do not enter within the veil we are really challenged; we are exposing ourselves to be challenged as to the reality of our Christianity, because the point in this passage is that the hope at the end of the chapter is an anchor to the soul. It is not a matter of doctrine. It is a real matter. The Holy Spirit is inspiring it in our hearts, so that we should enter within the veil. It enters within the veil. In Acts 1 they saw Him go up. A cloud received Him out of their sight, but what was the position down here? Melchisedec has gone up; He has gone up, and having gone up there is hope. Is it not a real thing that we have a Man up there, a High Priest up there entering into that within the veil, so that we should enter in? He has gone in and it is our privilege to enter in. It is our [p. 358] part to learn it in our assembly services to enter in within the veil where Christ our Forerunner has entered, High Priest after the order of Melchisedec.
These are the facts of our position and they should inspire hope in our hearts, the expectation of the coming out of that glorious Person and the true Rebecca joining Him, caught up with Him in the air, so as to be forever with the Lord.