About this sermon
People swear by something greater than themselves, but God, having no one greater, swore by himself to show the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose. By two unchangeable things, his promise and his oath, in which it is impossible for God to lie, those who have fled to him for refuge have strong encouragement to hold fast to their hope. That hope is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. It enters behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone ahead as forerunner and high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Sermon transcript
Tonight we’ll be considering a passage from Hebrews chapter 6. We’re looking at Hebrews chapter 6 verses 13 through 20 this evening. So give your attention to God’s Word. 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. Amen. You may be seated. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we would ask that you would send your spirit just as you inspired this holy word and preserved it to its current state that we have now. We ask that you would also give your spirit to us that we might understand, hear, apply, cherish, and believe what you have spoken here. We ask that your words might be true even though all men be liars. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well, I was hoping for the weather to cooperate today, but imagine standing on the deck of a ship caught in a fierce storm like we had this afternoon.
The wind howls, the waves crash, and the vessel is tossed about mercilessly. In that moment, what keeps the ship from being swept away? An anchor, strong, steady, and unmoving. And now consider your own life. There are times when we face storms of our own, trials, uncertainties, challenges, threatened to overwhelm us, and in those moments, what anchors us? What gives us hope and stability when everything else seems to be falling apart? This evening, we’re looking at a passage that speaks directly to this question. Here, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that our hope in God is like an anchor for our souls, firm and secure. This hope is not wishful thinking or a fleeting emotion. It’s grounded in the unchanging character of God and his unbreakable promises. Just as an anchor holds a ship steady in the midst of a storm, so does our hope in Christ keep us steady in the midst of life’s trials.
So this evening, let’s explore together how God’s promise, his oath, and the work of Christ as our forerunner give us a hope that is unshakable no matter what storms we face. We saw last time how hope is required for living an earnest, diligent, intentional, and patient life in the everyday. But the focus was more on the day-to-day earnestness, the patience required to obtain God’s promises. The passage this week is directing our eyes to take a good look at that hope. It’s not enough to say that we should be hoping. We need confidence that this hope is unshakable, and the only way to do that is to spend some time really looking at it. And this is precisely what the author of Hebrews wants his readers to do right here in this passage. As he says in verse 16, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
He wants to give us every reason to hold on to that hope. So we’ll break up our time this evening into three considerations. One, God’s unchanging promise. We see this in verses 13 through 15. And second, God’s unbreakable oath, verses 16 and 18. And three are unshakable hope, verses 19 through 20. First, God’s unchanging promise. Look at verses 13 through 15. The passage opens with God making a promise to Abraham. And we glance down at verse 17 and 18, we find the word unchangeable repeated in reference to God’s promise and purpose. God’s promise is unchanging. The author of Hebrews is referencing a promise that God made to Abraham just after he had tried to offer up his son Isaac on the altar. As we read earlier in Genesis 22, God stopped Abraham and then gave him a ram to offer instead.
God then takes the opportunity to redouble his promise to Abraham of blessing and multiplication. Now there’s something interesting about the wording of this promise that doesn’t necessarily come out very well in the translation. Almost all English translations use the word surely to try to communicate what’s being said. And they have a good reason for doing that. But I’ve always found the literal rendering more powerful. The more awkward literal rendering would be blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you. This comes from the way that the Hebrew emphasizes a command, a threat, or a promise. They do this by doubling the verb. In Genesis 2, 17, when God told Adam and Eve if they ate the forbidden fruit they would surely die. The Hebrew literally reads dying you will die. We simply don’t have an equivalent in English.
That’s why we use the word surely. And it is a good approximation. But I feel like surely emphasizes the whole phrase while the literal Hebrew focuses on that one verb. In God’s promise to Abraham he doubles both verbs. And this is transferred over from the quote from Hebrew into the Greek as well. So in our passage we have, if you were to read it in Greek, the odd construction of God promising to Abraham literally blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you. God’s emphasizing that his promise to Abraham is certain. But we also see God’s unchanging promise highlighted by the fact that Abraham doesn’t do anything to receive it. Abraham’s task, his contribution, his means of obtaining God’s promise is to patiently wait. This is something you do when the outcome is uncertain, unchanging.
What do you have to do to get older? Yep, wait. We were just talking about this this afternoon. And so having patiently waited you got older. We looked last time how this patient waiting can be hard just as it was for Abraham and it often is for us. But we can see how this highlights the unchanging character of God’s promise. If God’s promise was always changing, always contingent on something in the recipients, our passage might read something like this. And Abraham, after working hard, obeying God perfectly, showing that he was dedicated or worthy, or convincing God to keep his promise, finally obtained the promise. Instead Abraham, after patiently waiting, obtained the promise. Abraham’s task was to wait on God to do what he had said. Of course we know Abraham’s story and he didn’t always do this perfectly.
He tried to help God out by fathering Ishmael with Hagar, Sarah’s servant. But God reiterated to him that he didn’t need Abraham to help him out. He needed Abraham to trust him. After Isaac was born and Abraham went to sacrifice him on Mount Moriah out of obedience to God, Abraham was finally ready to wait on God. Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham was willing to wait for God to raise Isaac from the dead if it came to that point. It was then that God provided a substitute and once again Abraham waited on God’s provision. Waiting on God didn’t mean that Abraham became inactive. It meant that his life disposition was oriented differently. Instead of wondering whether God was going to fulfill his promise and acting in such a way as to help him out, just in case, Abraham became someone who believed that God’s promises were certain.
He stopped trying to provide a contingency plan for God’s promises or to advance them at his own pace. Instead he acted in light of his confidence that God’s promises were certain to come to pass. He stopped second-guessing God when he knew that the promises were certain. How about you? I still remember a time in college when I was on a break. I was talking in the car with some of my siblings, expressing my frustration with the lack of missional focus, zeal, and involvement in missions from the larger church in general. This wasn’t the first time I had brought this up and it was becoming a bit of an obsession for me. My sister, who’s six years younger than me, turned to me that night and said, I think God wants you to listen to Psalm 46 10 right now.
I said, okay. She read it to me. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. She said something like, I think you need to take some time to learn what this means. And I thought about it a lot that night and for the next several weeks. Most of the time people just quote the first part of that verse. Be still and know that I am God. It’s a good phrase to remember. But for me I needed to see the connection between the second part of the verse as well. I was getting all agitated thinking it was up to me to exalt God’s name in the earth. It’s not a bad thing to be zealous for God’s glory. There’s nothing better to have as your priority in fact.
But Psalm 46 10 says exalting God’s name is God’s job. He’s not worried. It’s a certain and definite reality that he’s going to ensure takes place. I had to learn to stop acting as though God’s promise is coming true depended on me. My role was to be still and know that God is God. That first night I read it. I felt like God had slapped me in the face. But afterwards I felt more peace than I had felt in a long time. I hadn’t even realized how stressed I had become over something I had no control over. The irony was that it was such a good thing to desire. But my sinful heart had figured out a way to turn even that good desire into sinful self-reliance. God’s promises are unchangeable. They’re as good as done.
When God promises something we can consider it done. But our passage reminds us God’s kindness goes above and beyond to assure us of this. So consider secondly God’s unbreakable oath in verses 16 through 18. We see verses 16 and 17, 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. God’s motivation in giving this oath is to give overwhelming confirmation of his unchanging intentions. But this section starts in verse 13 stating who God leverages in this oath, whom he swears by. For when God made a promise to Abraham, verse 13, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.
And we have to turn back to Genesis 22 verse 16 that we read earlier in the service to see precisely what Hebrews is talking about, why he has this question. Here we find the quote, verse 16 of Genesis 22, by myself I have sworn declares the Lord. And then he goes on to say the promise. So the author of Hebrews in our passage is asking the question, what does this mean? Why would God do this? We still practice the swearing of oaths in our culture. When you go into a courtroom especially, if you are being called to testify as a witness, they will ask you if you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And while I’m not sure if it’s practiced commonly today, the question used to conclude with, so help you God.
Humans have long understood that they are fickle, fallible creatures capable of dishonesty and deceit. So in an effort to combat this, we make appeals to higher authority to confirm our integrity. Swearing by Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel was a mark of a faithful Israelite in the Old Testament. The alternative was to swear by a pagan God, indicating that you held this pagan God in higher esteem than Yahweh. But by swearing by Yahweh, a faithful Israelite upheld the worth and the value of God himself. Now out of their fear of speaking God’s name in vain, the Jews began avoiding speaking God’s name at all. But in the New Testament time, when Jesus comes on the scene, things were really getting out of hand with this sort of thing. If we look in Matthew 23, Matthew 23 verses 16 through 22, we see Jesus condemn the Pharisees for the elaborate rules which had allowed them to make deceptive oaths.
If you would like, you can turn over to Matthew 23, 16 to 22 to see this for yourself. Jesus says, the temple that has made the gold sacred. And you say, if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath. You blind men, for which is greater, the gift or the altar which makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and on everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits on it. In their effort to provide loopholes for deception and avoid directly referencing or blaspheming Yahweh, they had gotten things laughably backwards.
Jesus points out that their hierarchy of oaths makes no sense. It was the less holy or less important items which supposedly held greater binding power. It’s in response to this kind of abuse that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 33 through 37, utters his famous prohibition against oaths in general. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Now it’s a mistake to see Jesus command here as a blanket prohibition against swearing oaths in court or making wedding vows. Jesus wasn’t forbidding the confirming of your word. He was condemning the Jewish deceptive practice, equivalent to secretly crossing your hands, hiding them behind your back to annul whatever you just said. I didn’t swear by that gift on the altar, so I’m okay. Oaths were intended to confirm the honesty and validity of a statement, not become a secret code to mean the opposite of what was said.
This is why Jesus calls the Pharisees out. But when God says something, he means what he says. When God says yes, he means yes. The text says God’s only option for swearing is to swear by himself. Anything else would be a downgrade. He must appeal to an equal or higher authority. If he were to swear by anyone else, it would be like a parent confirming the truth of his statement by just ask my two-year-old. Not very confirming. Remember, there’s no one greater than God. No one more powerful than God. No one who can hold him to account. No one who can ask him to turn over his records, audit his actions, review his intentions. There’s no external checks or balances on God. He has complete and total authority. He cannot be questioned or intimidated or put on trial.
We sometimes say he’s inscrutable. He cannot be put under any scrutiny or a higher authority. He is the Supreme Court, the supreme executive, and the supreme lawgiver. He cannot be worn out or tired. He’s always infinitely energetic and infinitely at peace. He’s never placed in a bind or backed into a corner. He never has to settle for second or third best options. His plans are never thwarted, diverted, or derailed. He is at perfect liberty to execute all of his intentions with perfect judgment and wisdom, and no outcome can surprise him or make him question his means or method. When God swears by himself, it highlights the fact that God is utterly without equal, much less a superior. He stands alone as the very definition of truth, righteousness, and holiness. But the focus of our text in Hebrews 6 is that God’s act of swearing by himself is an act of inexplicable condescension and kindness.
God’s motivation was to cement our trust in his unbreakable commitment to bring about what he has promised. If we look at verse 17 again, 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. Notice how it describes the recipients, heirs of the promise. An heir is someone who has an inheritance. He has possessions, titles, and or rights that are his for sure in the future, and yet God desired to show to overwhelm them with assurance. The phrase show more convincingly speaks of presenting evidence of proving your case. The God with no equal wants you to believe him when he tells you he’s got your sins taken care of. He’s got a place in heaven for you right beside him, and he’s working all things for your good.
And I love in verse 18 the description of believers whom he just called heirs of the promise in 17. We who have fled for refuge. I often feel like this as a Christian. Christians are those who have fled to God for refuge. As Proverbs 18 10 says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runs to it and is safe. Christians are not those who are intellectually superior to others. They’re not even those who always have an obviously morally superior life. They are those who have seen the danger and fled for refuge. As children we find refuge in mommy or daddy when things are difficult or scary. Christians are those who have fled to God for refuge. Life is difficult. We constantly face things that are beyond our ability to control or handle.
We don’t grow out of our need for refuge. We just face different threats and fears. Being left at the grocery store stops being scary after a while, but then facing the loss of a job or a parent or a child or a grandchild or cancer or strife with our spouse or siblings or parents or children. Our lives are filled with uncertainty. This whole world is seeking certainty. Everyone is looking for someone, something that they can take refuge in. Some turn to a spouse, to their kids, to a job, to friends, to money, to a vacation, to a house away from it all. Even trying to take refuge in our own health. In the end it will let you down. Christians are those who maybe they’ve tried everything else or maybe they’ve just tried God and realized nothing else comes close.
You were made to take refuge in your Creator. God’s covenant promise is this, I will be your God and you will be my people. That’s where true refuge can be found in God’s unbreakable oath. We flee to God for safety in all kinds of ways, but of course the most ultimate need for safety is from sin, its power and presence and its deserved punishment. And this brings us to verse 19 and 20 in our third point. Number three, our unshakable hope. Look at verses 19 and 20 again. 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 is gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The author shifts to some pretty vivid imagery, which is rather unique.
God’s assurances of his promise are pictured as an anchor, which instead of sinking down to the bottom of the ocean, sails up into the heavens. Now I’m guessing most of you are familiar with the idea of an anchor in general. It’s traditionally a large piece of metal. It’s extremely heavy and hooked in several directions. It was carried on ships, of course, to keep them from floating away from a position. They would attach very long chains or ropes to the anchor, drop them down into the sea. If it was a big ship, they didn’t use just one. They would use several anchors to secure the ship and keep it from moving. In our passage, it’s called an anchor of the soul. Of course, the soul is just the Bible’s general description of our spiritual selves. It’s hard to nail it down much more than that, since it simply, sometimes it says we are a soul and sometimes it says we have a soul.
The point is, instead of giving security and steadiness to a ship, the anchor in our passage is one that does this for our souls. There’s so much uncertainty in life, so many sources of confusion. It’s easy to doubt and question even things that we thought we knew. We need something solid, something that we can really grasp onto, that won’t shift or slip through our fingers. So the author reminds us, we have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Now the most important thing about an anchor is what it’s attached to. The picture we have in Hebrews is not an anchor that hooks onto the seabed, but it goes into the inner place behind the curtain. Here’s where the imagery might become less familiar to us in the 21st century. The inner place behind the curtain is a reference to the place sometimes called in Exodus the Holy of Holies.
It was the innermost room within the tabernacle that Moses built according to God’s directions. This is where the Ark of the Covenant was kept and no one was allowed to go in there upon pain of death, except for the High Priest and only once a year. This was the place of God’s most intense presence. Once a year on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood on the Ark of the Covenant. Since no one was allowed to ever go into the Holy of Holies upon pain of death, it became a Jewish practice to tie a rope around the leg of the High Priest when he went into the Holy of Holies. This way if something went wrong and the High Priest died while he was in there, he could be safely pulled back out to be buried.
Our passage seems to have this in view in verse 19 and 20, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. The Jewish High Priests were the hope of the people because not only could they take care of people’s sin, because only they could take care of people’s sin problem and take away God’s wrath towards the people. The day known as Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement was the day in which the High Priest would enter God’s very presence to make propitiation for sins. He brought blood to turn away God’s wrath from the people for their sin and he sprinkled it on the mercy seat. Hebrews 6 is picturing our anchor sailing right into the very presence of God to be anchored on the mercy seat itself.
As sinners we exist separated from God’s life-giving presence and deserving of his wrath and punishment for what we have done. Just like the Jews in the Old Testament, we cannot make atonement for sin for ourselves. We require a mediator, someone to approach God on our behalf and offer a sacrifice sufficient to appease God’s wrath so that we might have fellowship with him instead of eternal banishment. This mediator is our only hope. So our passage describes that hope as entering into God’s holy presence to make atonement for sins. This act of atonement is our anchor hooked directly onto the aptly named mercy seat. But there’s a little twist. For the Jews the rope was for them to be able to pull the priest back out from the Holy of Holies should the worst happen. But in this passage the picture shifts to Jesus and it calls him a forerunner.
Now this is another instance of the author of Hebrews using unique vocabulary. This Greek word doesn’t appear anywhere else in the New Testament, but the meaning is clear. Jesus, the embodiment of our hope, enters as high priest into the Holy of Holies. But instead of us waiting on him to come back out from God’s presence, he’s pulling us in. The reason for us to hold on to the anchor is not to keep Jesus safe or for us to be able to pull him back out. We hold on so that we get reeled in. Jesus is a totally unique high priest. When he entered God’s inner most intimate presence with his sacrifice for sin himself, he had no intention of coming back out. Matthew 27 51 says that when Jesus died on the cross the inner curtain of separation keeping the Holy of Holies separate was shredded.
Jesus’ death and resurrection purchased peace with God and made fellowship with God possible. 1st Peter 3 18 says, Christ also suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. Jesus didn’t die on the cross, drink the cup of God’s wrath for you against your sins just to give you a clean slate and send you on your way. He intends to bring you all the way right into the most intimate of all fellowship with God. There are some who want the benefits of salvation like freedom from guilt and shame and shame of sin without fellowship with God, but it doesn’t work that way. When you grab onto that anchor of hope that’s attached to Jesus you’re going to be reeled right into the intimate presence of God. Jesus is the forerunner.
He paved the way for us to be restored to what we were made for. The Apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 through 20 that the promises of God are embodied in Jesus. They find their yes in him. Listen as the Apostle Paul says, as surely as God is faithful our word to you has not been yes and no. For the Son of God Jesus Christ whom we proclaim to you Sylvainus and Timothy and I, it was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes. For the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. Jesus is the anchor of our souls because it is only through his work that we can have restored fellowship with God.
Only through Christ can we find refuge from the wrath of God for sin and its power in our lives. Fellowship with God is what Christianity is all about. Fellowship with God is what humans were made for. You weren’t designed to live at enmity with God and fellowship with God is the best and only real refuge that will anchor your soul, give you stability, purpose, and peace. Life in this world is so hard, but when you hold onto the anchor of your soul the waves don’t throw you off quite so much. There’s a lot of storms in store for each one of us, but when you’ve already found refuge from the ultimate storm of God’s judgment against sin nothing else feels quite so threatening. We’ve been given a soul anchor. No matter what happens it is well with your soul.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven we thank you for sending your Son Jesus Christ to make atonement for our sins, to give us a hope that you’ve set before us, that you’ve sworn, doubly confirmed your word, your promise to us, to give us a solid hope to hold on to now that we might be reeled into your very presence and have fellowship with God through our mediator and Savior Jesus Christ, the forerunner who’s gone into your presence before us. Lord, we ask that you would give us that hope as a present reality to hold on to throughout life’s storms. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Well in response, let’s turn in our hymnals to hymn 274. Hymn 274. Let’s stand as we sing Jesus my great high priest.
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