When God Swears to God. . .

I have a confession to make. I have never really liked evangelistic tracts. Contrary to the opinions of some close Christian friends, I do not believe that tracts are a very effective way of sharing the gospel with the unbelieving world. That being said, I am thankful that God has used gospel tracts in the lives of individuals He is calling to Himself. Many years ago, I came across what I consider to be the most interesting tract I’ve seen. The message on the front of the tract was striking. Its title was, “Four Things God Cannot Do!” If I remember correctly, these were the four things:

1. God cannot tolerate evil.
2. God cannot accept any solution except the saving work of His Son, Jesus.
3. God cannot reject anyone who comes in the name of Jesus.
4. God cannot take second place in your life.

I used to give this tract out on the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ where my wife and I did evangelistic ministry 20 some years ago. I loved watching the expressions people had as they looked at the tract. Some would turn to their friends and say, “See, I was right!” (apparently having previously told them that there was no such thing as an all-powerful God). Others would ask, “So, are you an anti-Christian group?” It added a shock-value purpose of capturing interest long enough for people to open the tract and read it. Though biblically-speaking, there is really only one thing God cannot do (i.e., He cannot go against His own divine nature), the writer of Hebrews expressly touches on the importance of believers understanding the unchangeability of God with regard to His covenant promises. In Hebrews 6:13-20, we read,  

“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.”

Having exhorting his readers to beware the danger of apostasy, the writer of Hebrews next encourages those who profess faith in Christ to trust the Covenant God who made a promise to Abraham and confirmed that promise with an oath. It is ultimately not the resolve of believers that establishes them; it is the sure and steadfast promises of God, and the accomplishment of those promises in Christ, that is the sure foundation of the believer’s hope and perseverance.

We have a continual need for the promises of God, as we see in from God’s dealings with Abraham throughout the Genesis narrative. God came to Abraham and gave him “exceedingly great and precious promises” (Gen. 12:1-3). He then reiterated and developed those promises, time and time again, as He carried Abraham along in faith (Gen. 13–21). John Owen put it so well when he wrote: 

“God redoubled the word at the first giving of His promise unto Abraham, for the strengthening of his faith.” God still does this today.

Again Owen noted: 

“We need everything that any way evidences the stability of God’s promises to us, for the encouragement of our faith.”

God not only reiterated His promises to Abraham, “He swore by Himself.” In the truest sense of that phrase, we can conclude that “God swore to God” in the Covenant of Grace. God swore by Himself that He would fulfill everything that He promised to Abraham. The Apostle Paul retrospectively looks back on the promises made to Abraham and says that all the promises of God are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20).

As if that was not enough, when God made a promise to Abraham––on the integrity and greatness of His own being––He entered into  a covenantal oath arrangement with him by means of an animal cutting ceremony (Genesis 15:7-21). In the Ancient Near East, two parties would enter into a covenant arrangement by taking a pair of animals, cutting them apart and then walking through the middle of the pieces. In this way, the parties in the covenant were saying, “If I break this covenant, may God do so to me as was done to these animals” (Jer. 34:18). In the case of God’s promises to Abraham, it was not Abraham and God who walked between the cut animals. Rather, it was God, and God alone, who walked through the pieces. God was signifying that He represent both paries in the covenant (Gen. 15:17-18).

When He gave Abraham the covenant sign, the Lord charged him to “walk before Me and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). On several occasions we are told that Abraham did not walk before God blameless. On two occasions, Abraham gave his wife into the hands of kings whom he feared. Instead of waiting on God to fulfill His promise, Abraham took it into his own hands by going into Hagar to get an heir. Like Abraham, we too have broken the the covenant by failing to keep the legal demands (i.e., perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience). Accordingly, we deserve the covenant curses. This is signified in the cutting of the animals in Genesis 15:17–18). Circumcision, the sign of the covenant, represented that God would “cut off” all those who break His covenant. So also, the cutting of the animals indicates the just punishment for covenant unfaithfulness. God represented both Abraham (and the elect) when He passed through the cut pieces. In this way, God was indicating that He would take the curses on Himself. That is precisely what we discover at the cross.

On the night when He was betrayed our Lord Jesus took bread and broke it. This symbolic act indicated what would happen to Christ when he hung on the cross. He would be cut off from the blessed presence of God for the disobedience and covenant breaking of his people. Jesus was “cut off from the land of the living”––as Isaiah foretold (Is. 53:8). He was “wounded for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities” (Is. 53:5). When the Paul says of Abraham, ”No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God” (Rom. 4:20), we are to understand that the blood of Jesus covered even our times of unbelief with regard to the promises of God.

The promise–making God is Himself the promise–keeping God in Christ. He does not and cannot change (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 6:18). In this, we who do change, are kept. I love the words of Horatius Bonar’s hymn, “I Hear the Words of Love.” He writes,

“I change; He changes not,

The Christ can never die;

His love, not mine, the resting place,

His truth not mine, the tie.”

The confidence we ought to have in the unchangeable promise of God is unbounded because of the unchangeable promise of the unchangeable God Himself. It is limited only by the infinitude of God Himself.  Owen again reflected on the significance of this when he wrote:

“Where the promise of God is absolutely engaged, it will break through all difficulties and oppositions unto a perfect accomplishment.”

We ought to be able to face any trial, and any difficulty without wavering. This is what the Scriptures said was true of Abraham. “No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Rom. 4:20-21).

The believer, like Abraham, must take the promises of God up while facing the challenges of life that often seem to run counted those promises. Abraham knew that God had promised to bless the nations in Isaac (as the type Christ), but then God told to sacrifice the son of promise. The writer of Hebrews tells us that “Abraham reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead” (Heb. 11:19). Sanctified reasoning in light of God’s promises is vital to Christian perseverance in the faith. God brings difficult trails into our lives so that we learn to live by faith in the promises.

Sinclair Ferguson adds a practical element to how this works out in our lives, when he says,

“We’re all patient when we have no frustrations; but the very essence of patience is that we’re able to cope with, bear the burden of and see through frustrations. And here’s one of the great paradoxes of God’s ways with us. God is determined to be frustrating to you; because unless He is frustrating to you, at the end of the day, you’ll begin to confuse your will for your life with God’s will for you life.” 

Abraham held onto the promises even when they seemed contrary to the further commands and providences of God. We too will persevere by faith in those promises.

Since all the covenant promises of God have all been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the writer of Hebrews rightly calls Him, “the Anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:19). If our souls are anchored with the one who fulfilled the demands of the law and took the punishment for our sins in order to fulfill the promises of the Covenant of Grace, nothing can shake that foundation. What would it take for those in saving union with Christ to fall away? Thomas Peck explained:

“When Christ can be degraded from His position at the right hand of the Majesty on high, when He can be made to abdicate His supremacy over principalities and powers, and might and dominion, and to become again a wanderer among sinful men, the object of their reproach, and finally the victim of their malignity; when the Father can forget His acceptance of the work of His own Son, an acceptance so solemnly proclaimed in raising him from the dead and giving him glory; then, and not before then, can one who has been united to Christ become subject to the penalty of the law, and expiate that penalty in the everlasting pains of hell.”

May we be strengthened to hold fast to the promises of God by trusting fully in the unchangeable God of promise. If He has promised, has bound Himself to that promise by covenant oath, and has fulfilled those promises in Christ, then we have every reason to believe that He will bring those promises to fruition throughout our lives and for eternity. 

*This post is an adaptation of a post that originally appeared on Feeding on Christ on April 26, 2013.