Hebrews 6:13 Commentary and Bible Study

Now we look at the case of Abraham. ‘For when God made promise to Abraham’ – that’s the first great promise in Genesis 12 for land and inheritance. The argument which the writer brings us here is based on this: that the stronger our assurance of the truth of a promise, the more inclined we will be to believe it, and the more diligent we will be to act upon it. A promise of God is a handle on God’s character which we are invited to take hold of. Obviously a false promise is a dangerous thing because we will rely on it and it will let us down, but a promise of God is a wonderful gift by which God extends to us some hidden intention which we could not otherwise know. God’s promises are never about trivial things, but about the deepest matters of life and eternity. What makes the promise so reliable is the one who uttered it, because the promise has put his truthfulness on the line, and the keeping of it is necessary to vindicate his character. There is nothing more important to him than his own name.When Abraham was 75 years of age and still childless, he received the promise of an heir and that God would make a great nation from him. This was to be not only an immediate heir, born into his household, but also an ultimate heir descended from him: that promised seed, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. He had the promise, but Isaac was not born until Abraham was 100; he waited 25 years for the promise to be fulfilled. The birth of Isaac was the first stage of the promise only, and then he waited many more years for the second stage of the promise: for his grandchildren. When Isaac had grown up – we don’t know quite how old he was, somewhere around 16 to 19 – Abraham was called by God to offer him up as a sacrifice. Now Abraham would never have done such a thing if God had not spoken to him in some very unmistakable way, because such a thing would have been abhorrent to him as a father and contrary to all that he understood of the will of God. Nevertheless God spoke to him in such a powerful way that he knew it was God, and with grief in his heart and great reluctance he obeyed. We are told in this very epistle that the only thing that enabled him to obey God in this seemingly dreadful command, was the firm belief that God had promised that through Isaac would come the promised seed, the Saviour of the world. The one through whom all nations would be blessed, would be his physical descendant, and so his taking the life of his only son would not be the end of matter. Abraham’s belief and conviction was so strong that he concluded that God must be about to raise Isaac up again, and of course God stayed his hand and Isaac never perished. The promise was accordingly made to Abraham. But here we are told what form the promise took – it was a very special and unusual promise. It was as if, due to the difficulty of the matter, God wanted to help Abraham believe such a great promise and therefore added extra assurances. It was essential that Abraham was fully convinced of the truth of what God said and God therefore added an oath to the promise. But God doesn't need to make an oath. He is God. Why did God stoop to behaving like a human being, and make an oath to assure us that he meant what he said, and that he would absolutely keep his promise, and this was entirely solemn true, and infallible? And when he made an oath, why did he make the highest possible oath, and swear by himself? The promise is quoted in the next verse, but without including the oath. To read that, we have to go back to Genesis 22:16 where Moses writes, ‘By Myself I have sworn, saith the LORD’. This oath takes a peculiar form, for it is normal when men take an oath that they appeal to the integrity of some authority greater than themselves which acts as a witness that they speak the truth. But that was not possible for God, because there is no authority higher than him or having more integrity than him to which he could appeal, so he swore by himself. This means that his own perfect integrity was doubly invoked, as the passage will go on to explain – he made a promise, and he added an oath.