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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Hebrews 6:14
Comments
The promise is quoted in verse 14 from Genesis 22:17: ‘That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thee.’ He lived to see his grandchildren, but the rest of the promise was not fulfilled until Christ actually came, nevertheless Abraham saw that future day in the distance and every step of his life had eternity in view.God’s promise was expressed in very liberal terms – ‘blessing I will bless … multiplying I will multiply’ – so that Abraham should be in no doubt about the greatness of what God was giving him. The words are repeated because God wants Abraham to hold him closely to what he has said and give himself no let out. What does a promise do? God might have just given Abraham some of these blessings without promising them. It is true that the coming of Christ was far off in the future, but the birth of Isaac was something that he would live to see with his own eyes. By making it the subject of a promise however, God created an opportunity for Abraham to exercise trust, for the promise preceded the fulfilment and was all that Abraham had for a while. He therefore lived off the promise before its fulfilment, and the promise brought him closer to the Lord because of this. We must remember that this promise was an expression of the gracious covenant God made with Abraham, as Paul tells us in Galatians where he treats the promise and the covenant as one and the same (Galatians 3:14-17). That covenant was made with Abraham but also with us who believe, who are the seed of Abraham regardless of whether we are physically descended from him or not. Abraham was promised that a nation would come from him who were his physical descendants, the nation of Israel, but he was also promised that a singular seed would be descended from him, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom elect believers from all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Abraham was blessed with material wealth, but far more with spiritual riches which endure forever. He was multiplied in his physical descendants, but much more in his spiritual descendants who include the elect from every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people
Application
We have every possible encouragement from God to believe his promise. What does a promise enable us to do? It enables us to set the truthfulness, faithfulness, and power of God against every contrary thing, so that when men come to us and say, that will never happen, we can answer, ‘I would forever trust God rather than you, for not one of his promises has failed, and though you know some things, God knows everything, and he says that this will come to pass.’ By this assurance we drive out from our hearts the lies of the devil and the contradictions of men, and we strengthen our hearts to overcome the world.
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