Hebrews 6:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Hebrews 6:15

Comments

From the announcement of the promise to the first tangible fulfilment of it in the birth of Isaac was 25 years. During this time Abraham patiently waited, and the translation ‘patiently endured’ gives us the sense that this was indeed a trial to him. His faith had to continue to be exercised, and this is not easy when all he saw seemed to militate against the promise. Both he and Sarah had grown old, and they had both now reached the age where it was normally impossible for husband and wife to bear children. This, of course, was God’s plan for them, for the birth of Isaac was not to be a normal birth, but Isaac was to be very clearly a child given by God, a child of promise, so that he might be very clearly distinguished from Ishmael, the natural child.Did Abraham obtain the promise, if the ultimate fulfilment lay so far in the future with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes, he obtained it because the birth of Isaac was a token to him of that later complete fulfilment. God is pleased to often structure his prophecies and his promises in this way, so that we receive the first instalment as an earnest of the later full delivery. He reserves the best till last; he gives us the earnest in the realm of the short term, the physical, the material, but the type must be followed by the antitype which is what we should be focused on. Abraham said, ‘If God can give me an heir at 100 and grandchildren and prove himself to me in so many ways, I know, the promise of the ultimate heir, the promised seed the Saviour of the world, will surely come.’ That was the faith of Abraham. His assurance, conviction, certainty was based on looking forward.

Application

What about us? How much are we looking forward, or are we overwhelmed with present trials? What could happen this week, this month, and next month? ‘My head is full’, we may say, ‘of my present affairs and the shopping and the provision and the food, and what is going to happen to the children and where this one will go to school or that one will go to school, and where we shall live and how we can improve the home, or what will be the next vehicle and all this kind of thing.’ Well these things properly concern us; of course they do. But if they fill our horizons and they are everything and they consume us, how can we possibly have assurance, conviction, certainty, which is based on the mind-set of looking forward: I am a child of eternity; I am a child of hope; I am going to be with the Lord.

Sometimes, you hear of a Christian who dies, and of course the next of kin are full of sorrow and grief – death is terrible, parting is awful; that is very understandable – but in this case grief and sorrow is all consuming and overwhelming, and sometimes even the minister joins in and the church. You go to the funeral and the funeral is so heavy and so sad, and death is almost presented as something frightening, awful, too terrible to contemplate, and the whole thing is so sad and so the greatest tragedy imaginable has taken place. But in fact what has happened is the most glorious thing imaginable. Oh yes, there is bound to be grief attached on earth, especially to the nearest and dearest – death is an ugly thing – but on the spiritual side a Christian being called home is a great victory; they are eternally with the Lord. We are children of heaven; we are looking forward to experiences and sights and sounds and knowledge and purity and happiness never known on earth. This is the greatest possible triumph for a human soul, the most wonderful comfort imaginable. So we have got to be people looking forward: hopeful, anticipating, thinking often of eternal glory, and most assurance, certainty, conviction is based upon this.

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Hebrews 6:15 Commentary and Bible Study