We're going to continue in the
book of Hebrews today. I had thought perhaps last week
I would get through the rest of Chapter 6, but I'm glad that
I didn't try to hurry through that, because there were a lot
of things in there as I studied it further that became clear
to me, and in itself we could spend another several weeks on
it, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try to get to the
end of Chapter 6 today with you. Always remember, when you're
looking at a particular text of scripture, that it's within
the context of the chapter and the whole book, so that when
we look at the book of Hebrews, we need to understand the flow
and the intent of the of the apostle, the writer to the Hebrews,
so that when we think about the details of each section, we can
connect it together. It carries a lot more force that
way. It's more convincing that way. It's certainly more revealing
of the entire wisdom of God in putting it together in history
and then revealing it to us in the Gospel as He is here to show
us where our salvation lies, to show us where our confidence
is and our success is, and to show us how we respond to the
grace of God in His work in our lives. And so when we look at
this today, we're going to be looking at The follow-up to the
last few weeks when we read the warning that God gave to the
Hebrews who were apparently clinging, at least they were tempted to
cling, to the Old Testament covenant. And one of the main themes of
Hebrews is the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that itself is the New Testament. The New Testament, so that what
the New Testament consists of is the eternal work of God, purposed
by God, ordained by God, provided by God, promised by God, spoken
of God in the Old Testament and fulfilled in time by the Lord
Jesus Christ on behalf of his people. That's the New Testament. And the book of Hebrews is about
the New Testament. But it shows us that the New
Testament is the fulfillment of that shadowy and old testament. And that the old is passing away,
and so the Hebrews were tempted to rely on the old covenant.
But the old covenant was flawed. It was flawed because it depended
on men. It was flawed because it required
an obedience from men in order to live, and it required animal
sacrifices to put away sin, neither of which was possible. Neither
our own personal obedience can fulfill the righteousness of
God and earn for us life, nor can sacrifices of slain beasts
put away our sins. Both of those are only found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that the Hebrews were tempted
to do, to go back to the old covenant and rely on it. And
so the warning comes in Hebrews chapter six, you need to go beyond. You need to go on to perfection.
And that perfection is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
in our own life, the maturity of faith is the perfection of
our faith, is when we see that our perfection is in Christ. So this is the message of the
first part, and then there's this severe warning that those
who turn away from Christ, who have heard the gospel, and yet
it didn't produce true fruit in them, like the good ground
in that parable of the four grounds. It didn't produce fruit in them.
and it's God's work, and so that ground in which the rain continually
fell and only brought forth thorns was ready to be cursed. But the
good ground that God had prepared, that God planted the seed in
by the gospel and brought forth fruit to Christ, fruit by the
Spirit of God, fruit of salvation, and then the fruit of faith and
all that follows faith, love and everything, those things
are God's work, And so those two are set in contrast in chapter
six. And so we're made to fear, but
then we're made to flee. We're made to fear God, and we're
made to fear our own tendency to turn from Him and go back
to our own old religion, the idolatry of our own works. And the idolatry of whatever
else the world proposes as to be the truth, which is all false,
the philosophies of men. the ways of the world in every
way, seeking after things that satisfy us in this life rather
than walking in our lives by faith alone, in Christ alone.
So now this warning and the fear that attends it and the grace
of God that comes to us to point us back to Christ are all seen
in this first few verses of Hebrews chapter six. And now there's
a transition here, it's building on what he had done here to bring
us to this comfort when he says in verse nine, but beloved, we
are persuaded better things of you and things that accompany
salvation though we thus speak. The apostle now is consoling,
he's comforting those that he just spent time warning and chastising,
because he's trying to keep them from losing that confidence in
Christ that God gives through hearing the gospel. Attend to
it, realize that that is your life, and then look to the Lord
in all things. But what he does here in the
verses that follow in verse 10 to the end of the chapter is
he takes from the history of God's revelation,
he takes Abraham and his life. Abraham was a very, very, the
most significant of all believers in all of Scripture, according
to the New Testament, Abraham is mentioned throughout. He's
mentioned in the book of Luke, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, in
John, in Acts. He's mentioned in Galatians and
Hebrews. He's mentioned in James. He's
mentioned throughout Scripture. as the one who believe in Christ
as all who believe in Christ do. He represents the father
of them as the first that God chose and called and testified
of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the writer to
the Hebrews is going to set Abraham now before the Hebrews. And in
doing so, he's going to give us the greatest possible consolation
and assurance in the midst of the worst kind of falling. just
like we saw in Jude chapter one, verse 24 and 25. Our praise should
always be, and our direction of our faith should always be
unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and not only
to keep you from falling, but to present you faultless in the
presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To him be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and forevermore. Amen. And so
that's what this is about to do here in the next few verses
of Hebrews chapter six. To take Abraham, as a believer,
as the one God has set up for believers to consider because
he is set up by God to show us what believers all do and what
God has given to all believers. What Abraham believed is what
we believe. What God gave to Abraham is what
he gives to us. And so that's what he's going
to do here. But what he says here about Abraham, he begins
in verse 10, and he shows that our salvation, like the fruit
that is borne by this good ground when the rain comes upon it often,
that fruit is produced by God. Therefore, our salvation is certain.
Our assurance should be very high when our faith is in the
Lord Jesus Christ alone, and we should have absolutely no
confidence at all when our faith is in something that we do. something
that we can become. When we consider ourselves, we
find failure. Or, if we're deluded, we find
something we can trust. We can only find confidence and
assurance in Christ, and that's what he's going to teach us here
in these next few verses. So in verse 10 he says, For God
is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which
you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to
the saints and do minister. In verse 10, he's talking about
and building on this analogy from the ground that brought
forth good fruit when the rain came often upon it, the gospel
falling on us, bringing forth fruit to God, it has to be attributed
to God's work. It is God who is at work in you,
both to will and to do of his good pleasure, so therefore God
gets all the glory. As I was saying earlier, when
we look at a flower, we're amazed at the beauty of that flower.
But we forget that in all of the intricacies of that beauty,
the way that flower is formed and comes into the full beauty
of its growth and then withers and dies, all of that's in God's
hands. And it brings forth that beauty
in order to point us not to the flower, but to the one who created
the flower and made it so beautiful. So we are to give thanks to God
for His goodness, because how much greater is the one who made
it than the thing that is made? The creator is always greater
than the created. The giver is always greater than
the gift. And so we have to look at things through the proper
light, the perspective. And this is how our heart is
made hot. This is how we are inflamed in
our love to God to see His love for us in Christ. Because we
love Him because He first loved us. Remember 1 John 4, chapter
4, verse 19? We love Him because He first
loved us. Without me, Jesus said, you can
do nothing. So we look to our God and Savior
and we come to Him. As it says in Psalm 116, verse
1, I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice. We as people,
we're made up so that we can only love what is beautiful. God can love because he is love,
but not us. We don't have the capacity to
love just because we love, because we aren't love. So when we see
God's love to us, we naturally are drawn to him in love. And we see that love only in
the Lord Jesus Christ, when we are miserable sinners, helpless
and without any contribution to make. And so the reasoning
of the apostle here is that God is not unrighteous to forget
your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward
his name. It shows that he is confident, the apostle is confident,
and he is assured, not in the good works of the believer, but
in the faithfulness and in the righteousness of God. You see,
God is not unrighteous. Therefore, because God is righteous
and faithful, Therefore, and he's going to build on this,
then what we, when we're persuaded of your salvation, we're persuaded
of it because God has done it, because God is faithful in it.
Yes, just like the flower uses the sunlight through photosynthesis
to produce the carbon or whatever is made up, whatever makes up
the flower, God uses the gospel to produce in us that faith and
love by His Spirit, which is fruit to God. And we're involved
in it, but that's the way God made us. He created us in Christ
Jesus, and that's the way it functions. Our life of faith
functions this way. We function by faith. We function
as spiritual people by faith. That is the life and breath of
a child of God, is faith in Christ. And so the emphasis here is on
God's faithfulness and the fact that he considers, he mentions
here, your work and labor of love. It's not a work of merit,
but it's a work of God's produce. As the apostle says in 1 Corinthians
3, around verse six, it's God that gave the increase. God does
this. So turn your attention to him.
He is faithful. He's not a man. There's no shadow
of turning with him, no variableness, as it says in James 1 verse 17. From the beginning to the end. He is not a man in the beginning,
he's not a man in the finishing of it, the starting of it, or
the completing of it. We are his work and our salvation
is his will and his design and his doing. Therefore, knowing
that God is not unrighteous, knowing he's faithful, the apostle
is confident and assured that he will also do what he said
and will save his people by Jesus Christ and for his sake alone
to the uttermost. So our attention is always directed
away from ourselves to Christ. That's what the Hebrews needed. They were looking back at the
old covenant. And the old covenant directed them to themselves.
Do this and live. Immediately you get to doing,
don't you? You don't want to die, so you get to doing. And
you create this false sense of security in your doing. But the
gospel sweeps it all away. There's none righteous. No, not
one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There's none that
doeth good. No, not one. So we have to be
convinced of this so that we start on the right ground. The
foundation is Christ alone. All else is sand. The old covenant
built man's hopes on the vain prospect of attaining some kind
of righteousness before God or receiving blessing from God by
what he did. His circumcision, his relation
to Abraham through physical birth or his keeping of the ceremonial
law, all these things. But that's all swept away in
the gospel, and we're directed to Christ, who alone could do
those things, and did them for his people, and therefore our
salvation, our confidence, our assurance, our hope, everything
is in Christ. Therefore we can love God, because
there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. All
true fruit springs from that, and if it doesn't, it's not fruit,
it's works, and works will not profit in the day of judgment.
And so we have this need to be brought again out of this self-confidence
and misconception of ourselves to Christ. And that's what he's
gonna do here and what follows. Look at verse 11. He says, and
we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to
the full assurance of hope unto the end. Going on to Christ produces
what? This full assurance. Confidence
in Christ produces what? It produces this labor of love.
but never get the cart before the horse." So he goes on, we
want you to go on to the full assurance of hope to the end
that you be not slothful but followers of them who through
faith and patience inherit the promises. Now he's setting it
up for us. He's about to set up this example
of Abraham. And he exhorts them, we want
you to go on. Not be slothful, but followers
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
It's good for us to consider the men of old. The apostle Paul,
Peter, and so many others. Philip, the evangelist, Isaiah,
Moses, Samuel, all the prophets, David. It's good for us to consider
those men. And read Hebrews chapter 11.
It's strengthening. It's like when you're a child
and your parents read to you about a hero in history. You
want to be a person like that, don't you? We want to be like
these people. But how are they heroes of faith?
They found they're all in Christ. And they were motivated by in
knowing that God had accepted them for Christ's sake, they
were motivated then to give themselves entirely to him who loved them
and washed them from their sins in his own blood. So that was
what he's pressing them on. You need to go on. Don't be slothful,
but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. As I said last time, the greatest
struggle in our life is just continuing in faith. Because
life brings with it all sorts of things. Physical weakness,
for example. And physical weakness brings this sense of a lack of
usefulness. I can't do anything. Or we might
have emotional weakness, and that brings with it a whole other
set of problems. And so we become despondent,
and we are distressed. We're overwhelmed by vain thoughts
that we create in ourselves and create fears. Or maybe because
a suggestion from the outside, a temptation to fear. And we
feel the weakness spiritually. Most acutely, we feel the weakness
spiritually. Just read the word of God, you'll
feel it in yourselves. It will discover you and uncover
you as someone who's weak. Now in all these things, we have
to be directed to where our strength is. Where is our confidence? How will we be saved? And the
answer comes to us from the word of God by the eternal will and
promise of God whose counsel is unchangeable and whose will
must be done and who will not fail to do and keep all of his
promises concerning his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
let's read on here. He says, for when God made promise
to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore
by himself, saying, surely, blessing, I will bless thee, and multiplying,
I will multiply thee. And so after Abraham had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise. Now consider Abraham for a minute.
We have learned of him before, but we need to be reminded again.
Abraham was a very interesting person. He lived in a land of
idolatry in Ur of the Chaldees. God came to him at that time
and called him when he was in the land of idolatry with his
family. He said, come out to a land I
will show you. Abraham, by faith, left Ur of
the Chaldees and he went out to go to Canaan. And then God
promised him in Genesis chapter 12, he says, in thee and in thy
seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed. So he
gave him a promise. And what we learn is that the
promise God gave to Abraham was the gospel. In Galatians chapter
five, I'll read this to you because this is not something we have
to guess at or try to read into it. But in Galatians chapter
three, he said this, And the scripture in verse eight of Galatians
three, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen,
isn't that the gospel? Through faith preached the gospel
unto Abraham saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed.
All nations. Out of every kindred, tongue,
people, and nation thou hast redeemed thyself by thine own
blood, all of us, out of that group, every kindred, tongue,
people, and nation. Remember Revelation 5, verse
9? They who are in heaven give praise to Christ who is worthy,
who by his own blood had redeemed them out of every kindred, tongue,
people, and nation. Without exception, out of every
kindred, tongue, people, and nation. Out of, but not including
all of, but out of them, he redeemed to themselves a people by his
own blood. And so God's promise to Abraham
is echoed in Revelation 5 verse 9. out of every nation, God redeemed,
Christ redeemed by his own blood. That's the gospel, isn't it?
Here in Galatians 3, verse 8, he says that was the scripture
preaching the gospel to Abraham when he said this, in thee shall
all nations be blessed. So that what the promise given
to Abraham was, was the promise of eternal salvation in Christ
because of the righteousness of Christ in his sacrificial
death, substituting himself in the place of God's people and
justifying them by his righteousness. and therefore God giving to them
an everlasting life because his righteousness was an everlasting
righteousness. This was the promise God gave
to Abraham. And so he's directing us to the
same thing that we hear when we hear the gospel. God is saying,
God preached the gospel to Abraham that he would save his people,
justify give them the very righteousness of his son so that he would look
upon them and find them pure and faultless and without blame
in his sight because of what he thought of his son and his
obedience and his life and death. This is the gospel. And so what
did Abraham believe? What did he believe? Because
that was the first thing God declared it to him. in Genesis
3 and verse 12. But if you look at Romans chapter
4, we see here the response that the preaching of the gospel to
Abraham produced in Abraham, which we know had to be the work
of the Spirit of God. In Romans chapter 4 he says this, In verse one, what shall we say
then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath
found? For if Abraham were justified by works, that's the flesh, synonym,
flesh, and justification by works, his own works, he hath whereof
to glory, but not before God. No one will glory before God.
Only Christ can do that, and we glory in Him. Verse three,
but what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it
was counted to him for righteousness. Not his faith as righteousness,
but the one he believed, the one his faith looked to, the
object of his faith was counted to Abraham for righteousness.
Not his subjective faith, because faith is never perfect, and faith
is part of our sanctification. Read Acts 26 and verse 18. So
that faith that is a gift of God, because of the grace of
God, was given on account of the life given to us by the Spirit
of God, who was given to us by the redeeming work of Christ.
And so it flows that because we're justified in Christ, we're
given life, and in that life, faith, and in that faith, looking
to Christ. That's what Abraham had, this
faith. But the faith evidenced the fact that God had considered
Christ for him and then brought that message to him so that he
could believe what was already true. And since it was already
true, he made no contribution to it. And God says, you see,
the one you believe is all your righteousness. And he was convinced
of it there. Christ is my righteousness. And verse four, now to him that
worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but debt. When we try
to earn life or blessing from God, it's only stacked up against
us as a debt, because we're trying to make God our debtor. He owes
us something for what we do, but God can be no man's debtor.
He gives to all life, wrath, and all things. Verse five, here's
what Abraham believed. Now, to him, but to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him, that does what? Who justifies
the ungodly. Abraham, therefore, had to consider
himself as an ungodly man. In the eyes of God, all he was
in himself was ungodly, but God justifies the ungodly, and he
believed that. He believed God, that he justified
him for the righteousness of his son. That's the first thing
we see that he believed. And then also look at verse 17. He says, as it is written, I'm
sorry, in verse 16, therefore it is of faith that it might
be by grace. So because our salvation is of
faith, it's guaranteed it must be by grace. God made it this
way. You're saved, you are saved by
grace through faith. And that faith is not of yourselves,
it's the gift of God. So it's all of grace. To the
end, it's of faith that it might be by grace, verse 16, to the
end that the promise might be sure to all to see. Why is our
salvation sure? Because it is of grace. It comes
from God only and is given to us through this gift of faith
to perceive it and to lay hold upon it. And he says, and he
goes on, to all the seed, not to that only which is of the
law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who
is the father of us all. All who believe Christ, like
Abraham did, are considered Abraham's children. Not those who were
born physically to Abraham, but only those who believe Christ.
That's the argument. Now look at what Abraham believed,
verse 17. As it is written, I have made thee, I have already made
you a father of many nations. But that was before he had any
children. His name was Abraham. God changed it to Abraham. He
said, here's your name, Abraham. And it's this name because it
means father of many. many nations. We just read in
Hebrews 6, he says, in multiplying, I will multiply thee. He's speaking
about the promise he made earlier. I'm going to multiply your seed,
your children, by faith. Those who believe Christ, they
are going to be more than the stars of heaven for multitude. What an amazing grace that is,
that God would save so many out of a fallen race. And so he goes
on. This is what he called him. I
have made you a father of many nations already. But Abraham
was not a father of any nation, not of any child. He and his
wife, Sarah, couldn't have children. Their bodies, insofar as having
children, were dead. but out of the death, out of
the deadness of their bodies, God is going to bring life, even
the life not only of Isaac, but the life of his incarnate son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, born of a woman. And
he would come according to the promise, and through him, Christ,
all the nations of the earth would be blessed, justified by
his righteousness. He says, As it is written, I
have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed,
God. So this is the way Abraham believed
God, God who quickeneth or makes alive the dead. He was thinking
specifically of himself and his wife Sarah, but more broadly
he was thinking about the spiritual death under which all of his
posterity, Adam's posterity are, but also the fact that we can't
bring life because we can't bring obedience and we can't put away
our sins. So he's thinking about the whole nature of death, being
the wages of sin, and the fact that the dead are helpless to
raise themselves, and besides the fact that they're held under
the sentence of death by their sin, and because they failed
to produce this righteousness. And God's gonna do something.
He says, before him whom he believed, God who quickeneth the dead.
So in order to quicken the dead, God has to not only make them
alive, which is an act, an act of almighty power, but he has
to answer justice and to remove our sins and justify us, and
that he did in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he also believed
on him, God, who calls those things which be not as though
they were. So he's dead to having children,
spiritually dead. and his body's going to die,
and yet God promised him that he's going to have a child, and
through that child, Christ would come, and Christ is the one to
whom all the promises were made, and all those who are Christ
are given those promises with him. Abraham is contemplating
this, and he believed what God said before it ever happened.
Before there was any evidence that what God said was true,
Abraham believed God. He believed God justifies the
ungodly. He believed that God raises the
dead. He believed that God calls things
which be not as though they were. As soon as God thinks it, it
must be done. As soon as God says it, he has
committed himself to do it. Isaiah 46, verse 10 and 11. So
all these things are proving to us that when Abraham was given
the promise of the gospel, And God spoke the gospel to him and
he believed that the nature of God's character and Christ's
work was evident to Abraham so that he believed in God who justified
the ungodly on the basis of the righteousness of Christ and his
shed blood. and also that he raises the dead
because of that shed blood and that righteousness of Christ
given to those to whom life would then be given, and that God speaks
of these things concerning his people when there is no evidence
whatsoever because it's all set down in the eternal purpose of
God, the promise of God, and completed by the Lord Jesus Christ. So now, if we read on in Romans
chapter four, it says that he who against hope, Abraham, against
hope, all human hope, there was no appearance of any of the fulfillment
of this and there was no evidence in himself or Sarah that this
was going to happen. None. Against hope, believed
in hope that he might, in other words, he believed Christ, that
God accepted him for Christ's sake alone and therefore he had
a high expectation that what God said was going to happen
because he believed God's word concerning Christ in all things.
So against hope, he believed in hope that he might become
the father of many nations according to that which was spoken. God
said it this way, so shall thy seed be. Those were the words
and he believed God. And notice in verse 19, and being
not weak in faith, he can sit, why would we be weak in faith?
Only if we doubt God, that's what unbelief is. But faith is
called obedience in scripture in many places, and unbelief
is called disobedience, and therefore those who wouldn't believe God
couldn't enter Canaan and died in the wilderness. And those
who believe God are called obedient in faith, obedient to the faith. So being not weak in faith, he
had no reason to be weak in faith because God was the object of
his faith in Christ. He considered not his own body,
now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness
of Sarah's room. Scripture tells us here that
he and Sarah couldn't have children. They were dead insofar as having
children was concerned. And yet, in spite of that, against
all human hope, he believed God, expecting God to do what he said.
Lord, do what you said, that was the cry of his heart. Verse
20, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, because
it was God's promise, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. He knew God would keep his word.
He knew God could and would keep his word. If God failed to keep
his word, what would that say about God? God was a liar, but
God cannot lie. That God changed. He changed
his mind. I'm not going to do that anymore. No, but God cannot
change. Or that God failed. But God cannot fail. As soon
as the word goes forth from his mouth, it's done. He believed
God raises the dead and calls those things which be not. He
therefore was strong in faith and didn't stagger, even though
the long period of his life." But look at it. He gave glory
to God in his faith. How did he give glory to God?
Believing God. Verse 21, and being, here's the
definition of faith, fully persuaded that what he had promised, he
was able also to perform. It's all on the Lord who promised,
isn't it? He made the promise, he's gonna
bring it to pass. And therefore it was imputed
to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead. Do you see how he connects the
resurrection of Christ with the birth of Isaac as from a dead
husband and wife, and how he calls Abraham the father of many
nations when there was absolutely no evidence of it. And Abraham
rejected all confidence in himself, but having confidence in God's
word and in Christ, he was fully assured. God promised he's able
to do it. And so he had no doubt. And God
said, he's righteous. Look, that faith is evidence
that God has raised him from the dead because of the righteousness
of Christ, Christ was raised from the dead. We're justified
by his righteousness. In verse 25, the Lord Jesus was
delivered for our offenses. We didn't come partway to God
and he just made up the rest. We were going the opposite way.
We were doing everything against what he told us to do and failing
everything he told us to do. But He laid our offenses on Christ,
and He did that of His own will, uninfluenced by us, but for motives
found in Himself, motives that originated not only in Himself,
but in eternity. A pledge was made between the
Father and the Son, and God promised then to Christ, in an everlasting
covenant, based on His bloodshed, that He would give eternal life
to His people. And that was the promise. God
gave to Abraham, and that was the covenant that God made with
Abraham. Now in Hebrews chapter 6, he
speaks about this in verse 13, for when God made promise to
Abraham, so the promise God made to Abraham is the same promise
he made to us. That's what he's trying to lead
the Hebrews into. And therefore the same covenant
out of which that promise was contained, that covenant was
also the same covenant God made with us that he made with Abraham,
which actually was a covenant he made with Christ. Because
in Galatians, also Galatians in chapter 3, And verse 17, he
says, and this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before
of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul,
that it should make the promise of none effect. So the law came
430 years after God promised to Abraham that he and in his
seed would, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. But
that promise was actually made to the Lord Jesus Christ, as
it says here in verse 16 of Galatians 3, Now to Abraham and to his
seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds, plural,
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.
So the promise God made, that all the nations would be justified
by the blood of Christ, and his righteousness was made to Christ.
that he would give to him a people, and he would justify them by
his blood, so that when he pledged himself in that covenant to shed
his blood, it was with certainty that God would fulfill his word
and give him the people, and redeem them by his blood. And
they would be his, and he would be with them before the Lord
in glory, and they would be perfected by his one offering. And that
was the covenant. It's the everlasting covenant
in the blood of Christ. And it was so strong that King
David said, this is all my hope and all my desire, this is all
my salvation. Though in my own family, in my
own self, it doesn't appear to grow. It's outside of my own
performance, it's in Christ. So all of his confidence was
in the covenant God made with Christ, and that's where his
salvation lies. Just like it did with Abraham.
So the promises God made to Abraham are the promises made to us in
Christ because they're the same promises. Justification. eternal life, eternal glory,
and inheritance in God. He said to Abraham in Genesis
15 1, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Christ
was his reward and we are Christ's. And that's why the Lord Jesus
speaks as him being in us and we in him and all that he has
is ours and all that we are is his. There's this union with
Christ so that He desires us and He wants to give us all that
is His, because that's what God promised in this covenant that
He made with Him before the foundation of the world. And so if you want
a couple of verses about this, if you were to consider 2 Timothy
1 and verse 9, he reads this, he says this, in 2 Timothy 1
and verse 9, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
God saved us, God called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So the
promises God made are in Christ. All the promises of God in him
are yes and amen to the glory of God, 2 Corinthians 1.20. So
the covenant was made with Christ, the promises of that covenant
were given to Christ, but they were given to him, not for himself
alone, because they were promises concerning the heathen Christ
would justify and redeem by his blood. And those are the promises
God gave to us, the same ones he gave to Abraham. So back in
Hebrews chapter 6, he says in verse 13, for when God made promise
to Abraham because he could swear by no greater, now he's referring
to those promises later in Abraham's life. Abraham was going through
his life, he's holding by faith what God has said to him concerning
Christ, how that through his son Isaac, his only son, who
would be born to Sarah, Christ would come. God's only son would
come born of a woman, born through his son Isaac, and in Isaac thy
seed would be called. So that in Christ, the one Isaac
represented and through whom Christ after the flesh would
come, all of God's people would be called. God's sons, children
of promise through Isaac. And so Abraham received Isaac
in birth from God through Sarah, who was the free woman, not the
bond woman. And so Isaac was the son of promise, the son of
the free woman, just like we are in Galatians 4.28. He said,
now we, brethren, are children of promise like Isaac was. Amazing,
just like Isaac. The promises, the covenant, the
faith Abraham had, all those things are common to all believers. Abraham, Jesus said, rejoice
to see my day. And he saw it and he was glad.
And so we, we see Christ's day and we see it and we are glad.
This is where our salvation is. God is pleased with us and his
son. All of the blessings of God are ours in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1.3, he has given us
all spiritual and heavenly blessings in Christ. So now we begin to
see the whole thing connected together, don't we? That in the
beginning when God spoke in Genesis 12.3, how that through Abraham's
seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed. We see
that even in John 3.16, for God so loved what? All the families
of the earth who would be blessed in Christ. Isn't it, doesn't
it have to be consistent? Is he gonna go a wider scope
outside of the covenant he made with Christ and gave to Abraham
by promise? It's the same group God speaks
of in Revelation chapter five, verse nine, out of every kindred,
tongue, people, and nation. That's the world, the heathen,
those God would justify by the blood and righteousness of Christ
because of the love of God. He would deliver his son up for
them and give all things to them with Christ. All things, all
the blessings God gave to Abraham and promise were given to us
in Christ because that's where they are. And so he says here
in Hebrews chapter six, that when God made this promise, because
he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. Now, you
know what it is, and he's gonna explain this in verse 16. Listen
to what verse 16 says. He said, for men, verily, swear
by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end
of all strife. You know how they do it. Swear
on the Bible. Put your hand there and swear
on the Bible. Why? Because the Bible's greater than
you. We can trust the Bible. I don't know if I can trust you.
Swear to me on your mother's grave. You know, find something
greater than yourself so I can believe you. So men swear in
order to confirm, to substantiate what they just said. Does God
ever need to substantiate what he just said? Of course not. God cannot lie. But listen, he
says because he could swear by no greater, verse 13, he swore
by himself. So God did a, he did a double
assurance to all believers, because this is not just a promise to
Abraham, but to all believers. In fact, it's a promise made
to his son. I swear by myself. That's what he said to Abraham.
Swear by himself, saying, surely blessing I will bless thee and
multiplying I will multiply thee. He's promising Christ and to
all believers that in the death of Christ, He would have a multitude
of children. He would make many His sons through
the redeeming blood of Christ, because He would give them His
Spirit, and they would be given the Spirit, born of God, created
in Christ Jesus, raised from the dead, giving faith in Christ,
and live to God. These were the sons, made heirs
of God, heirs of all that God has, because all is given to
Christ, and they are Christ's. They're the people of God. And
so he says, and so after he had patiently endured, Abraham, he
obtained the promise. He lived his life by faith. Notice
how strongly God emphasizes here. There's only one thing we have
in this world of any substance of all that God has said. Nothing
else is tangible but this, faith in Christ. Everything else is
going to pass away. But faith in Christ is God-given,
and it's not only of God, but it considers and lays hold on
eternal things. God has spoken. We need nothing
else. Christ has finished our salvation.
We need no more work to obtain it. It's accomplished in him. Abraham believed God. That was
it. It doesn't go further. It doesn't
say, and then he added to that circumcision, or that he added
to that something else. In fact, in Galatians 3, Paul
argues the exact opposite. He says, oh foolish Galatians,
who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? That's
believing the work of Christ alone, before whose eyes Jesus
Christ has been evidently set forth crucified among you, this
only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of
the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having
begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect? by the flesh. Abraham understood the principle
of Hebrews 6.1. We need to go on to perfection
and that perfection is found in Christ's righteousness alone
and our place in him before God. And therefore he didn't trust,
he didn't go on in order to create a greater and more perfect Abraham
by circumcision. He just looked at his circumcision
and said, that's Christ crucified for me. My sins cut off in the
death of Christ. As it says in Galatians 2. So
Abraham believed that Christ was everything for him. And that's
the way he endured patiently in faith. He believed God. God
was gonna do it and had done it in the Lord Jesus. Now, listen
to this. I already read verse six. For
men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation
is to them an end of all strife. But how condescending is it? of God to stoop to our frailty
of unbelief in order to shore up our assurance by swearing
by himself in order to keep his word. The Hebrews who had heard
the first part of chapter 6 were probably waylaid. They were probably
broken down and so fearful. And now the Lord comes along
and says, look, what did Abraham look to? How did he endure? How
did he overcome? It was through faith in Christ.
He directs him to Christ and God's promise in him. We're in
God willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise,
every child of God given to Christ, the immutability of his counsel. You cannot change God's counsel. God confirmed it by an oath. that by two immutable things,
first his counsel, then his oath, or first his word, and then his
promise, his oath on that word. God can't lie. He staked himself. If he failed to do what he promised
Abraham and every believer concerning Christ and our salvation in him,
if God fails to do that, God says, I cease to be God. That's
strong consolation, isn't it? That is massive condescension. Amazing grace that God would
stoop so low to give assurance to his people in the midst of
all of their weaknesses and fears. that they can't produce what
was required, not only to believe, but to continue in faith. And
so he points them, again, to his promises in Christ and to
Christ's work. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised for our justification. He justifies the ungodly. He
raises the dead. He calls those things which be
not as though they were. He calls us the children of God.
He says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Remember 1 John
3? It doth not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, then we shall
be like him, for we will see him as he is. But faith now believes. We hold fast now by faith what
is true because God said it without any other substance. Because
faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is the only evidence
of things not seen. And so he uses creation to prove
that. By faith we understand the worlds
were framed by the word of God. That's the way we understand
it happened because that's what God said it happened. That's
how he said it happened. And so he goes on, he says, by
two immutable things, verse 18, in which it was impossible for
God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for
refuge. Where is our refuge? Christ in
him crucified. The rock of ages set a cleft
for me, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set
before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. The
hope is that Christ is our hope. Where he is now is where I am
with him. How he is now is what I am before God in him. And so
he says, which hope we have is an anchor of the soul. This is
what keeps me from coming unglued. This is what keeps me from drifting
away. I have an anchor. It holds the boat of my life
to Christ. And this is God's word. It's
the gospel concerning what he did in Christ. He spoke to Abraham
concerning Christ yet to come. He speaks to us now in the gospel
concerning Christ who finished the work and is now seated at
the right hand of God. How much more sure our anchor.
It's both sure and steadfast and which entereth into the veil,
into that within the veil, whether the forerunner is for us entered,
even Jesus made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And now we see something amazing.
God not only used Abraham as an example, a prototypical of
all believers, all the promises given to him are our promises
in Christ. All the covenant, the faith he
had, the same as ours. The blessings God gave him, all
the same blessings. We're considered, because we're
Christ, we're considered to be God's children, Abraham's children
in faith. And now he says, he's going to
go on because the rest of the book of Hebrews, the next few
chapters is going to establish this new covenant of which he
just referred back to in Abraham. And he's going to first set up
Melchizedek as the high priest. And guess what? He's going to
compare him to Abraham and he's going to show that Abraham was
not as great as Melchizedek. because Abraham gave tithes to
Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham, which shows
us something about ourselves. Even though we look at Abraham
and we're amazed at his faith, he lived by faith the whole time.
Keteleomer and the other kings came against these cities and
took his nephew Lot, and he went out and rescued them. He acted
in faith. I'm going after my nephew. And so Melchizedek met
him with bread and wine and blessed him. And then Abraham goes on
in his life. And then later Lot gets himself
in Sodom and Abraham intercedes to God and pleads with God not
to destroy the whole city for the righteous sake. And God saves
Lot out of Sodom because of Abraham. And Abraham faces dangers at
Pharaoh, Abimelech. He falls, he puts his wife Sarah
in danger in both cases. And God saves Sarah and him.
And God preserves Abraham even though he fell by having a son
through Hagar, trusting in what he could do to fulfill God's
promises, representing our own works to complete or to make
our salvation. So Abraham, in all of his life,
he walked in faith. Everything he did, he had this
view of the world and of eternity from God's word. concerning Christ. That was his view of life, and
he lived that way. He did everything he did out
of faith. And so when God finally asked
him, take now your son Isaac, your only son, and offer him
up on Mount Moriah, he rose up early, like Rommel said last
week. He got the wood, he got the fire,
he didn't have an offering, and Isaac asked him, my father, I
see the wood, I see the fire, but where is the lamb? And the
Lord said, my son, Abraham said this to Isaac, my son, God will
provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. And so God did. And it was typified in the Ram,
but it was the Lord Jesus Christ he was referring to, the Lamb
of God slain from the foundation of the world. Abraham built an
altar and worshiped the Lord. Everything he did, he did with
an eye towards God's promise in Christ, so that his life was
lived in faith. And that's the way we live. The
just shall live by faith. But in doing this next comparison
between Abraham and Melchizedek, going on to the new covenant,
he's going to elevate Christ to be preeminent above all things,
especially Abraham and believers. He's gonna show that it's to
him we look. He is our high priest. He perfected us forever by his
one offering. And then he goes on to show that
the new covenant God made in Christ's blood is the same covenant
he made with Abraham, so that we would have this strong assurance
that God swore by himself to keep his oath to his son and
to his people in his son, and to live this life in the consideration,
he says, as he says here, we desire that every one of you
do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to
the end. And so we pray. I won't find
it in myself, O God, my Father, but I will find it in the Lord
Jesus Christ, my Savior. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would
inflame our hearts through the promise of God and the accomplishments
of our Savior and the reception he had in heaven. with his people
when he came and offered his blood there and obtained our
eternal redemption, and you pronounced him and us justified by his blood,
by his obedience in shedding that blood. We stand before you
now in life because the righteous live, and you gave us life through
his life in him. And this covenant you made and
the promises you made in it are sure and cannot fail because
you cannot fail. And we believe you, like Abraham
did, we believe you justify the ungodly because we ourselves
are, in ourselves, sinners and ungodly, helpless and enemies
of God in our minds and by wicked works. But though we are so foul
and filthy and ill-deserving, you have laid help on one who
is mighty. We thank you, Lord, that you've
given to us this salvation so free and so certain, and help
us to live our lives, throughout our lives, facing all the weaknesses
and the disappointments and the physical and the emotional In
the circumstantial, in every other weakness that we have,
Lord, we pray that you would direct us outside of ourselves
to Christ, our anchor, the anchor of our soul, already in heaven,
having obtained already the possession he's promised to us and purchased
for us, and we ourselves are his purchased possession, and
he is ours by this grace. Amazing grace. We thank you,
our Father, for this goodness and this salvation that you've
shown to us in Christ our Lord. In his name we pray, amen.