Scripture Daily

Context No. 297 of 4322 · Hebrews

Context · Reflection

Hebrews 6:9-20: in context

9But, beloved, we are persuaded of better things for you, and things that accompany salvation, even though we speak like this. 10For God is not unrighteous, so as to forget your work and the labor of love which you showed toward his name, in that you served the saints, and still do serve them. 11We desire that each one of you may show the same diligence to the fullness of hope even to the end, 12that you won’t be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherited the promises. 13For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, 14saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” 15Thus, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise. 16For men indeed swear by a greater one, and in every dispute of theirs the oath is final for confirmation. 17In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath, 18that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us. 19This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil, 20where as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

The writer of Hebrews is trying to steady people who are weary and tempted to drift away, and he reaches for the most solid thing he can name: the fact that God bound himself by an oath. First he reassures them that God is not unjust and will not forget the work and love they have shown in serving others, and he urges them to keep up that same diligence all the way to the end, imitating those who inherited the promises through faith and patience.

Then he makes his argument from Abraham. When God made his promise, the writer says, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. This is worth pausing on. People take an oath by something higher than themselves to end an argument, because an oath is the final word. God has nothing higher to swear by, so he swore by his own being. And the strange mercy is that God bothered to swear at all. His bare word was already true; the oath was added, the writer says, to show us beyond any doubt how unchangeable his purpose is. So now there are two unchangeable things, his promise and his oath, in both of which it is impossible for God to lie, and they are meant to be a strong encouragement to people holding on. Then the image the passage is known for: this hope is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, and it reaches into the inner sanctuary behind the veil, where Jesus has already gone ahead as a forerunner.

Notice where the anchor is set. Not down in the shifting seabed of my circumstances, but up and inward, fixed to a person who is already inside the holy place. An anchor holds not because the sea is calm but because of what it is hooked to. Where is my hope's anchor actually set, in conditions down here that keep moving, or in the one who has already gone in ahead of me and cannot be moved?

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