Since it is indeed impossible for God to lie, why did He make an oath by Himself to Abraham? The surface level answer is that He made an oath by Himself because there is no higher authority by which God can appeal. Going deeper, God made the oath as an act of condescension, to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose and that they might have a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 6:9-20 ESV
Because faith and hope are intimately bound together, Abraham could just as easily have been called the man of hope as the man of faith. Abraham’s entire life of faith was predicated upon his hope in God’s mighty promises to him. To be specific, God promised to give Abraham an offspring, to make him into a great nation, and give his offspring the land of Canaan. Abraham only saw the fulfillment of the first promise before his death, and even that promise came twenty-five years after God made it to him.
Of course, the Scriptures never attempt to portrait Abraham as a sinless man. He was just as needful of redemption as we are today. However, Abraham’s faith and hope in God’s word is worthy of our imitation, for like him, we too are called to believe God’s very great promise, that we might endure to the end just as he did.
Though We Speak in This Way: Verses 9–12
Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things–things that belong to salvation. What ought to immediately notice about this verse is the distinct tonal shift, even calling his readers beloved, and that is not accidental, as if the author of Hebrews were manic-depressive. Being carried along by the Holy Spirit and out of love for his congregation, this pastor is using both the rod and the staff, both rebuking and comforting. Of course, we should be familiar with this pattern because it is how all parental discipline ought to look. The rod of correction is a physical warning against the death that lies at the end of the path of folly and disobedience. But punishment rather than discipline has been meted out if the path of wisdom and love is not presented immediately.
Similarly, we the readers of this sermon-letter have been stricken with the rod of correction. First, we were rebuked for stalling in spiritual infancy and needing to learn the same theological ABC’s over and over again. Then we were warned of what made spiritual immaturity so dangerous: it made one ripe for falling away from the faith. Indeed, last week’s warning against apostasy was intended to startle and awaken us from our spiritual drowsiness and lethargy, but as we noted, the author had no desire to incite despair in any of his reader, which we can clearly observe in this verse.
Here the author makes it clear that he has greater hope in the case of his readers. But his hope of better things pertaining to salvation is not unmoored or frivolous. Indeed, it can be all too easy to others saved simply from compassion and the dreadfulness thought of eternal damnation. The author is giving way to no such thoughts. His confidence in his readers ultimate salvation is rooted in their past and present fruitfulness, which is what he expresses in verse 10: For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.
Notice first what kind of fruit the author described. They displayed love for God’s holy name by serving the saints. Their greatest devotion was toward the glory of God’s name, which ought to be true of every Christian. We see this in places like Ephesians 1 that make it clear that the purpose of our salvation is God’s praise and exaltation. However, we also ought to be reminded of this marvelous truth each time we pray through the Lord’s Prayer. As Thomas Watson noted, every petition in the Lord’s Prayer is necessary only for this life, but the first petition is eternal. God’s kingdom will one day come, His will shall be done on earth as in heaven, God Himself will be the eternal portion of His people, the tempter and temptation will be destroyed, and grace will reign forevermore. Yet even when we have no more need to pray for provision, pardon, and protection, we will still pray for God’s name to be hallowed, to be set apart and exalted ever higher. Indeed, there is no such thing as a Christian who does not cherish and esteem the name of God our Savior. Of course, that love is never wholly and perpetually pure throughout this life, but it is there and growing throughout the Christian’s life.
Yet their love for God’s name was displayed through their serving of the saints. Here we see a reflection of the two greatest commandments: loving God and loving our neighbor. They were doing that, and they were especially loving the saints, that is, their brothers and sisters in Christ. This likely referred both to their love for one another within their own congregation as well as their support of other congregations of believers in other cities. Indeed, I think it most likely that the author was sent out by them for that very purpose of serving some other group of Christians. This is just as crucial for the life of a Christian as the love for God’s name. Of course, our love for the saints is secondary to our love for God, but our love for God must always overflow into our love for God’s people. Christians are made saints, holy ones, because Christ died to redeem them. If God so loved the saints, how can anyone claim to love God and not also love what He loves? 1 John 4:20-21 makes this very point:
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Next notice when the readers exhibited this fruitfulness. The words have shown point toward their past, but verse 10 concludes by saying as you still do, which brings their fruitfulness into the present. Both are key to the author’s confidence that they will not be among those who fall away from the faith. Although they have becoming dull of hearing and have not pressed on toward spiritual maturity, they have not been and are not yet like the land that only yields thorns and thistles after the rain. Instead, they are still producing a crop of righteousness for the benefit of the saints out of love for their heavenly Father.
But though his readers are still bearing fruit that they belong to Christ, their gradual descent into immaturity is still a real threat. Thus, after reminding them of their faithfulness in the past and in the present, he exhorts them regarding the future in verses 11-12:
And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
It is fitting that the author exhorts earnestness in his readers. John Piper notes that:
The opposite of earnestness is drifting in the Christian life. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1). Most “former Christians” drifted away from the faith rather than departing suddenly. As Jesus said, little by little “they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). One of God’s remedies for this dreadful danger of drifting away is the abundance of warnings in his word to make us earnest or vigilant—or, as Jesus said, “awake” (Mark 13:37).[1]
Although he rejoices in their past and present faithfulness, the author’s desire is that their earnestness for the faith would continue until the end. He desires this because “Scripture knows nothing of biblical assurance or of salvation apart from an earnest pressing on with the business of persevering in faith in Christ.”[2]
Read More
Related Posts:

Our goal is to work toward the right way for Christians to think biblically about angels and properly relate to them. The biblical response to these heavenly beings is somewhere between worship and obsession on the one hand, and a total denial of their existence on the other. Christians can learn from Scripture how to relate to angels as they follow the great God and Savior of the world.

What Are Angels?
While God’s word does not offer us a detailed description of how and when God made the angels, or of what exactly they look like, we can nevertheless gather truths and principles from various Scripture passages that teach us about these beings that are in eternal service of God.
You have probably seen pictures, movies, or cartoons portraying angels, but it’s likely that none of them portrayed angels in any way close to what they are actually like! What does the Bible say?
Angels are created beings. First, the Bible is clear that angels, like humans, are created and living beings, made by God. In Psalm 8, the psalmist points out that human beings have been made “a little lower” than the angels and “crowned . . . with glory and honor” (Ps. 8:5).
Angels, then, have greater glory and honor than humans; it is noteworthy that the natural human response to these beings when they appear is first fear and then worship. Nevertheless, angels were created by God, and therefore are less than God. They are another kind of living being that God made.
Angels are eternal, nonmortal beings. Jesus makes it clear that angels—unlike human beings—are eternal and nonmortal (they do not share in human institutions such as marriage, for example; see Matt. 22:30). Angels were created by God to live forever; they do not grow old and die. While it seems that angels can certainly take on physical form, they are spiritual beings.
Angels are servants of God. Primarily, angels were created by God to be his servants (we will talk much more about what their service looks like in the next section). You saw this in the passage from Revelation 22 that you read just above. John was tempted, as we discussed above, to bow down and worship the angel who was showing him this vision of heaven. The angel stopped him, though, reminding him that, although glorious, he was nothing more than a “fellow servant” of God with John (Rev. 22:9). Angels are not to be worshiped; they are servants of God, who alone is worthy of worship and praise.
Angels dwell in heaven with God. Angels, unlike human beings, never have lived on earth and never have been subject to the fall in the same way that human beings are. Angels, then, do not have sinful natures; they are not guilty of sin, rebellion, and death. We know this because they are portrayed (in Rev. 4, for example) as dwelling closely with the holy God in heaven. Sinful beings would not be able to do that! So the permanent dwelling place for angels is in heaven with God.
The Purpose of Angels
Now that we have considered what angels are, we are going to dig a bit deeper into their purpose, as we see it revealed in the Bible. We will identify several of the chief roles that we see angels filling in Scripture as they obey God and help his work to move forward in the world he made. While we are not certain about the work of angels in the world today, we can look at how they have worked throughout the history of God’s people.
Above all, the Bible presents angels to us as servants of God. This was the point that the angel in Revelation made clear to John when John attempted to worship him (Rev. 22:9). But what do these servants do? What is their purpose? In the Bible, we see them acting in several key ways:

Announcement. This is the purpose that you saw in the passage from Luke that you read just above. The angel Gabriel (one of the few angels who is named in Scripture) was sent to Mary to announce the coming birth of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

Read More
Related Posts:

He is Priest. As the priest was anointed to offer sacrifice (Leviticus 4:4, 5) and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice. Christ, therefore, offered himself once-for-all putting an end to all of the typological sacrifices. Though not of the tribe of Levi, he received a special commission for this purpose (Hebrews 7:20; 8:6; 9:12, 24-26). So, Jesus Christ, having served as the anointed prophet, then completed his anointed work of priesthood, altar, and sacrifice. Nothing in the sacrificial system was left unfulfilled by him.

Remember Jesus Christ, risen out of death, arising from the seed of David, according to my gospel (2 Timothy 2:8).

In supplying the name of the one that we are to remember, he also supplies the reasons that forgetfulness in this matter is fatal. Paul supplies the name of the person who embodies the full range of truth and saving grace that counters the falsehoods, errors, and aggressive evil of fallen humanity. As he reminded the Corinthians, “As in Adam all die; even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). In the context of this letter to Timothy, Paul uses the combination “Christ Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” fourteen times. Two of these also employ the word “Lord” with the name “Jesus” and the office, “Christ.” Also, there are fifteen other uses of the word “Lord” to refer to Jesus Christ. The book is saturated with Jesus Christ, his lordship, his mercy, his purpose, his truthful word, his conquering of death, his promise of life, his salvation, his status as judge, and his personal presence with the believer. Paul aimed to make it impossible to forget either the person or the work of Jesus Christ. To forget is to deny; to deny is to give surety of an absence of grace.
Particularly Paul does not want us to forget the significance of the name and the title given to him. His name is Jesus. The angel told Joseph, calling him “son of David,” that the child with whom Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit was to be called “Jesus” (Matthew 1:20, 21). The significance of this designated name was related to the child’s office as Savior—“for he shall save his people from their sins.” The name means, “Jehovah is salvation.”
For Joshua (the same name), his name was a testimony to the promise of Jehovah in giving to Israel the land of Abraham. It signified that Jehovah was strong, mighty, faithful, the only God, and would accomplish all his promises, both of blessing and of cursing. He would work through Joshua to fulfill these promises and establish the context where the people would respond to this miraculous deliverance and strikingly clear revelation. Some of the promises were unconditional and unilateral. No alterations among the Israelites could change the ability and determination of God to carry through. Others were conditional and were, in one sense, dependent on the faithfulness of the people (2 Kings 23:26, 27).
The task of Joshua was typological; the task for Jesus was the substance and absolute. Joshua set the stage for the powerful display of divine purpose; Jesus embodied the mystery of godliness. Joshua testified of the power of God to save and called the people to follow him in serving the Lord (Joshua 24); Jesus did not merely testify to the power of God to save, but he possessed and executed his saving power by own righteous acts and perfect obedience. Not only like Joshua did he testify to the power of God to save, but he constituted the saving purpose of God. Though “Jesus” is his human name, it also is a testimony to his divine nature–”Jehovah is salvation.”
As “Christ,” the God-man Jesus is the anointed one. Every office and type established by anointing, the Christ culminated in himself. Did God give prophets to reveal and speak and write his word to his people? Jesus is the prophet promised through Moses, the “Word made flesh,” the Son through whom God “has spoken” (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; John 1:14; Hebrews 1:2). Is he not the true Elisha, the God of supplication, anointed by Elijah (1 Kings 19: 16; Luke 1:17; 3:21, 22; Luke 23:34; John 1:29-34). Does the Lord not set forth the prophet as a special representative of his anointing? (1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalm 105:15).
Read More
Related Posts: