How Sure Is Our Hope?

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:11–12)

Today’s big question: how sure is our hope?

After stressing the importance of continuing in the faith at the beginning of Hebrews 6, the author encouraged believers to live with “full assurance of hope” and to imitate the faithful ones of the past. The chapter then continues with a stirring declaration of just how certain our hope is and what it is founded upon.

In verses 13–14 we are reminded of God’s promise to Abraham that “blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants” (Genesis 22:17). The author of Hebrews reveals why this two-fold promise of blessing and multiplying is so absolutely certain that we can bet our souls on it—because it is the Word of God.

Every word of God is certain, but to make this certainty abundantly clear to us, God “confirmed it by an oath” (Hebrews 6:17). We read that “when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself” (Hebrews 11:13). Talk about security! When God backs up a promise with His name, there is no stopping it.

Ultimately, salvation was in view when God made this promise to Abraham, as He continued, “in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). The Lord guaranteed the coming of Jesus the Messiah, the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), who would bless people in all nations of the earth. That includes you and me.

Both parts of God’s promise to Abraham—blessing and multiplying—are found perfected in Christ. These things are promised for our hope: “that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18, emphasis added).

Only through Jesus do we have hope of eternal blessing, salvation from sin, reconciliation, and adoption as children of God—spiritual descendants of Abraham as God promised (Galatians 3:7). The Apostle Paul wrote that we who believe “are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9 (ESV)).

By faith we, like Abraham, can have full confidence of hope in God’s promises because His Word never fails.

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. (Hebrews 6:19–20 (ESV))

Today’s big idea: we have an unstoppable hope in God’s Word, anchored in His unchanging character.

What to pray: praise God for the certainty of His wonderful promises toward His people.