Hebrews 6:13-20 – God is totally reliable

In these verses we see an exposition on the reliability of God. He is trustworthy and can be counted to be faithful to all the promises He had made. In verses 13-15, Abraham was used as an illustration of a believer who demonstrated strong faith and patience. Why Abraham? Because using Abraham would elicit the interest of his audience. Therefore, he used Abraham to illustrate his call made in verse 12, to inherit the promises of God by demonstrating faith and patience. 

The specific incident the author used was taken from Genesis 22:16-17, where God made a promise to Abraham immediately after he had obeyed God to offer Isaac to Him. In that incident, Abraham trusted that God would raise Isaac from the dead even if he had sacrificed him. The patriarch trusted God to make good His promise concerning the promise to multiply his descendants. Using this illustration, the author encouraged his readers to persevere in trusting and obeying God, even when what they were doing appeared to be leading to a tragedy. He showed them how Abraham stayed steadfast and trusting despite his trying moments, and God honored and blessed him with all that He had promised him.

The author then proceeded in verses 16-18 to reveal that one way to settle a dispute was for a person to appeal to a higher authority with an oath. With that, he then showed that even God used an oath to assure Abraham that He would indeed bless him greatly. God had no one greater than Himself to appeal to, so He swore to Himself. In swearing to Himself, He actually bound His Word to His character. Why? So as to give Abraham a double assurance that He would indeed deliver what He had promised. In this regard, Abraham actually received the assurance of the promise from the God Who is incapable of lying. Abraham also received the assurance by an oath that God would definitely fulfill that particular promise. The two unchangeable things alluded to in verse 18 are the promise of God and the oath He had made. This powerful promise God had made to Abraham had become an enormous encouragement to believers because God has also promised them future blessings.

The imagery in verse 18 about the refuge was one taken from the Old Testament city of refuge. The Israelite when threatened by assailants could flee to any one of the cities of refuge and find protection. Here, the author showed the readers that they could flee to the promises of God for protection, when they were assailed with temptation to stray from the faith. Like the Israelites who would go to the altar of burnt offering and lay hold of the horns and find protection, so the readers could also lay hold of the hope set before them.

In verses 19-20, the writer gave another avenue on how his readers could find safety. He said that when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into God’s presence, He brought the believer’s sure hope with Him. He brought it into Heaven, the true Holy of Holies. The backdrop to this illustration was this: in the first century, sailors would deposit the anchors of their boats on the shore to prevent them from drifting away. Using that as a backdrop, he showed them that Christ had securely deposited the anchor of the believers, their hope, in Heaven. This should keep them from drifting away from God. The author was implying that a believer with a living hope has a steady anchor in life. With that he returned to where he started. He was about to launch in to talk about Jesus Christ as the Great High Priest in the line of Melchizedek.

Our God is reliable. We can place our trust in Him. For our hope is built on nothing less than the blood of Jesus and His righteousness. So let us stand firmly on Christ, the Solid Rock, for standing anywhere else will be standing on sinking sand!