Holding Fast To Our Anchor
Why are we often encouraged in Scripture to “hold fast” to the word, or to our hope, or to our confession (i.e. the gospel)? It’s because it’s easy to let go when things get tough.
When we read in Hebrews 6:18 that we who have fled to God “might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us,” the author was writing to people who were facing some of the most difficult trials they have ever faced. As Jews they had waited for generations for the promised Messiah to come. Their ancestors had gone from exile in Babylon back to Jerusalem, a city in a region that was under the foreign rule of one empire after another. They longed for God’s promised Messiah to rescue them from their enemies, to throw off the chains of Roman oppression, and re-establish the kingdom of God on earth again.
But when the Messiah came, Jesus, God in the flesh, he didn’t deliver them the way they expected. First, instead of throwing off Roman oppression and leading the Jews in triumphal procession to a new kingdom of their own, Jesus died on a Roman execution device called a cross. But then he rose up from the grave, conquering sin, death and Satan! He even appeared to his apostles and promised to return.
Like Peter, James, John, and later Paul, many Jews followed Jesus as their true Messiah. But decades later, where was he? The persecution and oppression from the Roman empire was only getting worse. In fact, it had been relatively more peaceful for them before they followed Jesus. At least the government left them alone as Jews. Maybe they would be better off if they just went back to following the law of Moses. Following Jesus, living out the gospel, was just too difficult and dangerous.
“You have a strong encouragement and sure hope because God’s promises to you in Jesus are unchangeable and Jesus went before us where we couldn’t go on our own”
For many of us, the last several years have been full of some of the most difficult trials, challenges, and crises we have ever experienced. Think back to your life before 2020. You may have already been facing personal difficulties and trials that you weren’t sure you were going to make it through. Then in March 2020 a global pandemic brings the world and your life to a screeching halt. Loved ones got sick. Some died. People lost jobs. People in the developing world were starving to death. Racial tensions and political polarization literally tore our cities apart. Annually, wildfires still consume chunks of the West Coast and hurricanes don’t press pause long enough to let people recover from the last one. War in the Middle East and Eastern Europe threatens the lives of distant friends and family. Many of us are facing trials that are so painful, they challenge our ability to “patiently wait” for the promises of God and “hold fast” to hope.
The author of Hebrews says us: You have a strong encouragement and sure hope because God’s promises to you in Jesus are unchangeable and Jesus went before us where we couldn’t go on our own.
In Hebrews 5:11-6:12 the author addressed his readers with deep pastoral love and concern because they had become “sluggish of hearing” and unreceptive in their hearts toward the gospel. They had grown content with immature appetites for God’s “Word of righteousness” and so lacked training by “constant practice” to grow up in spiritual “maturity” by building beyond the “foundation” of basic doctrine and principles. But they could have hope that in the end, they wouldn’t be “sluggish,” but “imitators” of those who inherit God’s promises through “faith” and “patience.” (See Hebrew 6:11-12)
If we are going to have hope that is secure and lasting then we need to know God who is powerful and eternal. And the way we come to know God is through learning what he has revealed about himself and his sure promises which are in the Bible.
This is how we come to know God. We read in the Bible about who God is (trustworthy, powerful to save, loving, slow to anger, full of mercy and grace) according to all he has already done in the past. Then we learn his promises (for us, for our present, and for our future). Then we bank our lives on his promises in faith, based on his reputation. Then, when God proves to be all he said he would be and do all he said he would do, our faith grows.
In Hebrews 6:12-20 the author gives one example from the Old Testament of how God can be trusted and his promises can be hoped for with faith and patience. God made a promise to Abraham in the face of an impossible test.
This promise was made to Abraham in Genesis 22:15-18. God had promised Abraham that he would become a great nation and have descendants like the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). But there was a problem: Abraham was old and his wife Sarah couldn’t have children. But God kept his promise when he was miraculously given their son Isaac. Abraham loved Isaac. His name means “laughter” because of the great joy he brought his parents. But then in Genesis 22:1-2 the story takes a strange turn…
“God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!…Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Those are some of the most difficult verses in the Bible to read and wrap our hearts around. God, who had promised to multiply Abraham was now commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son – the very son through whom God had said he would carry out his promise to multiply Abraham like the stars in the sky.
In the past, out of pure self-preservation, Abraham had not completely trusted God about this promise. He told half-truths about his wife Sarah, saying she was his sister, so that the powerful kings around him wouldn’t kill him to take her for themselves. On another occasion, when Sarah and Abraham thought they’d help God along with this promise, Sarah gave Abraham her servant Hagar as a second wife. That didn’t work out very well to say the least. How often do we tell little half truths or attempt to manipulate our circumstances because we don’t trust in God’s timing to fulfill his promises?
But now Abraham had God’s “promise” living and breathing right before him: his miraculous, son of promise, Isaac, and God was telling him to offer him up as a sacrifice. God seemed to be putting his own promise in jeopardy. What would Abraham do this time? We are surprised to read in Genesis 22:3
“So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.”
Without complaint, without delay, without scheming a way to get around it, Abraham faithfully obeyed God. The author of Hebrews calls our attention to the way God makes his promise to Abraham. He says, since God had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself. In other words, God made an oath to keep his promise to Abraham, swearing by himself (Genesis 22:16-17)
When God makes a vow, we can trust him. As the author of Hebrews tells us in 6:.18 “it is impossible for God to lie.” God alone can call upon himself as his own witness for his vow to keep his promise. Abraham believed God’s vow.
We are told, in Hebrews 6:15 “thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.” How did Abraham “obtain” God’s promise after “patiently waiting?” When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the mountain it seemed like God’s promise had been taken away. Abraham demonstrated his patient faith through his obedience to the LORD in the face of what seemed like an impossible promise and probably the most painful thing Abraham ever had to do.
But the Angel of the LORD stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac at the last minute and provided a ram in the thicket as a substitute sacrifice. At that moment Abraham had re-obtained the promise of the LORD in receiving back Isaac.
With this example of trusting God’s promises Hebrews 6:17-18 tells us that 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.”
The sacrifice of a ram in place of Isaac is a picture of the sacrifice Jesus would make in place of us - taking the punishment we deserved for our sins, so we could live and have life eternal. If you are a follower of Jesus and trust in his sacrifice for salvation, then you are one of “the heirs of the promise” “who have fled [to God] for refuge” (Hebrews 6:18).
Are you “convinced” today that God’s promises to you are unchangeable? The author of Hebrews says God made a promise to us like he did to Abraham, so we “might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” (Hebrews 6:18). God desires that you hold fast in hope to his promise to you in Jesus!
What exactly is this hope? What does this promise mean for us in our difficult circumstances? The text goes on to describe Jesus as is a “high priest.” Hebrews 6:19-20 says “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the veil, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
What is the veil or curtain all about? This imagery takes us from Abraham to Moses. The veil was the thick curtain in the ancient Jewish place of worship (the tabernacle and later the temple) that separated the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a gilded box with the Ten Commandments inside. It was called the “throne of God” and the “Mercy Seat.” The veil separated the throne of God from the rest of the temple. No one was allowed to go behind that veil while God’s presence was manifest there or they would die.
Moving from Moses to Jesus, Jesus came as a sinless man and died the death we deserved in order to enter into God’s presence and receive eternal life. Jesus goes in! He is the only one perfect to do so. In Jesus God does what he promises and vows to do according to his “unchangeable purpose.”
This is our Hope: when Jesus “entered into the inner place behind the veil,” he accomplished all God purposed and promised to Abraham: that we, as many as the stars in heaven, might inherit the ultimate blessings of Abraham. The promise to multiply Abraham like the stars of the heavens, is fulfilled by Jesus becoming our substitute sacrifice allowing us to be brought into Abraham’s family by faith. And all this also becomes our own promise of hope for eternal life in Jesus today.
Is that the “anchor of your soul”? Anchors come in all shapes and sizes today. In ancient times they were basically two-sided hooks. But the best anchors are the ones that hold fast! There is nothing more alarming and unnerving for a sailor than to be in a boat at anchor fast asleep, and then to wake up suddenly in a panic because you can just feel that your anchor is slipping and you are drifting toward danger. Isn’t that how so many of us have felt in these times?
But we don’t have a slipping anchor! Jesus who went before us through suffering to glory is our sure and steadfast hope like an anchor for the soul that does not slip and will never slip. Jesus will never leave us drifting into the darkness! Hold fast to your hope in Jesus! Make God’s oath and promise in Christ the anchor of your soul when it seems like God’s unchangeable promises are delayed or changing. They are not changing. God is not late. He has provided. He will provide again. Wait patiently for God’s ultimate provision trusting in the better eternal priestly work of Jesus.
