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This, then, is the inspired context of the expression "obtained promises". It takes us
back to Mount Moriah and Gen. 22: The Lord's command to Abraham in this chapter
was in the nature of a test. In verse 12 we read: "Now I know that thou fearest God"
(Gen. 22: 12). This took place after God had said: "I am the almighty God, walk before
Me and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17: 1).
The fourth reference to "promise" in Ephesians, it will be remembered, is
conditional:--
"Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise"
(Eph. 6: 12).
Here is law, most definitely; here is reward; and something far removed from grace
and faith. While, therefore, we may rightly say that there are promises that are "sure to
all the seed" because they are unconditional, by faith, through grace, yet there are also
extra promises which having attached to them conditions, and being in the nature of a
reward, may, or may not, be "obtained". The two sets of promises fall under the two
heads that we find in II Tim. 2: 11-13:--
(1) "If we died with Him, we shall also live with Him."--This, so far as we are
concerned, is unconditional and can neither be "obtained" nor forfeited.
(2) "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him."--This is additional and conditional,
and is of the nature of those promises which are "obtained" through faith and patience.
In the same way, the apostle points the Hebrew believer back to the wilderness
experience of Israel. All had been redeemed, but all did not endure. Those whose
carcasses fell in the wilderness were not necessarily unsaved (even Moses and Aaron
died before the land was entered); all that was unconditional was theirs, and will be
theirs as much as it will be Caleb's or Joshua's, but those promises that are "obtained"
through faith and patience were lost:--
"Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you
should seem to come short of it" (Heb. 4: 1).
We trust that no one will be hindered by confusing those promises which are by grace
and unconditional with those that have to be obtained through faith and patience, but
rather that many may be stimulated and encouraged on the pilgrim pathway.
In the same category as the promises that may be "obtained" we must place the
promise of James 1: 12:--
"Blessed is the man that endureth temptation (as did Abraham; Gen. 22:); for when
he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that
love Him."