 |  |
No.3.
The Promises.
pp. 21 - 26
"For all the promises of God in Him are the Yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of
God by us" (II Cor. 1: 20).
These sentiments form the general tenor of all Scripture. However many times we
have been assailed by doubtings and disappointments, we shall all say, out of full hearts,
the words of I Kings 8: 56:
"These hath not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised . . . . ."
Both Sarah and Abraham are mentioned in the N.T. concerning their conviction that
God keeps His promises. Abraham "staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that,
what He had promised, He was able also to perform" (Rom. 4: 20, 21). Sarah "herself
received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age,
because she judged Him faithful Who had promised" (Heb. 11: 11). God too, "willing
more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel,
confirmed it by an oath" (Heb. 6: 17). Here in these three quotations, we have the
assurance that God is (1) Able, (2) Faithful, and (3) Unchangeable, with regard to His
promises. So important and valued were these promises, that the Apostle when he lists
the superior advantages of Israel says:
"To whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of
the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Rom. 9: 4).
In contrast, the Gentiles at that time were "Aliens . . . . . and strangers from the
covenants of promise" (Eph. 2: 12) and so were without hope, without Christ, and
without God.
Coming to the positive references to `promise' in the Prison Epistles, and including
the two epistles to Titus and I Timothy we read:
"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began"
(Titus 1: 2).
I Tim. 4: 8 speaks of the "promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come". II Tim. 1: 1 opens with the words:
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life
which is in Christ Jesus."
Coming to Ephesians we read:
"Ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His
glory" (Eph. 1: 13, 14),