Lesson 12 – The spiritual means bearing fruit
Read Hebrews 6 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.6.esv

In the last lesson we finished with the verses showing God’s warning to those who have as yet chosen not to believe in Him. And now we continue with the hope in verse 9 given to those who do believe – God will never mistakenly judge one of His own with those who have not believed. Knowing and trusting God to keep His promises should encourage each of us who are believers to persevere to the end.

God’s promises are never made lightly, and can never be broken. Some of God’s promises are based on what we do – just 2 examples would be 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Matthew 6:33. Other promises from Him are unconditional – meaning He will do them and there’s nothing *we* need to do to receive them. Such promises are made to individuals or groups, and they are God’s choice to make or not – but once He has made the promise He cannot go back on it. Let’s look at one of these promises God made to Abraham.


God made a wonderful promise to Abraham in Genesis 22. I invite you to read this chapter. God asked Abraham to give Isaac his son back to Him as an offering. Abraham set out to do exactly that, and at the last moment God stopped Abraham from killing his son. But for Abraham’s obedience in faith, God made him a far-reaching promise – “I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed (descendants) like the stars of the heavens and the sand of the seashore. Your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” This was not a conditional promise, it was a blessing-promise made because of Abraham’s obedience. And according to Romans 4:13-17, we who believe in Jesus Christ are also heirs to this promise because God considers us descendants of Abraham’s faith in God.

When we make a promise – for example, when we go before a judge and promise to tell the truth, we swear by something that is greater than ourselves. The verses here in Hebrews remind us of this. But God could not swear by anything else, because there is nothing and no one greater than He. So He swore His promise was true by Himself.

Now we can read and understand verse 19 – this promise from God is our “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…” This is a promise that will definitely be kept.

 But what does it mean that our hope “enters into the inner place behind the curtain” as we read in verse 19? This is a reminder of the highest duty of the High Priest. Once a year he would take the blood of the sacrifice for sin into the Holiest Place and put it on the Mercy Seat. No one but the High Priest could go there. But this promise says our hope goes there. And this brings us back to the comparison of Jesus with Melchizedek. More about this in our next lesson.