A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Part 17

Earlier I said the preacher would get back to the King of Righteousness. Well in the conclusion of chapter six he finally does. Let’s look at the verses.

16 For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. 17 WhereinGod, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strongconsolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Continuing the discussion from yesterday, the preacher is explaining why God swore an oath. He is merely reassuring the listeners that God’s promises are true. The principle God laid out in the judicial system of Leviticus of using two witnesses to establish the veracity of a claim is shown here in operation. Notice that the event the preacher uses for an example predates Moses by more than a century. Yet God follows the principle before He has laid it down in the Law. “Out of the mouths of two or three witnesses will the thing be established.” That makes perjury difficult without elaborate conspiracies like we have in American courts. It takes more than one person to put a falsehood before the court as true. Not as easy in a highly religious society where the penalty for perjury is equal to the penalty for the crime the perjurers are trying to obscure or deflect.

So God does not commit perjury in His promises. He swore a binding oath and made deposition that it is so. Therefore, we can rest our hopes on those promises as surely as we rest our weight upon the ground. The hope we have extends across the former partition between God and men, because Jesus is the high priest of that hope, and He is both God and man. He is our high priest, not after the order of Aaron, who came after Abraham, but after the order of the King of Righteousness, Melchizedek. Let us put all anxiety, doubt and fear aside, our redeemer is true.

Tomorrow I shall get back to the preacher’s discussion of Melchizedek.

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