13For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." 15And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17So 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, 18so 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. 19We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.Hmmmpf.... have to admit when God said "surely I will bless you and multiply you" I didn't think of it as him swearing by himself. I just thought he was saying he'd do something. Makes me think of how I phrase things. I often say "I will do thus and such". I've never thought of it as me swearing by myself....perhaps I've just never thought deeply enough about it. It would be more appropriate if I said "the Lord willing, thus and such will happen". Hmmm....need to consider that more often.
But God made a promise...and it happened. Abraham had to be patient and wait for it, but it happened none-the-less. :)
I do think it's interesting though..God swears by himself - as there is nothing greater than himself. He can legitimately say "I" will do thus and such. But when we make a promise we need to promise it by something greater than ourselves. NOTHING is greater than God. God is greater than us and so it only makes sense that we swear by him.
And Justin's up now and being busy so I need to keep him quiet until his dad gets up, so hopefull we'll be able to look at this more later today. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment