Whose are the Promises?

At a glance

Relevant Scripture

“Who are Israelites; 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;”

Romans 9:4 KJV

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Chapter 7 of the LibriVox recording of According to Promise, streamed directly from the Internet Archive (public domain, CC0).

UECF.NET summary

Having shown that not everyone within the visible household of faith inherits the promise, Spurgeon now asks directly: to whom, then, do the promises actually belong? His answer, drawn from Paul's careful argument in Romans 9, is that they belong to God's chosen — not by any natural right, ancestry, or religious privilege, but purely by grace, and that this election becomes visible in a person's life through genuine faith in God's word.

Spurgeon is emphatic that faith is not a minor footnote to this arrangement but its very hinge: believing God, taking Him at His word when nothing else confirms it, is described in Scripture as the highest honor a creature can pay its Creator. Correspondingly, unbelief is not a small or excusable failing; it is, in effect, calling God a liar, since it refuses to credit what He has plainly said.

The practical force of the chapter is an invitation rather than a puzzle to be solved from the outside. Spurgeon does not ask readers to sort out God's hidden election in the abstract; he asks whether they, personally, believe God's promises enough to act on them. Anyone who does — however weak that faith may feel — has, in that very act, the surest evidence that the promises are theirs.

Main theological themes

• The promises belong to God's chosen, made visible through genuine faith rather than religious birthright
• Faith as the God-given means by which election becomes personally certain to the believer
• Unbelief as a serious dishonor to God, not a neutral or minor shortcoming

Key ideas

• Belonging to a religious family or community does not, by itself, transfer ownership of God's promises.
• Faith is not incidental to salvation; Scripture treats it as the fitting response that honors God as truthful.
• Calling a promise into doubt is, at bottom, calling its Maker untrustworthy.
• Whoever believes God's word has, in that act, all the evidence needed that the promise belongs to them.

Important concepts

• Election — God's free, gracious choice of those who will be His own, made evident in history through their coming to genuine faith.
• Believing report — Isaiah's phrase, echoed throughout Scripture, for receiving God's word as true simply because He has spoken it.

Related Bible references

• Genesis 15:6
• John 6:28–29
• 1 John 5:10
• Romans 4:20–21

Practical Christian application

• Ask yourself plainly: do I actually take God at His word in the promises I claim to believe?
• Where doubt creeps in, treat it as seriously as Scripture does — as doubting God's own character, not a neutral feeling.
• Thank God specifically for any promise you find yourself genuinely resting upon today.

Questions for study