6. An Anchor for Our Souls Hebrews 6:13 – 7:28
HEBREWS CHAPTER 6 VERSE 13 TO 7 VERSE 28
6. An Anchor for Our Souls
6. An Anchor for Our Souls Hebrews 6:13 – 7:28
A number of years ago, my wife, Melissa, and I went sailing with some friends in the British Virgin Islands. One day we were out on the sea and everything seemed to be fine—it was just a little overcast. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a storm rolled in, pulling us out into the ocean. The rain was coming down so hard that visibility was only about a hundred feet. Big waves were rocking the boat. Lightning was crashing around us. Then our GPS system shut down, and we no longer knew where we were. I really thought we were in big trouble.
Eventually the storm calmed down, and we made our way into the harbor. As we dropped anchor in the harbor, I remember thinking, “I hope it holds!” I did not want to wake up at one o’clock in the morning to find we were out again in the ocean. In weather like that, we needed something solid to hold us in position.
In Hebrews 6:19, the writer speaks about “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” In the Christian life, you are going to get beaten around by waves. It can feel like you are about to be pulled away by the currents—things that make you doubt God. That might be pain in your life and the lives of others, or terrible news stories, or hostility from unbelievers, or something else. What you need more than anything, if you are going to hold to your faith, is an anchor. And we have one. This is what the writer to the Hebrews wants to remind us of. He encourages us with the truth that we can trust God because of Jesus.
In 6:13-19 our author uses the example of the promise God made to Abraham to assure us that we can trust God’s promise to us. Then 6:20 leads us into chapter 7, where our author explains more about why we can trust Jesus above all.
Doubting God’s Promises
Think about the promises God has made to you in his word. He has promised to meet your needs (Luke 12:22-31). He has promised to hear your prayers (Matthew 7:7-11). He has promised never to forsake you or leave you (Hebrews 13:5). He has promised to forgive you of your sins if you trust in Christ (Ephesians 1:7). He has promised to strengthen you and to dwell within you by his Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:16). He has promised one day to bring you into glory (Colossians 3:4).
But so often there remains a tickle of doubt in the back of the mind.
Our author knows that and pulls in the story of Abraham as an example of trusting God when it is hard to do so.
In Hebrews 6:13-14 the author is pointing the reader back to Genesis 22:16-17. This is the chapter in which God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed and was right at the point of sacrificing his son when God stopped him and provided a ram to take Isaac’s place. It is a picture of how God provides a substitute for our sins.
Imagine the anguish that Abraham must have felt at the moment when God gave him that command! It was not just that Abraham loved his son and did not want to lose him. It was that God had promised Abraham several times that he was going to give him descendants and fill the earth with them (Genesis 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 17:4; 18:18). Abraham and his wife Sarah had waited and waited, and finally they had had a son, Isaac—the key to God’s promise. Abraham must have wondered how God could keep his promise to give him many descendants if he took his son’s life.
We have the same kinds of doubts. Is God really going to keep his promises? Maybe you doubt that you are really saved. Maybe you doubt God’s goodness. Maybe you doubt that God really loves you. Maybe you doubt that there is really life after death.
How can we persevere in the midst of such doubts? We can use Abraham as an example. Remember that Abraham did not see the realization of God’s promise straight away. He “patiently waited” (Hebrews 6:15). God does things on his own timetable, not ours; and he often uses means that we do not expect. That can make us start to doubt. But we need to follow Abraham’s example and wait patiently, obediently, and peaceably.
Yet, second, we can also actively fight our doubts. The Christian life should be one of assurance because we are certain about who God is. The Christian church should not be a place where people cannot express their doubts and concerns; but nor should we act as if doubt is all there is. The Bible reassures us that we can trust God. This is what enables us to persevere.
God reassures us here in Hebrews 6:13-20 that we have great reasons to trust his promises. There are three strands in the anchor rope: God’s oath, God’s character, and God’s Son.
Trusting God’s Oath
God had already promised Abraham that he would bless and multiply him, but he reinforced that promise by swearing an oath. In verse 13 we hear that God “swore by himself.” This is further explained in verse 16: “For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation.”
In a court of law, when you are about to give a testimony, you put your hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and add “So help me God.” You are promising that what you are about to say is trustworthy because you are swearing on a higher power.
If we swear by God when we make an oath, what can God himself swear by? There is nothing and no one higher than him. That is why “he swore by himself.” God is the guarantor of his own promises because he is the very highest authority.
Remember, God did not need to swear an oath. His promises are always true. But he swore an oath to Abraham in order to help him. He recognizes how weak we are—how many doubts we have—and he gives us an extra layer of assurance. He swore this oath “to show more convincingly … the unchangeable character of his purpose” (v 17). God’s oath is an act of grace—not because his word is in doubt but because we are in doubt.
But this oath was not just to reassure Abraham. God wanted to convince “the heirs of the promise.”
As surprising as it may be, the oath that God swore to Abraham is partly about you. “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29; see also Romans 4:11-12, 16-17). In Christ, you are part of God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham’s family. And if Abraham “obtained the promise” (Hebrews 6:15), you will too.
Trusting God’s Character
The second of our three strands is God’s character. This is closely related to his oath. God has sworn an oath on himself; we can trust that oath because we know who God is.
When a person makes a promise to you, why do you believe it? Probably because you know that person: you’ve spent time with them, and you trust them. You know they are honest and reliable. The same goes for trusting God.
In verses 17-18 our author points out that you can be sure of God’s promises, not only because he swears by them but also because of the nature of God himself.
First, God desired to show “the unchangeable character of his purpose” (v 17). This tells you something about the way God is. His purpose doesn’t change. He doesn’t back out of things. Second, “it is impossible for God to lie” (v 18). God does not say one thing and then do another. He does not deceive us.
Why was Abraham willing to sacrifice his son? Genesis doesn’t tell us what was going through his mind, but the book of Hebrews does, later on in 11:19: “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead.” Abraham was so sure that God would keep his promises—so sure that God would bless his offspring—that he believed that if he took Isaac’s life, God would raise him from the dead. How amazing is that confidence? Abraham had absolute assurance that God would keep his promises; he knew that he was the kind of God who could even raise people from the dead.
If we lack this kind of confidence in God’s character, there are plenty of ways to build it again. We could look back at our own lives and the good track record he has with us. We should certainly read the Bible, which contains the history of how God has dealt with his people over thousands and thousands of years; it will help us understand and trust God’s character. We can also read good books on theology to help us to understand God better. And we need to spend time with him in prayer, investing in a devotional life in order to build confidence that God is the kind of God who delivers on his promises.
Trusting God’s Son
These “two unchangeable things”—God’s oath and God’s character—give us “strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (6:18). But in verses 19-20 we learn that there is also a third strand to the anchor rope: God’s Son.
“We have this as a 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.”
Why should you be confident that God is going to keep his promises? Because of what Jesus has done. That is the essence of this anchor of the soul.
Jesus has gone “behind the curtain” (verse 19). The curtain is what you would have seen if you had gone to worship at the temple in the first century. The Most Holy Place, where God’s presence dwelt, was blocked off by a huge curtain. It sent a clear theological message: God is holy and as a sinful person you cannot have access to him.
But Jesus has actually gone behind the curtain, so to speak. He acted as our great high priest. He has gone into the heavenly Most Holy Place “as a forerunner on our behalf” (v 20). That means that the work of Christ paved the way for us so that we too can have access to God. When Jesus died on the cross, that temple curtain was ripped in half (Matthew 27:51). This happened in order to show that we now have access to God and intimate fellowship with him. That was God’s whole purpose in sending his Son. What greater reassurance that God keeps his promises do you need?
Anchors typically go down. But this anchor of the soul goes up. It is an anchor in heaven for you to hold onto. If you are in Christ, you have a place there that will never be taken away. This is the hope set before us, to which we must hold fast (Hebrews 6:18).
We can trust God because of his oath, because of his character, and because of his Son. These assurances are all external to us—they do not depend on us but are objectively real outside of us. Even if you are full of doubts, you can trust the truth of who God is and what Jesus has done. When the storms come, instead of looking around at our problems or inward at ourselves, we need to look forward to the day when we will be with Christ.
The Order of Melchizedek
But verse 20 doesn’t stop there. Our author adds one more phrase. Jesus entered the Most Holy Place on our behalf, “having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Melchizedek has been mentioned briefly before (5:6, 10), but this still feels like a curveball. Who is Melchizedek? And what does he have to do with our confidence in Christ? The first few verses of chapter 7 begin the explanation.
In Genesis 14, Abraham was coming back from a battle. His nephew Lot had been taken captive; Abraham and his men had pursued the captors, defeated them, and brought back Lot along with the spoils of victory (Genesis 14:8-16). On the way back, he met Melchizedek (14:18-20) and gave him a tenth part of all the spoils.
Melchizedek is a historical figure, a real person. But, more importantly, he is also a type of Christ—a figure who points forward to Jesus and what he would do. Such historical figures, events, and institutions in the Old Testament were set up by God intentionally to point forward to the coming Savior and let people know what he would be like.
Melchizedek was “the king of Salem” (Hebrews 7:1). This means that he was actually the king of Jerusalem: Salem would become Jerusalem. But he was also the “priest of the Most High God.” Melchizedek was both king and priest at the same time. No other figure in the Bible ever held both offices—until Jesus.
In 6:20 our author quotes Psalm 110:4 and tells us that it is about Jesus. The person addressed as “a priest … after the order of Melchizedek” is a king (as verses 1-2 of the psalm reveal). So being “after the order of Melchizedek” means being like Melchizedek—being both priest and king. Psalm 110 predicted such a figure: the coming Messiah.
Melchizedek’s name and title also point to Jesus (Hebrews 7:2). The name “Melchizedek” literally means “king of righteousness.” Salem is a variant of the word shalom, which means peace. So, he is also a “king of peace.” Both phrases describe Jesus (see Isaiah 9:6; 11:4).
Hebrews 7:3 tells us that Melchizedek resembled Jesus in another way: he seemed eternal. “He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.”
What does that mean? Was he an angel, not a human being? Was he a vision of Christ himself?
No, it seems that Melchizedek was a real human, and thus would have had a real father and mother. But the way that Melchizedek is presented in Scripture makes it seem that he pops in and pops out without a beginning or an end. He shows up on the scene out of nowhere and then disappears. We are not told anything about his parents nor where he comes from. So, he seems eternal. Therefore, he is a very effective type of Christ: “resembling the Son of God.”
Why does all this matter? Why bring Melchizedek up? It is to show that Christ’s priesthood is superior to the Old Testament Levitical priesthood—and that should give us confidence.
Maybe that explanation just gives you more questions! But stepping through the remainder of Hebrews 7 will help us to understand more.