120 The Promises of God - Talk 1 - The Bible is not a promise box - a podcast by Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal

Great Bible Truths Podcast Episode 120

The Promises of God Talk 1

The Bible is not a promise box

 

In this series we’ll be looking at what the New Testament teaches about God’s wonderful promises and learning how to identify, understand, and receive them. But first let me tell you about my grandmother’s promise box.

 

Ellen Petts died at the age of 86 when I was just 16. She had lived with us for the last six years of her life and I had had plenty of opportunity to witness the evidence of her strong Christian faith - the time she spent in prayer and reading her Bible, her determination to get to church every Sunday, her perseverance despite the loss of her husband at a relatively young age and the physical difficulties that came with advancing years.

 

Another evidence of her faith was her promise box. This contained pieces of paper, each rolled into a scroll with a verse of the Bible written on it. The idea was that you could pull out a scroll at random each day to see what the Lord wanted to say to you that day.

 

I’m not sure how seriously my grandmother took this, or whether she made it a regular practice, but the problems with promise boxes should be obvious. The verses are never read in their context and the things that God might want to say to us are limited to the number of scrolls in the box. And, although God undoubtedly does make promises to his people, that’s surely not all that he has to say to us? Doesn’t he sometimes give us commands?

 

I’m glad to say that I’ve seen little evidence of promise boxes in Christian circles today, but I am concerned that some people treat the Bible itself rather like a promise box. They take verses at random and claim them without regard to the context in the belief that God is now honour bound to do for them whatever they understand the verse to be saying!

 

I will be dealing with this in more detail later in the series, but here’s an example of what I mean. In Genesis 12:1-2 God tells Abraham that he will make him the father of great nation.

 

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing...

 

I will make of you a great nation is certainly one of God’s promises found in the Bible, but it was made to a specific person at a specific time and clearly cannot be claimed by a Christian today, although we can certainly learn from Abraham’s story that God does keep his promises and we can expect him to do so for us today.

 

But can’t some Bible verses be understood as promises for today? Of course they can. Indeed, there is a sound biblical basis for this. For example, in Ephesians 6:1-3  Paul quotes Exodus 20:12 and says:

 

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honour your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

 

But this does not mean that every verse in the Bible is a promise. Some are commands, some are questions, some are expressions of praise, and some are simply statements of fact. Nor does it mean that all the verses that are promises are promises for you and me, as we just saw in the case of Abraham.

 

So it’s going to be important that we examine very carefully what the New Testament actually teaches about God’s promises and we’ll begin by looking at 2 Peter 1:1-4, where Peter describes God’s promises as precious and very great. As we continue in the series we’ll be learning how to identify, understand, and receive these wonderful promises of God.

 

2 Peter 1:1-4 (ESV)

1. Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ:
2. May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
4. by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

 

The word Peter uses is epaggelma which is a variant of epaggelia (pronounced epangelma or epangelia) which has been defined as:

 

• a divine assurance of good
• a self committal by assurance of conferring some good.

 

So when God makes a promise it is his assurance of something good he is going to do for us.

Now let’s look in more detail at the passage we have just read. In it we learn who God’s promises are for and what his purpose is in making them.

 

Who God’s promises are for

Peter says that God’s promises are granted to ‘us’ (v4). His readers have obtained a faith of equal standing with his (v1). They have escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire (v4). This is not through any merit of their own, but by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ (v1). Notice carefully how Jesus is described here. He is our God and Saviour. Through his sinless life and sacrificial atoning death all those who, and only those who, have come to faith in Jesus as their God and Saviour have access to these precious and very great promises.

 

God’s purpose in making these promises

But God’s purpose for our lives is much more than escaping from the consequences of sin. He has called us to his own glory and excellence (v3). He wants us to become partakers of his nature (v4). He has already granted us everything we need to live godly lives (v3). He has accomplished this by making it possible for us to know him (vv2-3). And we know him because of his very great and precious promises (v4).

 

So, God wants us to know him, he wants us to be like him, he wants us to share in his glory. And to make this possible he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

 

What specific promises is Peter referring to here?

Now in the immediate context Peter does not tell us what these promises are. But, as we shall see in our next talk, New Testament writers tend to use the word promise to refer to major aspects of our Christian faith like the promise of the Holy Spirit and the promise of Christ’s return. Preaching on the day of Pentecost Peter refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit as the promise which may be received by all who repent and are baptised (Acts 2:38), and in 2 Peter 3:9 and 13 he talks of the promise of Christ’s second coming.

 

It seems likely that it is these promises that Peter has in mind when he says that God has given us promises in order that we might be like him and ultimately share in his glory. The verses which follow clearly support this view. It only through the gift of God’s Spirit and the fruit that he produces in our lives (cf. Galatians 5:22-23) that we can hope to increase in the qualities Peter talks about in verses 5-8.

 

5. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,
6. and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
7. and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
8. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

And it is the promise of the Lord’s return that gives us the incentive!

 

11. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

So the purpose of God’s promises is that we might know him, become increasingly more like him, and ultimately share in his glory. No wonder Peter calls them precious and very great!

 

But for his promises to become effective in our lives we will need to:

 

• Identify them
• Understand them
• Receive them

 

The talks in this series will help you to do just that.

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