Promise

The promise of God is his spoken word of commitment. When Yahweh makes a promise, he binds himself to it completely. The great promises of Scripture are not hopes or wishes; they are unconditional declarations by the one who has the power and the will to fulfil what he has said.

Does God always keep his promises?

Balaam, hired to curse Israel, is forced instead to declare the reliability of Yahweh’s word: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not establish it?” (Numbers 23:19). Unlike a human promise, which can fail through weakness, forgetfulness, or a change of mind, God’s promise cannot fail, because his character does not change.

How do God’s promises unfold through Scripture?

The promises begin with the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15: the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. From that point, Yahweh’s promises narrow and deepen through history. The promise to Abraham, land, descendants, and blessing for all nations, becomes the backbone of the Old Testament. Every subsequent covenant builds on and advances what Yahweh committed himself to in Genesis 12. The New Testament declares that all of God’s promises find their “Yes” in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). The fulfilment is not a cancellation of the earlier promises but their arrival. Follow how this theme develops through the Bible.