Don't let anyone tell you God's promises are not for you and not for today.
In this post, I want to establish why the promises of God apply to you, today. In a later post, I will explain doctrinally why the promises of God to Israel and the Patriarchs are ours through adoption, but first I wanted to start on the practical side.
First, the promises God makes are inextricable (impossible to disentangle or separate) from who God is. What he does emanates and is a natural result of his character and nature. Each promise he makes is a revelation of who he is and what he does. The two cannot be separated. What he does is thoroughly consistent with who he is. The two always go together. Feel free to worship God for what he does since it always links back to who he is. You cannot be more spiritual by worshipping God for who he is and not what he does, as I've sometimes heard people proclaim. That's ridiculousness. Our experience of God's movement in our lives IS our experience of who God is.
Second, the promises God makes are still meaningful because they are inextricable from who God is. Because his promises are based on his unchanging character and nature, the value of the promises do not change. God's words are eternally significant because he is eternal. This is also why his promises are trustworthy and true: he is trustworthy and true. We can be assured he will fulfill his promises because he made the promise. The power that fulfills them is the same that spoke them.
Third, the promises God makes are still meaningful today because they are inextricable from who God is. Because God is present in past, present, and future at all times, when he speaks, his words are spoken in the past, present, and future. If you understand this concept, you begin to understand a key concept of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the tension between the now and the not yet and that our faith is both forward-looking and backward-looking.
Fourth, the promises God makes are still meaningful to you today because they are inextricable from who God is. Sometimes promises are to a specific group of people for a specific time, but far more often God makes a promise and it applies to every generation in the past and in the future, because God is present in past, present, and future. His words are spoken in the past, present, and future to the past, present, and future.
Understand The Context
That said, promises are not made in a vacuum...there is a context. The Bible contains promises God makes to specific people that are fulfilled in their lifetime or a group of people for a specific day and time. Hermaneutics is the process of evaluating scripture to understand if a particular passage is applicable to say, camp-life in the dessert or to us post-cross gentiles. However, even though the context may apply to a specific moment in time it can be based on a general principle that carries forward through the cross or on the basis of a law, contain an underlying truth that remains.
For example, under Mosaic law, a sinner was stoned. Now we follow excommunication processes with the hopes of restoration. The underlying principle Paul tells us in Galatians and 1 Corinthians is that sin spreads. That principle still remains—how we deal with it changed because of the cross.
Gideon is another example: God declares he will make him a "mighty warrior" and use him to deliver Israel. And God delivers Israel, for a time. However, since a portion of that promise still remains unfulfilled—God still wants Israel to come to him and the full freedom he promises—that part remains a promise that can be claimed. God is still Jehovah Shalom—he still delivers his people. So, if you are called to deliver God's people, then feel free to claim that promise.
Whenever God makes a promise, it's a statement or revelation of his character or revelation of what the Church Fathers called the graces: extensions of God's character and nature made available to us in our time of need. We can presume the God who rescues his people will do it again.
The Jews understood this. Over and over, they were quick to claim promises made to another generation, people, or person for their own. They did so because they understood that the promises of God flow out of God's unchanging character: If he is a God who rescues his people in the past, he will rescue them in the future.
The New Testament authors also co-opted God's promises numerous times, knowing full well the original application was for Israel. When we examine God's words, we can adopt the promises for ourselves if we are in similar situations. Like the Jews, we can also claim promises based simply on God's unchanging nature. They saw promises where none were actually spoken—they were implied.
For example, we know this to be true: "God is good. And his mercy endures forever." (Psalm 136) Not only is this a description of God and a statement of worship, but it's also a PROMISE we can claim: God is good to us. And His mercy endures to us forever.
In the case of Gideon, we can claim God's promises because God has proven himself to be a God who rescues his people. He does so by raising up a "mighty warrior" to rescue them then showing himself in miraculous ways so he gets the glory. This is a repeated theme—demonstrated by God many times. Because God demonstrates it, we know that it is consistent with who he is. His words spoken to Gideon can become ours when needed, because they are eternal, based on an eternal God who never changes.
A Swing Of The Pendulum
There's a movement to wrest away God's promises from God's people. I understand that it's a backlash against worldly proclamations of empty words or (even worse) incantations. When we claim God's promises for ourselves, we are not claiming mere words nor are we proclaiming an incantation! The words themselves are not powerful, the Speaker who first spoke them into eternity gives them the power eternally. When we proclaim the TRUTH of who God is we bring the Kingdom of Heaven into our circumstance and declare with God's authority what is true. Truth is a very important weapon in Spiritual Warfare.
I've noticed that the same people who are quick to make the promises of destruction for God's enemies relevant to today and applicable to the hedonism we see rampant in our world today are the same who hesitate—or outright deny—the application the promises of blessings to Israel are relevant to today. (I presume it's to demonstrate some kind of pride of exegesis, but I really don't know for sure.)
This is where we are wise to remind ourselves of the caution in Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19. We're not supposed to add to the words of God sent from his throne through the prophets, but we're not supposed to take away from them either.
Another Swing Of The Pendulum
On the other side, some Christians say we obligate God or God is obligated to fulfill his promises when we proclaim them. This is a little sketchy, but I understand the truth behind what they may be attempting to say. If I proclaim that God is love, do I obligate God to be love? No! I simply proclaim what is already true because the One who is True has already spoken them. He obligates himself to always be true to himself because he is Trustworthy and True. Conversely, if I proclaim that God is hate, do I obligate God to be hate? No! It's not truth. No amount of saying so makes it so because there is no power in the words themselves.
The idea that we have the power to obligate the God of the universe to anything is kind of laughable and probably borderline heretical unless you explain the missing piece of God obligating himself to be true to himself.
So, Do His Promises Matter?
When we declare truth that God has already proclaimed, does something happen in the heavenlies? Yes! Does God obligate himself to fulfill what he has already promised? Is God always true to himself? Yes! Does the Kingdom of Darkness fall back when we declare who God is? Is it a blow to the principalities and powers who have aligned themselves against God and his people? Yes! When I declare that God is for me, not against me, do I obligate God to be for me? No! If I remain in him and he in me, then he is already for me! Truth is a truth and already true. We declare God's promises not to change God's plan, but because doing so changes us.
Grace keeps God's promises to us.
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