The Unshakeable Anchor of the Soul Text: Hebrews 6:9-20
Introduction: A Necessary Turn
The author of Hebrews has just finished delivering one of the most severe and sobering warnings in all of Scripture. He has described the apostate, the one who has tasted the goodness of God’s word and the powers of the age to come, and who then falls away, crucifying the Son of God afresh. It is a terrifying picture, and it is meant to be. It is a warning shot across the bow of any ship that is drifting, of any Christian who is growing dull and sluggish in his faith. The warnings are not hypothetical; they describe a real danger for those in the covenant community.
But after this thunderclap, the author immediately turns. He lowers his voice, and with pastoral tenderness, he addresses his audience as "beloved." He shifts from the stark reality of apostasy to the glorious certainty of salvation. This is not a contradiction. It is the necessary balance of faithful ministry. The threat of hell is real, but the promises of God are even more real. The warnings are meant to drive us, not to despair, but to the unshakable comfort that is found in the character and promises of our God. He has just described the ship that is breaking up on the rocks, and now he turns to describe the anchor that holds fast in the storm.
This passage is a treasure chest of Christian assurance. In a world of relativism, emotionalism, and spiritual instability, we are given here the hard, objective realities upon which our hope is founded. Our assurance does not rest on the fickle tides of our feelings, but on the unchangeable character of God, the unchangeable nature of His promise, and the unchangeable reality of His oath. He wants us to have "full assurance of hope until the end," not a wavering, timid, maybe-so kind of faith. God is not glorified by His children living in a constant state of doubt about their inheritance. He is glorified when we take Him at His Word, believe His oath, and live with a robust, confident joy that is anchored behind the veil.
The Text
But we are convinced about you, beloved, of things that are better and that belong to salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and continuing to minister to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not become dull, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I WILL GREATLY BLESS YOU AND I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY YOU.” And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and confirmed and one which enters within the veil, where a forerunner has entered for us, Jesus, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
(Hebrews 6:9-20 LSB)
Good Evidence and God's Justice (v. 9-10)
The pastor here turns from the general warning to a specific encouragement for his flock.
"But we are convinced about you, beloved, of things that are better and that belong to salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and continuing to minister to the saints." (Hebrews 6:9-10)
He calls them "beloved," a term of deep pastoral affection. He is not an aloof accuser. He is a shepherd who loves his sheep, and because he loves them, he warns them. But he also sees the evidence of grace in their lives. He is persuaded of "better things" for them, things that "belong to salvation." What are these things? He tells us plainly: their work and their love.
Notice the basis for his confidence. It is not grounded in their subjective feelings or their eloquent testimonies. It is grounded in their objective fruit. They have a track record. They have shown love toward God’s name, and the proof of this vertical love is their horizontal service. How have they shown love for His name? By ministering to the saints. And this is not a past accomplishment they are coasting on; they are "continuing to minister." True faith is a working faith. It is not an abstract noun; it is an active verb.
And here we come to a startling and glorious truth. The author connects their assurance to the very character of God. "For God is not unrighteous so as to forget your work." Think about that. For God to disregard the genuine fruit of salvation in your life would be an act of injustice on His part. God is the righteous judge. When His Spirit produces genuine works of love and service in a believer's life, He is bound by His own righteous character to acknowledge and remember them. These works do not earn our salvation, not in the slightest. But they are the necessary evidence of it. They are the family resemblance. God will not disown His own children, and He will not forget the love they show to their brothers and sisters for His name’s sake. This is a profound comfort. Your labor in the Lord, however small or unseen, is not in vain, and it is not forgotten by a just God.
Diligence, Not Dullness (v. 11-12)
The desire of the pastor is that this assurance would be the possession of every single one of them, and that it would spur them on to the very end.
"And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not become dull, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6:11-12)
Assurance is not a passive state of being. It is something to be realized, to be laid hold of through diligence. He wants them to show the same "diligence" in pursuing assurance that they have shown in ministering to the saints. This is not a call to navel-gazing, but a call to persevere in the very things that are the evidence of salvation. Full assurance is the opposite of being "dull" or sluggish. A lazy Christian will always be a doubting Christian. Why? Because he is disobeying the command to be diligent, and he is failing to produce the fruit that would give him objective evidence of his standing with God.
And we are not without examples. We are to be "imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. The great cloud of witnesses, men like Abraham whom he is about to mention, did not receive the promises through a flash of emotional excitement. They received them through a long obedience in the same direction. They had faith, believing God's word when all circumstances seemed to contradict it. And they had patience, or long-suffering endurance, waiting for God to fulfill His word in His time. If we want their inheritance, we must walk in their footsteps. Faith and patience are the legs upon which the Christian runs his race.
God's Unchangeable Promise to Abraham (v. 13-15)
To ground this hope, the author takes us back to the patriarch Abraham, the father of all who believe.
"For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, 'I WILL GREATLY BLESS YOU AND I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY YOU.' And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise." (Genesis 6:13-15)
Here is the bedrock. Our hope is not based on our performance, but on God's promise. And God's promise to Abraham is the paradigm for all His promises to us. When God made His covenant with Abraham, He did something extraordinary. Men swear by someone or something greater than themselves to confirm their word. But for God, there is no one greater. So, in an act of stunning condescension, God swore by Himself. He put His own divine nature and eternal existence on the line. He was essentially saying, "May I cease to be God if I fail to do this."
The promise was one of abundant blessing and multiplication. And the text says that Abraham, after having "patiently waited," obtained it. He waited decades for Isaac. He waited his whole life, living as a sojourner in a land that was promised to him but that he never possessed. Yet he obtained the promise because he died in faith, assured that God would be true to His word. He saw the promises from afar and greeted them. His patience was not a grim holding on; it was the fruit of his faith in the promise-maker.
Two Unchangeable Things (v. 16-18)
The author now applies this principle directly to us, the heirs of that same promise.
"For men swear by one greater than themselves... In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us." (Hebrews 6:16-18)
God's purpose was already certain because it was His purpose. His word was already true because it was His word. But "desiring even more" to show us the absolute, rock-solid certainty of His plan, He added an oath to His promise. He did this for our sake, for the "heirs of the promise," which includes all who are in Christ.
So we have "two unchangeable things": God's promise and God's oath. And in both of these things, "it is impossible for God to lie." This is not a limitation on God's power. It is a statement about His perfect, holy character. Lying is a contradiction of who He is. A God who could lie would not be God. Therefore, our hope is not resting on one pillar, but two. It is doubly secure. The purpose of this double guarantee is explicit: that we might have "strong encouragement." This is not a weak, flimsy hope. It is a robust, muscular confidence.
And who is this for? It is for "we who have taken refuge." This pictures us as fugitives, running from the just wrath of God against our sin, like the man who fled to a city of refuge in the Old Testament. We have fled from our own righteousness, from the accusations of the law, and from the condemnation of our own hearts, and we have taken refuge in Christ. For us, this doubly-guaranteed promise is where we find our safety and our strong encouragement to "take hold of the hope set before us." Hope is not just a passive feeling; it is an object that we must actively seize.
The Anchor Behind the Veil (v. 19-20)
Finally, he gives us one of the most powerful and beautiful metaphors for Christian hope in all of Scripture.
"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and confirmed and one which enters within the veil, where a forerunner has entered for us, Jesus, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 6:19-20)
Our hope is an anchor for the soul. In the ancient world, the anchor was a symbol of safety and security. When the storms of life hit, when the waves of doubt, or suffering, or temptation threaten to drive us onto the rocks, this hope holds us fast. It is "sure and confirmed" (or steadfast). It doesn't drag. It doesn't break.
But notice where this anchor is fixed. A normal anchor is cast down, into the unseen depths of the sea. Our anchor is cast up, into the unseen reality of heaven. It "enters within the veil." This is the veil of the temple, the curtain that separated sinful man from the holy presence of God. But for us, that veil has been torn in two by the death of Christ. Our anchor is not lodged in the shifting sands of this world, or in our own abilities, or in our religious experiences. It is fixed in the very throne room of God.
And we are not anchored to a place, but to a person. Jesus has entered there as our "forerunner." A forerunner was not just someone who went ahead; he was the one who went ahead to prepare the way for others who were sure to follow. His entrance guarantees ours. He is there for us. And in what capacity is He there? As our "high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." This sets the stage for the entire next section of Hebrews. Jesus is not a temporary priest like Aaron's sons. He is an eternal priest-king, forever interceding for us, forever representing us in the presence of the Father. Our hope is secure because our High Priest is eternally effective, and He has permanently anchored us to the unshakeable reality of God Himself.