God’s Promises

Mike Johnson

Promises are prevalent in our society.  Some try to keep their commitments, and others do not.  The promises made by many people are often not very dependable.  We see this with politicians, salespeople, employers, and in some cases, even with friends.  It is also true that the passing of time makes it less likely a promise will be fulfilled.  While the above principles are true of people, they are not true of God.  When God makes a promise, we can depend on Him keeping it.

Consider some promises made by God in the Old Testament, which reveal the nature of God’s promises.  Genesis 6 records God’s promise to destroy the wicked world through a flood.  However, God promised Noah (a righteous man) that he, along with his family, could be saved from the flood if he would build an ark according to precise specifications.  It took one hundred and twenty years for the carrying out of the promise of the flood—yet it happened. Further, God kept the conditional promise that He made to Noah to save him and his family from destruction.  In Genesis 12:1-3, God made a threefold promise to Abraham, which stated that  Abraham’s descendants would receive a land; his descendants would become a great nation, and through his “seed,” all nations of the earth would be blessed.  God fulfilled the “land” promise when He gave the land of Canaan to the Jews.  He implemented the “nation” promise as the Jews became a great nation.  The “seed” promise was fulfilled in Christ, bringing salvation to all people.  It took hundreds of years to fulfill these promises—yet, they were dependable, and time passing did not affect them.

II Peter 3 tells us of certain scoffers questioning God’s promise concerning the second coming of Christ.  They asked in verse 4, “ . . . “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” They seemed to be saying, “the course of nature goes on as usual; Christ has not yet come; therefore, he is not going to come.”  Peter counters by mentioning the lessons of the flood (vs. 5-6), and then he shows that God does not count time as we do as he points out, “ . . . that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Then he said (v. 9), “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”  Some time had passed since the promise of the second coming of Christ.  This period did not mean, however, that God was slow with his promise.  Instead, as the passage says, it was evidence of his longsuffering nature.  The fulfillment of Christ’s promise to return will happen, no matter how much time passes.

A promise made by God in 30 AD is just as valid now as it was then, and it will be as reliable in the year 4000 (if time lasts that long) as it was when God made it.  Thus, we can believe what the Bible says when it speaks of such things as the return of Christ (Acts 1:11) and the punishment of the wicked and reward of the righteous (Mt. 25:46).

We must not make the same mistake as the scoffers of II Peter 3 and think that God’s promises will not be carried out.  The passing of time does not affect them, and we can depend on them. If God’s promises concerning the second coming of Christ or the Judgment were fulfilled today, where would you stand?