Promises! Promises?

All of God’s word contains promises for us. These promises can be direct or indirect. Some of these are clearly conditional and some seem not to have any conditions. To live long on earth, one of the conditions is to honor our father and mother (Eph 6:2). Some people seem to think this is the only condition to live long! Can we just look at a promise in the Bible and say, “Ah, God will do this in my life?” Now we do not have space to look at the differences between the O.T and N.T promises but we need to answer this question – are all of God’s promises conditional or are there some with no conditions at all?

One of the assumptions we make is this – all of God’s promises are yes in Christ. We are in Christ. So all of the promises are yes for us.What we fail to realize is that it is the Holy Spirit who guides us into all the truth. This means that no matter how much we believe in a particular promise, we have to be led into its reality by Holy Spirit. No spiritual quickening can take place without Holy Spirit. Every word has to be confirmed. We think that for a truth to become a reality, all we need is to believe. 2 Thess 2:13 makes it clear that we are saved through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. One cannot be without the other.