Hebrews 6:13 to 20 · Passage · Hope
The Anchor of the Soul
The passage ends the sixth chapter of Hebrews, after a warning against falling away, and leads into the letter's teaching on the priesthood of Jesus.
Every other anchor in the New Testament belongs to Paul's storm-driven ship in Acts 27, where the sailors dropped four from the stern and prayed for daybreak.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,
- The passage
- Hebrews 6:13 to 20
- Book
- Hebrews
- Hold in memory
- Hebrews 6:19
Summary
The writer to the Hebrews wanted his readers to keep their hope to the very end, and in Hebrews 6:13 to 20 he shows what that hope stands on. He grounds it in God's word to Abraham, confirmed in the strongest way people knew, and in the priesthood of Jesus. Because neither can fail, he calls the hope certain and gives it a picture from the sea.
- God swore by Himself when He made His promise to Abraham, because He had no one greater to swear by.
- Hebrews counts the promise and the oath as two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.
- Hope fastened to God's word holds the soul steady, as an anchor holds a ship.
- The anchor reaches behind the curtain into the inner sanctuary, where Jesus has entered as forerunner on behalf of believers.
- A second oath of God, in Psalm 110:4, made the Son a priest forever, and Hebrews 7 ties the hope to that priesthood.
An Oath Sworn by God Himself
Verses 13 to 15 rest the believer's hope on an oath God swore in Genesis 22.
In these verses the writer steadies readers who are in danger of growing sluggish. He points them to Abraham, the first heir of the promise, and to Jesus, the forerunner who has gone ahead of them. The passage is a chief text of hope, the confident expectation of what God has promised, because it explains why that expectation can be called certain.
Two questions run through it. Why would God add an oath to a word that was already true? And what is the anchor of hope fixed to, if it holds the soul and yet reaches behind a curtain?
We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.The writer's argument from verse 13 on answers the diligence he asks for here.
saying, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.Verses 13 and 14 quote these words, so this is the oath the passage means.
The writer to the Hebrews draws one point from that scene: God had already given Abraham the promise, and on Moriah, after Abraham bound Isaac, He added an oath to it.
The Promise, the Oath and the Anchor
Verses 13 to 20 move from a word spoken to Abraham to a person who has entered God's presence.
The promise and the oath make the hope secure, and the anchor and the forerunner show where it is fixed.
| Verse | What the passage names | The words of the Berean text | The Greek word and what it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrews 6:13 to 15 | The promise | I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants. | Epangeilamenos, having made His promise, shares its root with epangelias, the word for the promise in verse 17. |
| Hebrews 6:16 to 17 | The oath | He guaranteed it with an oath. | Horkō, by an oath, stands beside emesiteusen, the verb the Berean text renders guaranteed. |
| Hebrews 6:18 to 19 | The anchor | an anchor for the soul, firm and secure | Agkuran, an anchor, is described by two adjectives the interlinear glosses sure and unshakable. |
| Hebrews 6:20 | The forerunner | where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf | Prodromos, forerunner, stands only here in the New Testament. |
Verses 16 to 20, from the Oath to the Curtain
The writer explains why God swore, who takes hold of the hope, and where the anchor is fixed.
Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument.The writer argues from human practice to God's, beginning with what his readers already knew.
So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath.The verse turns on the word unchanging: God swore to make plain that His purpose would stand.
Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.This is the verse that ties the oath of Genesis 22 to the encouragement of believers in the writer's own day.
The Greek participle kataphugontes, which the Berean text renders have fled, is glossed in the interlinear having fled for refuge. The hope is pictured as a place of safety that believers have run to and now grasp.
where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.Verse 20 names Jesus both forerunner and high priest forever, so the one who went ahead remains there.
Hebrews 6:18, Hebrews 6:20
Behind the Curtain of the Sanctuary
Verse 19 sets the anchor beyond the veil of the tabernacle, in the inner sanctuary.
And the LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.Leviticus 16 is the chapter of the Day of Atonement, when the high priest went behind the veil once a year.
The Greek katapetasma, curtain or veil, stands six times in the New Testament. Three are the Gospels' accounts of the veil of the temple torn in two when Jesus died, and the other three are in Hebrews.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body,Chapter 10 is the letter's last word on the curtain, and it answers how believers follow the forerunner of Hebrews 6:20.
A Priest Forever in Melchizedek's Order
The title in verse 20 comes from Psalm 110, which the writer reads in chapter 7.
The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind: “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”This is the oath the writer sets beside God's oath to Abraham.
And none of this happened without an oath. For others became priests without an oath, but Jesus became a priest with an oath by the One who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’” Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.The writer had quoted the psalm in Hebrews 5:6 without its oath, and here he builds his argument on the oath.
How the Passage Has Been Taught
John Wesley and Albert Barnes explained the passage verse by verse in their notes on the New Testament.
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, explained the fleeing of verse 18 as "After having been tossed by many storms". His note brings the sea of the anchor picture into the verse before it.
1798 to 1870 · Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes explained on verse 20 that a forerunner "is one who goes before others to prepare the way". He concluded, "The meaning here is, that Jesus went first into the heavenly sanctuary."
Two Readings of the Anchor
Commentators have read the anchor of verse 19 as a picture from the sea and as a picture from the sanctuary, and each reading meets an objection from the text.
The anchor read as a ship's anchorAlbert Barnes
Albert Barnes read the anchor from the sea: "Hope accomplishes for the soul the same thing which an anchor does for a ship. It makes it fast and secure" (Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on Hebrews 6:19).
Fearing that we would run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daybreak.Luke's account of the storm shows what an anchor did for a ship in danger, the picture Barnes reads into Hebrews 6:19.
The objection: verse 19 carries the anchor into the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, so the picture ends in the sanctuary.
The anchor read as fixed in the heavenly sanctuaryJohn Wesley
John Wesley read the anchor as "Entering into heaven itself, and fixed there". On the curtain he added, "Thus he slides back to the priesthood of Christ" (Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, on Hebrews 6:19).
For Christ did not enter a man-made copy of the true sanctuary, but He entered heaven itself, now to appear on our behalf in the presence of God.The letter's own later words place Christ's entry in the presence of God, the reading Wesley gives the anchor.
The objection: verse 19 opens with a sailor's picture, "an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19), before it turns to the curtain.
Holding Fast to the Hope
Edward Mote's hymn "My hope is built on nothing less" takes up the anchor of verse 19 and the oath of verse 17. Its second stanza says, "in every high and stormy gale, / my anchor holds within the veil", and its third begins, "His oath, his covenant, his blood, / support me in the whelming flood".
Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.This command is the practical end of chapter 6, written four chapters later.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (TAGNT), Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0, with Strong's numbers, morphology, glosses and transliterations.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Hebrews 6:18 and 6:19.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Hebrews 6:19 and 6:20.
- Edward Mote, "My hope is built on nothing less" (1834), stanzas 2 and 3, in the representative text of Worship and Rejoice (2003) as Hymnary.org prints it.
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