November 19, 2025 - Hebrews 6

Even as those who understand that salvation is fully of grace, we tend to fall back into a legalistic sort of thinking, e.g., “I have done well, today.  God’s love toward me must be great.  On the other hand, yesterday, I was not nearly as faithful.  God’s love toward me surely was weakened.”  We still struggle with the thought that, by our own works, we must gain God’s favor.  It’s this sort of thinking that the writer of Hebrews addresses when he warns that we must not be “laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (6:1-2).  Rather, we must be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (6:12).  We are the heirs of promise, God guaranteeing our salvation.  To him we “have fled for refuge” (6:18).  “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (6:19-20).

Tho’ the angry surges roll

On my tempest-driven soul,

I am peaceful, for I know,

Wildly though the winds may blow,

I’ve an anchor safe and sure,

That can evermore endure.

And it holds, my anchor holds:

Blow your wildest, then, O gale,

On my bark so small and frail;

By His grace I shall not fail,

For my anchor holds, my anchor holds.   --W. C. Martin (1902)