NOTES for Heb 6:16

Reasoning about the oaths people take, the author of the letter says: if a person can swear by anything, then in any case it must be by something higher, something that represents absolute importance and value for him. It is no accident that in Israel the highest form of oath was considered an oath by the name of God.

Meanwhile, the Savior calls His disciples and followers not to swear at all: after all, what is absolutely important and valuable for a person does not belong to him, he cannot dispose of it, just as he cannot dispose of himself. Every person is in God's power, and therefore he cannot give anyone any guarantees about his own future. Against this background, the statement of the author of the letter that God swears by Himself because He cannot swear by anything or anyone higher sounds paradoxical. But if one thinks about it, it becomes clear that the matter here concerns one of the most important principles of spiritual life in general and Christian life in particular. Indeed, what is an oath? Swearing by someone or something, a person in a sense seeks a guarantor who will be able to ensure the fulfillment of the promise he has given.

The one or the thing called as witness, and an oath usually presupposes such a calling, is supposed to become the guarantor of the fulfillment of what was promised. It is quite understandable that if God gives a promise, no one and nothing can guarantee its fulfillment except God Himself. This appears quite obvious, and it is not very clear why the author of the letter suddenly decided to touch on the theme of oath. Meanwhile, many problems of Christians of that time were connected precisely with forgetting the most important principle of spiritual life just mentioned.

Many of them were probably inclined to see in the events then taking place some guarantee of the Messiah's swift return. After all, He had promised that after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple He would return, which means He must return, for in AD 70 precisely what He had spoken about took place. In reality, however, His return is not conditioned by any historical events. On the contrary, it itself determines them and, to a certain degree, conditions them as the point of completion of the historical process. And no events at all could be regarded as "forcing" the Messiah's return. It is this obvious fact that the author of the letter reminds his readers about.

We hear very bright and important words in today’s apostolic reading. “Hope is a safe and steadfast anchor for the soul, and it enters the inner place behind the veil”... Hope not only holds the soul fast so that it is not lost amid the raging waves, but also enters the hidden place, the Holy of Holies. Knowledge and reason cannot penetrate there. Only hope leads us there—openness to God’s will. We do not know what is happening to us. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. But hope has been given to us, and it sees more than we ourselves can see, because hope is His gift.

Speaking of what could become support for his readers on their difficult path, the author of the letter especially singles out readiness to support one's brothers, the "saints," that is, Christians (vv. 10-12), and hope in the immutability of the promises once given by God (vv. 13-15). He reminds them that when God swears by Himself, He does so because He cannot swear by anyone else higher than Himself (vv. 16-20). Such a statement seems completely obvious, but as we can see, it was quite relevant in a time when people were ready to doubt everything, including the covenant made with God and the promises He had given. In fact, a certain cooling of spiritual life was, as we can see, largely connected with a loss of trust: many thought that after the catastrophe of 70 all the former covenants had become obsolete, including those God made with His people through Abraham and Moses. The author of the letter insists that God remains faithful to His people, faithful to all covenants and to all promises once given.

But He gives no proofs of His faithfulness except the Messiah-High Priest, who opened to all who seek the way into the Kingdom. After all, God Himself is the highest witness to His own faithfulness, and by definition there can be no other. Strictly speaking, only the Kingdom is proof in this case: unlike Jerusalem and the Temple, it did not collapse, did not disappear, and did not close itself to the faithful. But in order to acquire it, trust is needed, and this requires a definite spiritual effort. If the one seeking an answer did not want to make that effort, if he did not even try to struggle with his distrust, then he could not receive any answer. Thus a closed circle formed, and it could be broken only by throwing oneself toward God the way people throw themselves into the water from a sinking ship: there is nothing to lose, it will not get worse, and what remains is to decide and use the last chance. And if the one seeking salvation truly made that decision, he acquired both trust in God and the Kingdom as the best proof of His faithfulness.