2 Corinthians 1:20; Psalm 89:3,4; Psalm 89:28-36
All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.
My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Why did God not swear by His truth, His wisdom, or by His Power? He was about to proclaim a great truth to the house of David, and, intending to impart the greatest force, solemnity, and beauty to that truth, He swears by His “holiness.”
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It appears that it was not a matter of small importance; it being certain that God would not interpose His holy name in reference to what was of no consequence. He affirms that He sware “by His holiness,” because a greater than Himself is not to be found, by whom He could swear.
JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): It is the beauty of the Divine Being Himself; not so much a separate attribute of His nature, as the perfection of all His attributes.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: It is as if He said, “Holiness is my most illustrious perfection, my grandest attribute; and by it I swear that I will make good my word, that I not lie unto David.” For as “men, verily swear by the greater,” Hebrews 6:16, so He swears by His holiness, His greatest perfection and highest glory.
AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (1713-1778): Do you suppose that this was spoken to David, in his own person only? No, indeed; but to David as the antitype, figure, and forerunner of Jesus Christ…And they are the “sure mercies” of our spiritual David—Christ. “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David,” Isaiah 55:3.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Saints of the Most High who are standing in the region of doubt and are enshrouded by dark providences and are led to ask, “Will God make good the promise upon which He has caused my soul to rest?” should look much to this great truth: God has sworn by His holiness that He will not lie.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): In seasons of deep affliction, when, through unbelief, we are ready to think that God has forsaken and forgotten us, it is well to look back to God’s covenant engagements, whereon, as on a rock, we may stand firm amidst the tempest that surrounds us.
THOMAS LYE (1621-1684): When our heavenly Father is forced to put forth His anger, He then makes use of a father’s rod, not an executioner’s axe. He will neither break His children’s bones, nor His own covenant. He lashes in love, in measure, in pity and compassion.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod.” Not with the sword, not with death and destruction; but still with a smarting, tingling, painful rod. Saints must smart if they sin, and God will see to that. He hates sin too much not to visit it, and He loves His saints too well not to chasten them.
WOLFGANG MUSCULUS (1497-1563): He does not say, I will visit “them” with the rod; but, I will visit “their transgression” with the rod. We ought to think perpetually, what it is that the rod of God visits in us, that we may confess our transgressions, and amend our lives.
JEAN DAILLÉ (1594-1670): God here says two things—first, that He will chastise them; Next, that He will not, on that account, cast them out of His covenant. “Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.”
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): What a blessed “nevertheless” this is, and how sweetly doth it come in here, to give relief to a poor sin-beaten, tempted, and fallen soul! Though poor and wretched, and wanderers from the Lord, as the best of Christ’s children are in themselves, yet in Jesus are they still viewed—and in Him, the Beloved, they are accepted. God the Father hath an eye to His covenant engagements, to His word, to His oath, to His own free everlasting love, and to the ransom which He hath received for their redemption…There is everlasting efficacy, everlasting worth and virtue in the blood of the Lamb; and His blood and righteousness plead more for thee than all thy infirmities cry against thee. Oh, precious Jesus! Oh, gracious God and Father in Christ!
JEAN DAILLÉ: The heavenly Father loves the blood and the marks of His Christ which He sees upon them, and the remains of faith and godliness which are preserved hidden in the depth of their heart; this is why He will not cast them off.
AUGUSTUS TOPLADY: “His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” Therefore, the promise imports that Christ shall reign, not simply as a person in the Godhead (which He ever did, ever will, and ever must); but relatively, as a mediator, and in His office-character as the deliverer and king of Zion. Hence it follows, that His people cannot be lost.
OLIVER CROMWELL (1599-1658): God is bound in faithfulness to Christ, and in Him, to us. The Covenant is without us; a transaction between God and Christ. Look up to it. God engageth in it to pardon us; to write His law in our heart, to plant His fear so that we shall never depart from Him. We, under all our sins and infirmities, can daily offer a perfect Christ; thus we have peace and safety, and an apprehension of love, from a Father in Covenant—Who cannot deny Himself. And truly in this is all my salvation; and this helps me to bear my great burdens.
JOHN CALVIN: It is a token of singular loving-kindness for Him, upon seeing us prone to distrust, to provide a remedy for it so compassionately. We have, therefore, so much the less excuse if we do not embrace, with true and unwavering faith, His promise which is so strongly ratified, since in His deep interest about our salvation, He does not withhold His oath, that we may yield entire credence to His Word. If we do not reckon His simple promise sufficient, He adds His oath, as it were, for a pledge—the oath is irrevocable, and that therefore we have not the least reason to be apprehensive of any inconstancy.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): And there needs no second oath, the one already made is of endless obligation.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: He has bound Himself by this solemn oath to make good to the letter His very precious promise.—You have the warrant and the encouragement to trust in God, to confide in His Word, and to resign yourself and all your interests into His Fatherly, faithful, though chastening hands.
WILLIAM GREENHILL (1591-1677): Man’s faith may fail him some; but God’s faithfulness never fails him: God will not suffer His faithfulness to fail.
JOHN STEVENSON (1798-1858): Who dares deny that the promise of the living God is an absolute security?
HUDSON TAYLOR (1832-1905): He means just what He says, and will do all that He has promised.
ROBERT HAWKER: Think of these things; give thyself wholly to the meditation of them.
