Anchored. That's the title.
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“In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6:17-20
The text says that our hope is anchored by the “unchangeableness” of two things, an oath and a promise. I love that word, “unchangeableness”. It speaks to the absolute reliability and permanence of anything God has said. Earlier the text says, “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,” Hebrews 6:13 In our terms, when God swore to Abraham in reality for that one time, ”God swore to God.” Jesus rebukes us for our need to swear to God or heaven or anything higher than us, and says simply that “our ‘yes’ should be ‘yes’, and our ‘no’ should be ‘no’ (Mat 5:37). Jesus is saying “if you keep your word, there is never a need to swear by it.”
But on this occasion, God swore to Himself. A promise and an oath. Then it goes on to say one of the boldest, comforting, but also frightening things about God— that it is impossible for God to lie. IMPOSSIBLE! That means that God is as faithful to follow though on His Word to bless as He is on His Word to punish. We don’t like that last part. We want to think that we will be able to talk our way out of punishment like we can with a softy police officer who pulls us over. But not so with God. God is not soft. Nor naive. When He says that if someone doesn’t receive His Son in this life they will receive eternal punishment… they will. God’s mercy is limited. Limited? How so? It is limited to the time we are on earth. Meaning that “it is appointed for man once to die, then after that the judgement (Hebrews 9:27)”. The time limit on His mercy for us is right up until our dying breath. Then, there is no more mercy available for anyone who hasn’t received His Son, only judgement.