God Is Keeping His Promises

ADVENT God Is Keeping His Promises

BY THE REV. CANON DR. JUSTIN S. HOLCOMB

Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, “Ascension” stained glass panel

At Advent, we celebrate God’s faithfulness to his promises in sending Jesus, and we trust that he remains faithful as we look forward to Christ’s second coming.

Throughout the Old Testament, God makes promises to his people of a future deliverer he will send. Often, his people try to develop their own plans to receive deliverance or to win God’s favor and love. But God continually points ahead to a coming savior. Isaiah 7:10–16 recounts the story of Ahaz, king of Judah at a time when the land faced a foreign invasion. Ahaz hoped for help from the king of Assyria, but the prophet Isaiah instead points to God’s ultimate divine intervention — an intervention through a baby born in Bethlehem. Isaiah says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). Something similar happens in 2 Samuel 7:1–16, when God corrects King David’s human plans by revealing his divine one. When David makes plans to build a temple, God counters that he himself will build his own “house” through David’s dynasty, ultimately dwelling among his people as God with us – Immanuel – in Jesus Christ. God promises that he will make for David a great name and an everlasting kingdom while giving his people eternal rest from enemies (2 Sam. 7:9–16). He fulfills these promises in the coming of Jesus.

Holcomb

God Delivers

With the coming of Jesus, we see God’s faithfulness. Paul tells us the gospel message was “promised beforehand through [God’s] prophets in the holy Scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son” (Rom. 1:2–3). The good news of salvation is that God has been faithful to his promise in sending Jesus Christ, his Son. At his second coming, Jesus will complete what he started. Jesus’ coming obliterates the system of sacrifices for sin and all our human attempts to save ourselves or win favor with God on our own. Because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, “It is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). When we think about Jesus’ birth and rejoice in the salvation he has brought, we have courage, knowing God is faithful to his promises.

God Is Faithful

The Advent season is a journey through the biblical story that shows us how “in [Jesus Christ] every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.’”(2 Cor. 1:20). Advent points us to Jesus, just like all scripture. At his first coming, which we celebrate at Christmas, Jesus showed us his humility, his love for us and his heart of grace toward sinners and sufferers. At his second coming, which we look forward to in Advent, he will complete what he started, bringing a final end to suffering, sin and death, restoring his creation and setting up a new kingdom of righteousness and peace.