Flip through this week’s junk mail and you’ll likely find dozens of deals that seem too good to be true. Sure enough, when you read the fine print you’ll discover that “certain restrictions apply,” “quantities are limited,” “offer subject to change without notice,” or “price doesn’t include shipping and handling.” Each promotion contains an asterisk—a conditional caveat.
However, you’ll never find fine print in the promises of God.
Unlike fallible human beings, God is always faithful to His Word. Therefore, every promise God makes can be trusted without suspicion. This fact should make the anticipation of a Messiah greater and the arrival of the Messiah more glorious for His people.
We continue our journey toward Christmas with a multi-branched family tree in Matthew 1:1-17. This is the kind of text we might be tempted to mindlessly skip over—ancient history with seemingly little relevance for life today. The writer announces, “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham” and lists more than 40 individuals who were “the father of” somebody else. The passage is divided into three sections: from Abraham to David (vv. 2-6), from David to the Babylon exile (vv. 6-11), and from Babylon to the birth of Jesus (vv. 12-16). With each name, an important truth emerges: History hinges on a promise.
Take a moment to look at just three of the names.
When Matthew mentioned Abraham, his Jewish readers would have instantly remembered God’s covenant with their forefather in Genesis 12. God promised Abraham and his posterity the inheritance of a distant land, the vast multiplication of descendants and a wealth of spiritual blessings as the favored people of God. Over the next few chapters, God reaffirmed this covenant. Consider Genesis 22:16-18:
“I swear by myself,… I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”
Don’t miss that the word “offspring” is singular—a significant grammatical detail. God was not simply promising that the world would be blessed through the Jews. God was promising that the world would be blessed through Jesus, the eventual offspring of the Jewish people. This is a Messianic promise.
Fast forward to the fourteenth name on Matthew’s list: King David (v. 6). God had promised him “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). This wasn’t only a guarantee that David’s immediate family line would continue, but also that through David, God would establish an everlasting kingdom. This royal promise would be fulfilled when Jesus, descended from David’s tribal line of Judah, was born “the Son of David” (Matthew 21:9) and announced the eternal Kingdom of God.
Fast forward once again to Zerubbabel, a leader of God’s people after the Babylonian exile (v. 13). As the Jews sifted through the rubble to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, God spoke to Zerubbabel and promised,
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” (Haggai 2:6-9)
These verses are rich with Messianic hope. Whose birth shook the heavens and the earth? Who is the most desired among people everywhere? Who filled the temple in Jerusalem with great glory the moment He stepped into it? Who brought peace? The answer, of course, is Jesus.
The undercurrent of human history is that God has been making and keeping a promise to send a Savior who would graciously redeem people and gloriously reign forever.
GOD’S PROMISES FOR YOU
What does this mean for us some 2000 years later? It means God can be trusted. We are frequently disappointed by parents, spouses, neighbors, bosses, politicians, customer service and more. But God never fails.
The Bible declares, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19). This means that all the promises God has made are trustworthy and true. You’ll never find any fine print in His promises. So, you can trust God when He says,
- I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5)
- I will strengthen and help you (Isaiah 41:10)
- I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)
- I will give you wisdom (James 1:5)
- I will forgive you of your sins (1 John 1:9)
- I will keep your salvation secure (Romans 8:37-39)
If you’re not sure whether God will keep these promises, just look at Jesus. Jesus proves God’s guarantee that He would never leave us, that He would help us, that He would give us rest, that He would lead us into wise truth, that He would forgive our sins, that He would keep our salvation secure, and more. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.”
Fortunately, God doesn’t need us to be faithful in order for Him to be true. Returning to Matthew’s genealogy, we are reminded that God kept His promise through Tamar’s deception (v. 3), Rahab’s questionable career choice (v. 5), Ruth’s non-Jewish heritage (v. 5), Ahaz’s corruption (v. 9), Jeconiah’s disobedience (v. 11) and the apostasy of Jews that would take the na-tion into exile (v. 12). Paul guarantees, “If we are faithless, [God] will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Our failure or faithlessness can’t prevent God’s promises from coming to pass.