We make promises but we break them all the time. This include oaths, which we understand today as "formal promises." I have conducted countless wedding and hear the vows recited again and again.

I sometimes wonder whether life can be lived without vows, oaths and promises. After all, if they are not made, no one will be disappointed. No one will be betrayed.

And yet, we know that this is simply not possible. A life without promises will drift aimlessly. The promises and oaths still guide and give structure and direction to life, even if they are imperfectly kept.

As we see in this passage, God promises. God make oaths. The writer calls it a "double certainty" or "twice-unchangeable" (Heb 6:18). For God who cannot lie has promised. It would have been enough if God just says it. For in a sense, everything He says is a promise as He cannot but keep His word.

That was how He made a promise to Abraham. He swore by Himself as there was no one greater He could swear by (He's 6:13).

This doubly-sure and twice-unchangeable Abrahamic promise lives on in and through His Church.
No wonder the writer could speak of a steadfast anchor of the soul (Heb 6:19).

We need not drift aimlessly.

We can anchor our lives amidst tossing seas and at times, frightening storms.

We may sometimes let go. But twice over, He never does.