How do I know which of God's promises are for me?

Simply apply that principle as broadly as Scripture will let you. You come to a promise — to a statement of the blessedness of the believer, of present grace and of future glory — and you can say, "It was written for my sake." It reminds one of the gleaner Ruth gathering in the fields of Boaz, and little realizing that the handfuls of golden grain she was gathering had been "let fall of purpose" for her. It seems to me that this is a helpful and sanctifying thought. It makes the Bible a personal book — one in which I have a very direct interest. I fear there is too little of this personal appropriation in our reading of Scripture. We will presently see a wide purpose of the Spirit of God in the Scriptures, but let us take the comfort of this personal thought first.

"Great and glorious promises indeed," some may say, "but who can boast of possessing and realizing them?" Dear reader, all these promises have been accomplished long since by and in Him, in whom all the promises of God are "yea" and "amen" for the glory of God by us. Those glorious things mentioned above, for the possession and realisation of which many an upright soul, in ignorance of the full truth of the gospel, has longed and sighed with prayers and tears, are the sure and present portion of every believer, who in childlike faith accepts the testimony of God's word, as to the perfect person of His Son Jesus Christ, and the eternal redemption accomplished by Him. It is thus he appropriates these precious truths.

Do not mistake me. If as Christians, we are "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," we are entitled to lay hold of every spiritual blessing, and by faith claim it as our own. Thus if God said to a saint of old, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," the apostle tells us that so we may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper." The promises to Moses or to Joshua we may apply to ourselves. This does not take them from those to whom they were addressed, nor does it authorize us in applying promises as to headship in the earth and such like in the same way. "All spiritual blessings in heavenly places" sufficiently distinguishes our portion.

"The earthly promises to the Jews do not directly apply to us, but in general GOD's faithfulness and loving care, as 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,' is used in the New Testament as well as the Old. And this latter is written for us, for our instruction on whom the ends of the world are come, that we through belief and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. 1 Peter is, after redemption stated, a treatise on these ways of GOD now, using the Old Testament for it. The Old Testament cannot give us an accomplished redemption nor glory into which CHRIST was not yet entered; but it is 'able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in CHRIST JESUS.' You have to discern what are earthly Jewish promises. It is important to do so; but what is in GOD, faithfulness, grace, love, condescending care of us, is always true. We get it perhaps more clearly applied in the New. Thus, 'Seek ye first … and all these things shall be added unto you.' I should be sorry to reduce Christianity to mere Jewish promises, but what is in GOD is always true. 2 Thess. 2 shows, that when people would not receive the love of the truth that they may be saved, they are (when CHRIST rises up) given over to darkness.

The object of the whole is to show that, important as the law was for bringing people's transgressions plainly before them, yet now that a Christian has Christ, he has already confessed his sins, and has to do with another state of things altogether. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female. He takes up the grand distinctions of men naturally, and shows that these things did not characterise them as Christians. That which alone stamps me as such, is that I have Christ, and have put on Christ. "For ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." That is to say, they had not to pass under circumcision, or any other rite of the law, in order to get the promises. The Holy Ghost brings into these promises by having Christ. If you are striving to gain them by the law, you lose them; if you receive Christ, they are assuredly yours. He is the true seed of Abraham, and, having Christ, I have all the promises of God. "For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us." Thus, you see, he is giving the final touch to the great argument of the Holy Ghost throughout the whole passage: that the Gentile believer has nothing whatever to do with the law as a means of blessing from God; that he may use the law as a weapon against the ungodly, but that in Christ he has done with the question of law — has emerged definitely out of it all, and now he is in Christ. And if I am there, I have all that Christ can give. The point is, to give all the glory to Christ. The force of the passage must strike any thoughtful mind in looking round upon the present time. The evil against which Paul was warning them has now become overwhelming. In one shape or another the law is mingled with Christ; and therein you have poor Christians endeavouring to keep the two husbands at the same time. It is not something that we merely describe about others, but most of us know it from experience. We have proved both its misery and the blessing of deliverance from it. And may God be pleased to vouchsafe the same deliverance to every child of His who has tasted as yet only the misery and not the deliverance.

God was dissatisfied with a covenant which was no complete exponent of Himself By necessity of His holiness He is the Censor of His people's ways. In the desires of His mercy He finds fault with that which only proves their sin (verse 8). He will make, therefore, a new covenant, which shall be unlike the old (verses 9-12). The first thing to be remarked in considering this passage is, that the specified objects of the latter covenant, as well as of the former, are the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The covenants — of promise, even as of debt — are theirs (Rom. 9:4). They had broken the first compact by their sin. God would establish the second for their sakes in pardoning mercy. Days will come in which the ancient hope of Israel will be realized. Meanwhile, by the death of Jesus for that nation, the blessings of the second covenant are abidingly secured to Jacob, though he knows it not. They are preserved in Him who is the Stone of Israel, in readiness for application to their destined objects at the time appointed of the Father (Acts 1; Rom. 11). But, while Israel, as concerning the Gospel, is an alien, to the election, both of Jew and Gentile, the riches of the better covenant are now laid freely open. For all the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in Him amen, unto the glory of God by us (2 Cor. 1:20). Let us, therefore, while watchfully avoiding that dangerous wisdom of self-conceit which has led the Gentile branch to vaunt itself in high-minded forgetfulness of God's still unrepented purpose towards Israel, claim boldly as our own and examine diligently as the inestimable bond of all our hope, the warranty of all our confidence and rejoicing in the Lord, this new and better covenant thus founded for us upon better promises.

Israel had the promise of earthly blessings if they were to keep the law faithfully (Deut. 6:3, 7:13 vv). We as children of God do not have any promise of material blessing or prosperity; actually, we do not have any promise of spiritual blessings either. Because you are no longer promised something you already have. As Christians, we are already blessed with every spiritual blessing! This is how God's Word puts it. And God does not say this for nothing!

In verse 20 "the promises" are all made to Christ, and not directly to the church. There are promises by the way, such as, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee"; but all the promises in chief are to Christ. There never was a promise to a man, that is, a sinner, because the first thing that was said for faith to hang upon was a judgment passed upon the serpent; but it was Christ (the Seed of the woman) who was to bruise the serpent's head. There was no promise to fallen Adam, and had he been unfallen, he would not have wanted a promise. It was a revelation of the last Adam to which his faith could cling, but it was no promise to himself. In judging the serpent God says, "Thou shalt bruise his heel" (the heel of the woman's Seed); but "the Seed of the woman shall bruise thy head." The Seed of the woman is Christ, not Adam. The promise in Christ, in Ephesians 3, is everything that God has promised, eternal life, and especially the Spirit, "that ye might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." And then everything else is thus involved in Christ. Promise is an abstract idea, which takes a form as may be needed - bruising the serpent's head; promise of eternal life given is in Christ Jesus before the world began. and so on. There is no promise to the Gentiles. There is a revelation made to the Gentiles about them, as, "Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people"; or, "The promise is unto you and your children, and to them that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call": but all is in Christ. There is to the ten tribes; and many statements are made about them in the abundance of revelation. "Afar off," both in Acts and Ephesians 2, leaves it open. The apostle seizes the word "whosoever" in Acts 2, and gives it to Gentiles, or anybody else. He often takes up a word, and gives it a larger application than it had originally. The apostle does not himself apply it to the Gentiles in Acts 2, but, while it is quite true that Peter had the Jews and the ten tribes in his mind then, yet in the mind of the Spirit of God it embraces Gentiles also.

There are two points therefore: — the establishment of all the promises in Christ, and the enjoyment, by us, of the effect of these promises. The thing is, as we have seen, not merely to say, to promise, something; but not to change one's intentions, not to depart from what was said, but to keep one's word. Now there had been promises. God had made promises, whether to Abraham unconditionally, or to Israel at Sinai under the condition of obedience. But in Christ there was, not promises, but the Amen to God's promises, the verity and realisation of them. Whatever promises there had been on God's part, the Yea was in Him, and the Amen in Him. God has established — deposited, so to speak — the fulfilment of all His promises in the Person of Christ. Life, glory, righteousness, pardon, the gift of the Spirit, all is in Him; it is in Him that all is we — Yea and Amen. We cannot have the effect of any promise whatsoever out of Him. But this is not all: we, believers, are the objects of these counsels of God. They are to the glory of God by us.

But how can we participate in it, if all is Christ and in Christ? It is here that the Holy Ghost presents the second part of the ways of grace. We are in Christ, and we are in Him not according to the instability of the will of man, and the weakness that characterises him in his transitory and changeable works. He who was firmly established us in Christ is God Himself. The accomplishment of all the promises is in Him. Under the law, and under conditions the fulfilment of which depended on the stability of man, the effect of the promise was never attained; the thing promised eluded the pursuit of man, because man needed to be in a state capable of attaining it by righteousness, and he was not in that state; the accomplishment of the promise therefore was always suspended; it would have its effect if — but the "if" was not accomplished, and the Yea and Amen did not come. But all that God has promised is in Christ. The second part is the "by us," and how far we enjoy it. We are firmly established by God in Christ, in whom all the promises subsist, so that we securely possess in Him all that is promised us. But we do not enjoy it as that which subsists in our own hands.