In considering the privileges of the nation of Israel, we see that whatever was true of them as the earthly people of God was often a shadow or type of the greater and heavenly blessings established in Christianity. In today’s text, however, we see something that transcends any dispensational distinctions, and that is “the promises” of God. No doubt many of Israel’s promises are different from ours, as different as earth is from heaven; yet there are promises that we hold in common. And the nature of a promise is the same: God has said He will do something, and our part is to rest on that promise. This is no different for us than it was for them.

What nation could boast in a multitude of promises like Israel, and given by sovereign grace to an unworthy people! Many of the people of that nation were Israelites “according to the flesh” but not actually believers in the living God (Rom. 9:6; 1 Cor. 10:5). However, there was always a believing remnant among them, as Hebrews 11 clearly shows, and this is confirmed throughout the Old Testament history.

However, these believing Israelites who had “a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Heb. 11:39–40). They had to wait. William Kelly wrote about this fact: “Meanwhile His heirs and Christ’s joint-heirs are being called according to purpose, before the Lord comes, when we and all the Old Testament saints shall be perfected in the likeness of His body of glory, and go to meet Him on high.” Like the saints in the Old Testament, we have many “exceedingly great and precious promises,” but they must be held in faith (2 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 4:1–2). What a privilege, what a hope!