Conditional promises.
"If thy children will keep my covenant." Is an unconditional promise, either human or Divine, conceivable? And if conceivable, is it reasonable, and could it ever be wise? It certainly could never be, as the promise of a man, who could never see all round a thing and all through it, and so never have a sufficient basis on which to make the promise. And we cannot think of an unconditional promise as ever befitting for God to make, because he must make it to moral beings, whose continuance in the same mood can never be guaranteed. The folly, and possible mischief of all unconditioned promises is indicated in the promise of excited and half-drunken Herod to the dancing-girl Salome, which tricked him into taking the life of Christ's forerunner. It may seem as if, by removing the unconditional element from God's promises, we removed our confidence, and brought in the possibility of his breaking his word. But his doing the very best for us is more important than his keeping any particular promise; and doing his best may mean not keeping his word; only we must clearly see that the ground of his change is change in us—is our falling to meet his appointed conditions. That conditions, affixed to promises, are a blessing to us may be readily shown.
I. CONDITIONS TEST OBEDIENCE. While we are here on earth we never transcend the dependent child-spheres. We are under what is represented by family rule; and that always tests obedience by putting conditions to promises. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land."
II. CONDITIONS CULTURE TRUST. Because they keep up relations with the promise-maker, and preserve our sense of dependence on his good will. If a promise were absolute, it would tend to separate us from the promiser. It would be something distinct from him. And it would be fatal to our trust in God if we could rely upon his word as distinct from himself. We must trust the "Faithful Promiser."
III. CONDITIONS ACT AS WARNINGS. Illustrate from the constancy with which the nation Israel was warned of the covenant-conditions of its promises. The Divine "if" stands ever before us. We lose all claim on the promises if we fail to meet the conditions; and the loss is our own.—R.T.