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Office Of Readings | Advent Wednesday Week 2 | A Reading From Saint Augustine’s Discourses On The Psalms | God’s Promises Are Given To Us Through The Son
‘God’s promises are given to us through the Son.’
Saint Augustine sets before us the great pattern of God’s dealings with humanity: first the time of promise, then the time of fulfilment. The prophets spoke God’s pledges across the centuries, and John the Baptist concluded this long preparation. With Christ’s coming, the promises enter their moment of completion. God has not changed, but the stage of his plan has moved from expectation to realisation.
Augustine emphasises God’s faithfulness. God becomes, in a sense, ‘our debtor’ not because we give him anything, but because he chooses to bind himself to us by promises. He even has these promises written in Scripture, so that their unfolding can be recognised and trusted. This is God’s humility: he accommodates himself to human weakness so that our confidence in him can grow firm.
The promises themselves are astonishing: eternal life, the vision of God, an imperishable inheritance, freedom from death, a dwelling with God in heaven. These are the final gifts, the fulfilment of all human longing. Yet God also promises the path by which we will reach them: sinners will become righteous, the lowly will be raised, mortals will receive immortality, and human beings will be made like the angels. These promises touch every stage of our transformation.
Because such promises seem too great for us to believe, God confirms them not only by words but by deeds. He sends his Only Son—no mere messenger, but the Giver himself. Christ does not simply show the way; he is the way. By becoming man, by living, dying, rising, and ascending, he traces the very road we must follow. The path to glory is not merely described—it is walked by God himself in our flesh.
Christ’s coming also fulfils the promises made to the nations. Through the Gospel preached to the world, God shows that his plan is for all peoples. And once these promises are fulfilled, Christ will return to complete the work: to judge with justice, separating good from evil, and giving to each what God has pledged.
Augustine concludes by noting the wisdom of God’s gradual plan. Nothing comes suddenly or without preparation. The Lord’s return is announced so that it may be awaited in faith rather than feared in surprise. God deals with us gently, teaching us to hope, inviting us to trust, and leading us step by step toward the final fulfilment of all he has promised.
A Reading From Saint Augustine’s Discourses On The Psalms | God’s Promises Are Given To Us Through The Son
God decreed a time for making promises and a time for the promises to be fulfilled. The time for making promises was the time of the prophets, ending with John the Baptist, the last prophet. From then until the end is the time for the fulfilment of promises.
God is faithful. He has made himself our debtor, not by receiving anything from us but by promising us so much. The promise alone was not enough for him: he wanted it in writing, so that he could be held to it, practically entering into a contract with us that listed the promises he was making. In that way, when he began to fulfil his promises, we could see the order of their fulfilment by looking in Scripture. Therefore the time of the prophets was (as I have said so often) the time of making promises.
He promised us eternal salvation and an unending life of blessedness with the angels, and an imperishable inheritance, the joy of seeing his face, a dwelling-place with him in heaven, and the fear of death removed from us through the resurrection. This is, if you like, his ultimate promise. We look forward to it, and when we reach it, we will want nothing more. But as to how this final end is to be reached, he has also told us in promises and prophecies.
He has promised to men that they will be like God; to mortals he has promised immortality; to sinners, righteousness; to the lowly, glory.
Indeed, brethren, because what God promised seemed incredible to men – that from mortality, decay, weakness, lowliness, dust and ashes they should become equals of the angels of God – he did not only sign a contract with them to convince them. He sent, not just any prince, not just any angel or archangel, but his only Son. The road by which he was to lead us to the end he had promised us – through his Son he would show us that road.
Even so, it was not enough for God to send his Son to point out the way – he made his Son the way itself, so that we can go on our journey guided by him as he walks along his own way.
So the only Son of God was to come to men, to take on humanity, and thus to die, to ascend to heaven and sit at the right hand of the father, and so to fulfil what he had promised among the nations. After that promise to the nations had been fulfilled, he would fulfil his other promise, to come, to demand the return of what he had given, to separate the vessels of anger from the vessels of mercy, to give the wicked what he had threatened and the righteous what he had promised.
All this had to be prophesied and foretold. It had to have its coming announced. It could not come suddenly and unexpectedly, causing terror and alarm: people had to be awaiting it with faith.
Christian Prayer With Jesus
Faithful God,
you have spoken your promises
and fulfilled them in your Son.
Strengthen our trust in your word,
and guide our steps along the way
that Christ himself has walked before us,
until we come to the life you have prepared.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Time of promise – The era of the Old Testament prophets, culminating in John the Baptist.
Time of fulfilment – The period beginning with Christ’s coming and continuing until his return.
Eternal salvation – The everlasting life with God promised to the faithful.
Vision of God – The direct seeing of God’s glory in heaven.
Immortality – The gift of life without death, given in the resurrection.
Vessels of mercy / vessels of anger – Biblical imagery (Romans 9) contrasting those who accept God’s grace with those who harden themselves against it.
The Way – A title for Christ, meaning that he is both the guide and the path to salvation.
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