Milk and Honey: The Promises of God

Deuteronomy 26:9 “He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey;”

As I stumbled upon this verse the other day I began thinking about the promises God makes to His people. It occurred to me that God’s promises always have some kind of salvation attached to them. This one is about having a “land” for the people to call their own. They have salvation from the harsh living environment of wandering in the wilderness.

But there is more to this promise than just the land. The land is described to have an abundance of “milk and honey.” So what do these things have to do with salvation? How do milk and honey play into God’s greater plan of salvation? To answer these questions we must realize what milk and honey do for us.

Milk is a very valuable source of nourishment. When we are first born milk gives us everything we need as far as nutrition. This one food source is all the sustenance we need. As we grow, milk continues to sustain us. Milk provides the basic nutrients we need to produce strong bones and a healthy body. Milk is a continued blessing of life sustaining nourishment.

Honey, on the other hand, is not a source of all the nourishment we need. Honey is sweet—it tastes good and has some nutritional value but you could not survive on honey alone. However, honey has one thing going for it that no other food does. Honey does not spoil. Honey is the only food that does not go bad. Archaeologists find honeycombs in the Egyptian pyramids that are thousands of years old. The honey in these combs is crystallized but when heated it is just as good as new. People have eaten honey that is thousands of years old and it is still good!

Now that we know a little about milk and honey we can relate these two food stuffs to some of God’s blessings. Remember God’s promises are attached to salvation in some way. In this case food provides salvation from starvation. We need food to stay alive. This is obvious but I believe we can look at these two types of food that have been attached to God’s promise of land in a way that provides more insight into our salvation.

Our salvation—that is our forgiveness from sins—was won for us on the cross by Christ. But how do we get that salvation? How does God distribute forgiveness? The answer is with the sacraments—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The sacraments are the places where God promised salvation can be found. I think we can correlate milk and honey to the sacraments.

Bear with me here.

The Lord’s Supper is like milk. It repeatedly gives us the nourishment we need to continue to grow and sustain our lives (our saving faith). It is a habitual reception of God Himself as Christ’s body and blood are present in the sacrament. The Lord’s Supper continually nourishes us with the forgiveness our sins. We do it over and over throughout our lives as a continual source of God’s grace—our nourishment.

Honey is like Baptism. It never goes bad. Baptism is God’s sweet promise of salvation. As Peter tells us, “Baptism now saves you.” (1 Peter 3:21). This is a promise of God that never goes bad. This is why we do not need to be re-baptized. God’s promises are faithful—they stand forever. Likewise, God’s promise in Baptism never goes bad. It is a onetime adoption into God’s family. This is great news! But why do we provide sponsors with Baptism? Why is there also an aspect of ongoing instruction and teaching attached to Baptism?

Baptism is like Honey. It is a sweet promise that never goes bad, but because of our sinful nature we often need more nourishment than God’s honey provides. We need to be constantly reminded of God’s promise. We need to have our sins forgiven over and over. Baptism does save us but our sinful nature causes us to walk away from God’s promise. Let me stress that point: we walk away from God, He never walks away from us—His promise never goes bad.

This is how God’s promises work together. Milk and honey (The Lord’s Supper and Baptism) work together to deliver God’s salvation to us. Baptism is God’s ever present promise of salvation to us. And what could be sweeter than salvation? The Lord’s Supper is our continued nourishment of God’s forgiveness that keeps us growing and sustained in our faith. God truly does promise us salvation. One faithful promise of grace for all time—Baptism, and one faithful promise of ongoing nourishment—The Lord’s Supper. God’s promises surely are trustworthy because the promised land of faith certainly is flowing with both milk and honey.