Some words have so many uses that learning the English language can be confusing. FIXED is one of those words. It can mean fixing something broken, fastened securely in position, a predetermined price, rate or time, a contest where the outcome is dishonestly determined, an informal way of stating a situation (I’m well fixed for time), not volatile, immoveable, steadily directed such as a fixed stare, firmly maintained, and so on.
In the Bible, words like this depend on their context for a definition. I found two Hebrew words translated FIXED in regard to what God does, and two Greek words. Their context shows similar meanings: God institutes, enacts, or establishes certain things and He has an authoritative rule over all things. For example:
Psalm 74:16–17. Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.
Psalm 119:89. Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Jeremiah 31:35–36. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord of hosts is his name: “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”
Jeremiah 33:25–26. Thus says the Lord: “If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.”
These verses are about permanence and reliability. When God sets anything in place, from planets to plans, from the way things work to His precious promises, we can depend on His authority and power to carry out those actions and maintain His rule over them.
The NT uses two words that mean the same: to fix conclusively or authoritatively, to institute, enact, or establish. For example, in Acts 1:7 when Jesus was asked about the future establishment of His kingdom . . .
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”
Later in Acts 17:30–31, Paul said to the “religious” people of Athens: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
In both passages, this word FIXED is used to give assurance of God’s plans. We are given a few clues, but for the most part, the future is not revealed to us, only that God has it under control.
GAZE ON HIS GLORY. Like a child trusting daddy to take me where he wants me to go, faith in Jesus Christ helps me trust my heavenly Father with the future. The lines of a song say that I don’t know whether I will walk the vale with Him (death) or meet Him in the air (rapture) but I do know Him and that is enough. Sometimes life’s uncertainties stir me into worrying about the future, but being reminded that God has it firmly fixed helps me put all concerns aside. God loves me, has been faithful all these years to keep His promises, and will do so in the future. His loving plans for me are fixed which makes worry about it totally pointless. I needed this reminder today!
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