The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today. . .

THE ONE HOPE OF THE CHURCH

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.- Alexander Pope

Life becomes most tragic when that spring of hope that the poet refers to runs dry. In his despair Job cried out “Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, leaving no hope behind” (Job 7:6), which shows that hope does not quite always spring eternal in the human breast. “The mighty hopes that make us men” that Tennyson writes of do in fact sometimes pass us by, leaving us something less than men.

There is that hope that even the best of worldly men know little about, something far different from what poets usually write about. The apostle referred to it as “the hope stored up in heaven for you” (Col. 1:4) or simply as “the hope to which you are called” (Eph. 4:4). Those that have that one hope need not grieve, Paul says, like those of the world who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13), and it is with grievous pen that he writes of those who are “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). Can anything be more pitiable than that person who has no hope that reaches beyond the fragile security of this world?

Robert Owen, the socialist, was apparently such a man. He came to this country to build the ideal socialist community, supposing that whatever this world has to offer can best be attained in communistic living. Being an atheist, he insisted that religion is a hindrance to human progress in that its concerns lie in “a pie in the sky by and by” to the neglect of making this world better. He challenged the clergy to defend its cause in public debate, little realizing that Alexander Campbell would be accepting it, a man hardly typical of the clergy that turned off the likes of Robert Owen.

Before their debate, Mr. Owen was a guest of Campbell at Bethany, and he was much impressed with the magnanimity of his host and especially with the beauty of the western Virginia hills, assuring Campbell that people of good taste in his native England would travel miles to see his lovely landscapes. One day as they walked those hills together they came upon the family cemetery. “There is one advantage I have over the Christian,” Mr. Owen said, turning to his host, “I am not afraid to die.” The atheist went on to assure Campbell that if he had a few business matters attended to, he would be quite ready to die. To which Mr. Campbell replied, “Well, you say you have no fear in death; have you any hope in death?”

After a solemn pause Mr. Owen conceded that he had no hope in death. “Then,” rejoined Campbell, pointing to an ox standing near, “you are on the level with that brute. He has fed till he is satisfied, and stands in the shade whisking off the flies, and has neither hope nor fear in death.” At this Mr. Owen smiled with some confusion, and was unable to deny the appropriateness of Campbell’s illustration.

It is tragic enough for those of the world to be without hope, but for the redeemed themselves, the very ones called into the one hope, to live the barren life of a beast who has neither fear nor hope in death is unthinkable. Generally speaking, the modern church does not reflect that “sure hope” that 1 Pet. 1:3 refers to, sometimes translated “living hope.” The apostle goes on to write of “the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens.” He adds, this is a cause of great joy for you. If disciples had that sure hope and great joy, the likes of Robert Owen could not talk about Christians being afraid to die.

Hope is like a ministering angel to the believer, for it does so much for him. It purifies his soul: “Everyone who has this hope in God, purifies himself as he is pure” (l Jn. 3:3). This hope refers to what he has just said: that the believer as God’s child will someday see Jesus and become like him. Such a promise should motivate us to live after the example of our Lord, thus living pure lives. A living hope and a pure life are inseperable. A man who really believes that he will be with Jesus in heaven and share in his glory does not have to be persuaded to pay his debts or be true to his wife.

Hope is not deceptive: “These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us” (Rom. 5:4-5). Beautiful, isn’t it? In a world that is so deceptive and disappointing there is one thing that is sure, hope. Friends and family may disappoint us and the economy may trick us, but never the promises of God. Hope will surely do its thing with us as it did with Abraham: “Though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed, and through doing so he did become the father of many nations exactly as he had been promised” (Rom. 4:18).

It gives us that full assurance: “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end” (Heb. 6:11). It goes on to say, so that you may not be sluggish. What a lesson this is! We browbeat people with threats of hell fire and brimstone, while we had better give them that confidence and assurance that a lively hope provides. It is this that will arouse them from their sluggishness, not our bruising tactics. Hope edifies and encourages. So says Heb. 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Here hope is tied to faith, as it often is in scripture, as it is with love.

It is tied to love and faith in 1 Cor. 13:13: “So faith, hope, love a bide, these three; but the greatest of these is love,” and verse 7 tells us that “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” In Col. 1:4-5 hope is again linked to both love and faith: “We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” If one’s hope runs dry, his love and faith will surely be in disarray.

Hope is in fact closely tied to all that is basically Christian. Col. 1:27 points to “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” while 1 Tim. 1:1 speaks of Jesus as “our hope.” Jesus is our hope, how great that is! That is the long and short of it: as we have Jesus so we have hope. Unless a real Jesus is in our heart there will not be a living hope in our soul. And so Col. 1:23 refers to “the hope of the gospel,” which shows that what God has done for us in the Christ is the basis of all our hope. If a believer comes up with more law in his mind than gospel, he is almost certain to be one of little hope.

Hope infuses the whole of the spiritual life. We are to rejoice in hope (Rom. 12:12), abound in hope (Rom. 15:13) and be patient in hope (1 Thess. 1:3). The disciple’s gear includes “the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8), and he is sustained by the “hope of eternal life” (Tit. 1:2). Tit. 2:13 identifies “our blessed hope” as “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” This is one of the few places where Jesus is actually called God.

This is the one hope and the only hope for the believer. It is the hope anticipated in the Old Covenant scriptures: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.” This is what Paul was talking about when he stood before Agrippa: “I stand here on trial for hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day” (Acts 23:6-7). And to the Jews in Rome he said as only Paul could say: “It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain” (Acts 28:20).

We should praise God for all that He has done through the apostles and prophets in making good on “the hope of Israel” in giving us Jesus. Praise him like David did as he sang with hope: “I will hope continually, and will praise thee yet more and more” (Ps. 71:14).

In a very beautiful way the church’s one hope is linked to the church’s one Spirit. The apostle assures us that “we are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). Paul is showing that becoming like Jesus is a continuing thing, not only while we are in this world, but in the world to come as well. “We shall be like him, even as he is,” is the promise of 1 Jn. 3:2, and Philip. 3:20-21 says that “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” Jesus now has a body, a spiritual, resurrected (not a resuscitated) body, and in the resurrection we shall have the same.

This means that our bodies have been purchased by God (1 Cor.6:20), but they have not yet been redeemed, and so Paul says, “We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). As an assurance or guarantee that this will really come true, God makes our present bodies “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor.6:19), and seals us with “the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:13-14).

The “possession” that we are to acquire is a resurrected body like Jesus’. God will finally redeem our bodies that He has thus far only purchased. The visitation of the Guest of heaven is a guarantee that the redemption will indeed come, and that we shall be joint heirs with the Christ in the fullest sense. This is the import of Eph. 4:30, which shows how the Spirit and the one hope are related: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

This is the one hope to which the church is called. Once the church takes that call seriously, we can believe that a hopeless world will take us more seriously.—the Editor