The Hope of the Believer...No. 1  

THE GOD OF HOPE: THE BASIS OF ALL HOPE 

With this issue we begin a new series on the hope of the believer, which is variously referred to in Scripture as the living hope, the hope of salvation, the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life, the hope of the glory of God, the hope of Israel, and the blessed hope, to name some of them. When the believer is called upon to "give a defense" of his faith, it is in reference to "the hope that is in you" (1 Pet. 3:15). The purpose of this series is to explore the dimensions of that hope that is within us. Since our culture is succumbing more and more to secularism, consumerism, and even paganism, it is more imperative than ever that the believer be able to contend for "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," as Jude 3 puts it. Since the believer has been called "in one hope of your calling," as Eph. 4:4 puts it, this series assumes that the Christian makes an effective defense of his faith only in reference to that one hope.

Hope never disappoints, Rom. 5:5 assures us, which may be one way of saying that hope never loses an argument, and that because anyone who bears "the living hope" in his heart does not have to argue his religion. If hope is one of the three things that abide forever, along with faith and love, it is because there is no way to defeat it or to argue against it. Rope stills the anxious heart in the direst of circumstances and gives courage to the persecuted in the face of death itself. The clever skeptic can turn our learned arguments against us, but he is at a loss to deal with "the hope of glory" that springs eternal in the heart of the true believer. It is noteworthy that when Paul made his defense before Roman authorities he said, "I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers" (Acts 26:6). We too would do well when we speak of our faith to talk about hope. Hope is what our despairing world longs for, even when it does not realize it.

That the apostle Paul would name "one hope" among the seven basic principles that undergird the faith, and that he would include it among the only three values that are eternal, is evidence enough of its significance.

But the Scriptures go beyond this and tell us what hope does for us, such as in Ps. 31:24 where hope is said to sustain us so that we can "Be of good cheer." Ps. 119:74 shows that hope makes us glad. Paul says it was hope that gave him boldness of speech (2 Cor. 3:12), and in Rom.12:12 he refers to "rejoicing in hope." Even more impressive is 1 Jn. 3:3, "Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself even as He is pure," which is surely one of the most remarkable promises in the Bible. Hope empowers us to live a pure life in this sinful world!

We anticipate a joyous and exciting study over the next two years as we look into various dimensions of the hope of the believer. We have hope in reference to ongoing history, as to what God will do in our world in fulfilling His purposes. We have hope that He who sits upon the throne will make all things new, that there will be new heavens and a new earth. We have hope in the eventual triumph of the gospel, that one day God's kingdom will more gloriously enter into human history. We have hope both in the redemption of nature and the redemption of our bodies -new bodies conformed to the image of Christ's body. We have hope of heaven and eternal life.

We will study in particular what Paul calls "the blessed hope" and see how it relates to the coming of our Lord. We will even dare to look into Paul's visit to Paradise to see what it reveals about the believer's hope. Then there is the "exceeding great joy" that is born of the believer's hope. These are suggestions of what we have before us in this study.

In this introductory essay I want to lay a firm foundation by pointing out that hope in God is the basis of all hope. Our thesis is that "the God of hope," to use Paul's great phrase, is the ground of all the believer can ever hope for, whether in reference to this world or the world that is to come.

A key passage supporting this thesis is Rom. 15:13: "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." This verse has it all: hope, joy, peace, faith, power, God, Holy Spirit. The apostle's plea is to believe in God, the God of hope. Joy and peace are born of believing, and the believer abounds in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. The point is that all the blessings -joy, peace, hope- are grounded in trust in God. If we truly believe in God to make good on His promises, we will abound in hope. When professed Christians are despondent and discouraged and have given up all hope, we can only conclude that they do not trust God to do what He has promised. 

Our thesis that hope is girded by faith in God is evident in the Old Covenant Scriptures. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord," Jer. 17:7 tells us, and in verse 13 of the same chapter God is referred to as "the hope of Israel." Joel 3:16 describes God as "the hope of His people," while Ps. 146:5 says, "Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God." Again and again David prayed in the Psalms, "In you, 0 Lord, I hope," and "You are my hope, 0 Lord God." So God is not only the giver of hope but He is the object of hope. This means that if we have hope of eternal life we first hope in God.

What is said of God in the Old Covenant Scriptures is said of Christ in the Scriptures of the New Covenant, the most impressive instance being Col. 1:27: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." In 1 Tim. 1:1' our Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as "our hope," and in 1 Cor. 15:19 Paul speaks of having hope in Christ both in this world and the next. That this is especially an apostolic doctrine is evident from the fact that hope is never referred to in the teaching of Christ, nor does the word even appear in the gospels in the sense that it is used in the apostolic epistles. Jesus did not teach about the hope of the believer as much as he was that hope. Jesus is the hope of the church because all the promises are in him, as Paul so meaningfully puts it in 2 Cor. 1:20: "For all the promises of God in Christ are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through Him." 

In Rom. 5:2 Paul seems to combine the emphasis of both the Old and New Testament of hope being in God and Christ: "through Christ we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." While he rejoices in the hope of the glory of God, the context shows that he sees Christ as the expression of the glory of God. He has already said in the last verse of chapter 4 that Christ was crucified for our sins and was raised for our justification. Then he begins with Therefore in chapter 5. One important rule of interpretation is that when you come to a "therefore" stop and ask what it is there for!

The apostle writes "Therefore" and goes on to speak of peace with God and hope in the glory of God. Since Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead so that we might be righteous, we have peace and hope. The hope we have is of all the glory of God that is revealed in Christ. Then he makes a very significant point: he glories in suffering because it produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. It all leads to hope! Of hope he goes on to say, "Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was given to us." Notice that he relates hope to the presence of the Holy Spirit as he does in Rom. 15:13, as we have seen.

Hope does not disappoint! That could be the title of this first installment, but what we are to see is that hope does not disappoint because hope is in God. The Jerusalem Bible has "Hope is not deceitful," which captures the idea that when our hope is in God it never turns onus. We can count on God to do as He has promised. He will not disappoint us. Men may, even friends may. but God never will. Hope in God never disappoints!

Not only may men disappoint or deceive us, but riches as well, including CD's, Social Security, retirement plans, and all the rest. In 1 Tim. 6:17-19 Paul urges Timothy to warn those who are rich in this present world "not to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy." Trust is used here much as hope is used elsewhere. The rich are not to hope in their riches, which will disappoint, but in God who can be trusted. He does not tell the rich that they must give up their riches, but not to trust in their riches. He rather tells them to do good with their money and to use it to "store up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life."

Here the line is clearly drawn: we put our hope in God or in the riches and securities of this world. One is certain, the other uncertain; one is reliable, the other is deceitful. In the culture in which 1 Timothy was written all of us would be considered rich. If you have food in the cupboard or in the freezer, or if you can buy as you please at the market, then you are rich in comparison to the majority of people in the world. And in 1 Tim. 6 we the rich are handed a sober warning: not to trust in the uncertain things of this world. When we do we have no real hope. When we trust in the God of hope we can rejoice in that hope with exceeding joy.

Joy and hope! They are inseparable as we shall show in our next. —the Editor