What does it mean that hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5)?

IN these few verses we have not only the great truth of the death of Christ, but also of the love of God for the sinner. The connection of verse 5 with verse 6 is evident. "For" indicates that we are the objects of God's love, for Christ died for us. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Here, the reasoning of the apostle, the way he links these precious truths together, is beautiful and assuring. He proves that the Christian's hope can never be disappointed, because the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given to him. The love of God, the work of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, give abundant assurance of the believer's blessing, whatever may be the troubles of the way. The wheels of his soul have been set in motion by tribulation, patience, experience, and hope; but that which sustains the believer in the midst of the trials of this life can never fail. The love of God, as resulting in the cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, is the ground of his confidence, the full assurance of his hope. "And hope maketh not ashamed," says the apostle, "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

Moreover, the experience of the goodness of God in the midst of trials strengthens "hope" in the soul. We look outside and beyond this world of trial to the rest that remains in the world to come, though, at present, we only possess that home of glory in hope. But hope makes the future glory a present reality.

(V. 5). Furthermore, the Christian's hope makes not ashamed. The failure of the earthly hopes in which men may boast oftentimes makes them ashamed of their hope. The hope of the Christian is sure because connected with the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. Faith realises that our hope is certain seeing that the glory for which we hope is secured by a love that will never fail. Already, the Apostle has brought before us the righteousness of God, and the grace of God in chapter 3, the power of God in resurrection in chapter 4; now we have the love of God made real to our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. "The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared Him". Only a Divine Person is great enough to reveal the heart of the Father; and, when revealed, only another Divine Person — the Holy Spirit — is great enough to make that love a reality to our hearts.

Romans 5:5. — The love of God to us, not ours to Him, which last is so feeble and unworthy as to cause shame to every renewed soul; whereas His love is so full and rich that the hope even of His glory does not make ashamed: if the Holy Ghost, given unto us, has shed it abroad in our hearts, such a hope is but suitable to, and the natural complement of, the love which has already done so great things for us.

"And hope maketh not ashamed" — it is certain of realisation. While we hope, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." While hope looks to the future we now have that which is a pledge of all that God has given and promised. The Spirit, by His poser, gives us the consciousness of the love of God. We are enabled now to know and enjoy that which shall be our eternal portion. This is language applicable to all who form the Christian company — "the Holy Ghost which is given to us."

“But we glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience (or endurance); and patience, experience; and experience, hope.” At the very outset, the Christian ought to settle it in his heart to expect a path of tribulation. Justification gives no assurance of an easy earthly path: quite the reverse. But it brings heavenly joy into the midst of the trouble — beauteous testimony to the grace of God! Sorrow and trial become the very sphere of the conquest of eternal joys, which will not be defeated by these mere momentary hindrances. And it is no mere bearing our troubles with submission (more or less), but of rejoicing in them, realizing that they are working steadily to an end of more exceeding blessing for us and glory to God. Tribulation (properly regarded) is the teacher of endurance: endurance soon bears fruit in abundantly valuable experience — valuable in regard to all our relationships of life, whether in making personal decisions, whether in contacts with the saved or the unsaved, in home affairs, in the assembly, in business. In all these things, no one would deny the value of hard-learned experience. And experience is the very nourishment of hope. For true experience teaches the vanity and shallowness of all that is of the world. Such is the very plain recording of the book of Ecclesiastes, written by a man of wisdom declaring the findings of his own experience. But if this is so, how much more fully will experience (rightly regarded, of course), draw the heart toward Heaven and quicken in the soul the hope of glory. The reality of this all who have tasted it know well. Another point, however is this — that while experience teaches the transitoriness of life on earth, it is also always the proof of God's abiding faithfulness, and such realization cannot but stir the hope of the soul to be eternally in His presence.

“And hope maketh not ashamed.” There is no thought of mere wishing or doubtful anticipation in this “hope,” of course. It is a hope “sure and steadfast” (Heb. 6:19); otherwise it would give no one the incentive to be unashamed. “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech” (2 Cor. 3:12). There is no reason to be ashamed or afraid when we know the glory that is to be revealed. Such hope feeds courage.

We are next told that "experience works hope." As, in the path that leads to the glory, we experience what the God of glory is, how that glory brightens! As by patient endurance we learn experimentally the love and care and tender mercies of Christ in His never-failing ministry to us as He guides us on our way, how we are constrained to say, "What will it be to be with Him!" It is thus experience works hope. It is thus experience strengthens in us the desire to realize the hope that is set before us.

The apostle now assures us that hope makes not ashamed. The path we are in bestows upon us no worldly honors. The world disdains it, looks contemptuously upon it; but, with the light of our glorious hope shining upon it, we are not ashamed. Our hope, too, is an unfailing, unfading hope. Worldly hopes fail, and disappoint those who wait for them; but he who patiently endures the trials of the path of the justified will never be disappointed. He will never be made ashamed. As he draws nearer and nearer to the consummation of the glory he is waiting for, his confidence in its realization strengthens. He grows steadily stronger in hope because along the way he enjoys the love of the God of his hope. It is shed abroad in his heart. The God of eternity, with whom he is to eternally dwell, is the God of love — love already manifested and filling the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit that indwells the believer.

Such is the shining pathway of the Christian even here, because Christ is before the heart: otherwise, tribulation works out the impatience of the first man, not endurance through the Second. Then endurance sustained in faith works out experience (i.e., the proof of what is tested and stands); as this again, from what God is shown to be in gracious present care, strengthens hope; and this does not put to shame by failure and disappointment; because the Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God, who loved us when there was nothing lovable in us, as we are shown after self is thus detected and judged, the world seen in its true colours, and God more than ever proved, and prized, and trusted.

This verse is remarkable as the first which speaks either of the Spirit given to us, or of the love of God which is thereby shed forth in us. We have His righteousness fully displayed and applied before there is any allusion to either. That God is wise in this, it is almost needless to remark. It is well that the soul should be shut up to that which is absolutely perfect outside ourselves on God's part and in virtue, not of the Spirit's work in us, but of Christ's for us. And so it is. Then in the path of subsequent christian experience, he can touch on and in due time unfold the love of God shed abroad in us, and the Holy Ghost given to us. We can then bear it safely. Had it been brought in before this, the heart would have readily turned to its own workings and affections from Christ and God's righteousness revealed in the gospel.

Here it is God's love not merely demonstrated to sinners as such, in the gift and death of Christ, but enjoyed and meant to be enjoyed to the full by the believer. Hence it is given as the reason which explains in general why we glory in tribulations, and in particular why hope even of God's glory does not put us to shame meanwhile. Assuredly it would if we measured its brightness with any degree of our love as we journey on. But God's love! All, this wholly differs. It is as perfect and unvarying as unmerited on our part, being simply and solely according to His complacency in Christ our Lord. Hence it is said to have been, and is, abidingly shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. If the gift was a transient and complete act, the result is permanent. The Holy Spirit, the divine witness of Christ and of His redemption, the power of enjoying God's love, was (as our Lord assured the disciples) to be in them and abide with them for ever.

But see what the result of tribulation is - "tribulation works patience." I need my will to be broken, I shall expect to get a thing and never have it; I may have to cry to God three weeks, and fast, as Daniel: I have to learn patience, and in it learn the rashness of my heart that would expect everything at once. And so "patience works experience." A man in earnest to do right will, if his will be at work, be in a hurry, but he will have to find out that he must wait for God's help, as Moses had to do, who kills an Egyptian in his haste without God's bidding, and Pharaoh hearing of it, off he goes. He has, in blessed true-heartedness, chosen to leave the court of Pharaoh's daughter, where he had been brought up, and to take his place with the afflicted brickmakers. But though sincere and devoted, and with a right intention, giving up the high position in which providence had placed him, his flesh had to be broken down, and this was through forty years' tribulation in the wilderness, keeping his father-in-law's sheep. He was learning experience, and experience works hope; because what hindered and dimmed the hope is broken away by the process; earthly hope has died away, and the heavenly become more real and bright; and because in it I learn what God is. Moses had more knowledge of what the people were to be delivered for, when he went to Pharaoh by God's sending; he knew nothing of the Canaan they were to go to when he slew the Egyptian.

46 "Hope makes not ashamed." In learning experience it may be I struggle against God; but we shall find it is of no use to struggle in tribulation against God's hand, for He will hold us there until we submit; but in the end it will cause me to hope, "because the love of God is shed abroad in my heart." This gives me the key to all the tribulation, and enables me to glory in it. It is the fruit of God's own love. I confide in Him. How do I get this? By the Holy Ghost which is within me, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." It is not mine but His, God's love shed abroad; God, who is love, is in me, God's own love: this brings us back to a strength of hope which nothing can shake. Notice, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who makes intercession for us.

A. It is the expectation of heavenly glory as secured and displayed in Christ exalted on high. Of course, the "hope" implies something yet to be done or manifested; though, being of God in Christ, it has not the smallest shade of uncertainty about it like what men call hope. This hope has present effects too "by the which we draw nigh to God." (Compare Heb. 10:23, which ought to be "hope" rather than "faith," as in the Authorised version), as it ought to fill us with joy (Heb. 3:6). It is clearly in the future alone that all will be realised, and therefore it is justly called "hope." Still the work being finished, and Christ having entered within the veil, our hope is said to penetrate there too. That is, besides being sure for us and steadfast in itself, it is heavenly as entering into the immediate presence of God on the basis of the precious blood of Christ. It counts upon God fulfilling all He has promised according to the faithfulness which has raised up Christ from the dead (like Isaac in the type), and set Him in the atmosphere of unchangeable blessing inside the veil. As Abraham had his son given back as it were, and the promise confirmed by an oath, so have we our hopes confirmed in a yet more precious way in a risen Christ glorified above, though still having "need of patience."