What is the Christian's hope?

And grace has made us expectant, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost has given us a hope of which we are not ashamed. We are “LOOKING FOR THAT BLESSED HOPE, AND GLORIOUS APPEARING OF OUR GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.” The blessed hope is the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, to fulfil His own word, "I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also .” There are those who teach, that only those who are faithful and watching, will be taken when the Lord fulfils this word; they insist on what is called a “partial rapture” which will be a reward for faithfulness and labour. If that were so—which, thank God, it is not—this hope would no longer be A BLESSED HOPE; for who of us would care to lay his hand upon his heart and say, “I am one of the faithful”? If we have a true sense of our own frailty we confess that we are unprofitable servants, but this hope does not depend upon what we are but upon what God is; it has been given to us by the grace of God, IT IS ALL GRACE; but "to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned of grace but of debt .” is a blessed hope, not because it is acquired by fulfilled responsibility but because it has been set before us by sovereign grace.

And grace has made us expectant, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost has given us a hope of which we are not ashamed. We are "LOOKING FOR THAT BLESSED HOPE, AND GLORIOUS APPEARING OF OUR GREAT GOD AND OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST." The blessed hope is the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, to fulfil His own word, "I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am there ye may be also." There are those who teach, that only those who are faithful and watching, will be taken when the Lord fulfils this word; they insist on what is called a "partial rapture" which will be a reward for faithfulness and labour. If that were so—which, thank God, it is not—this hope would no longer be A BLESSED HOPE; for who of us would care to lay his hand upon his heart and say, "I am one of the faithful"? If we have a true sense of our own frailty we confess that we are unprofitable servants, but this hope does not depend upon what we are but upon what God is; it has been given to us by the grace of God, IT IS ALL GRACE; but "to him that works the reward is not reckoned of grace but of debt." is a blessed hope, not because it is acquired by fulfilled responsibility but because it has been set before us by sovereign grace.

"Why speak then," it may be said, "of the Christian's hope?" Ah, this is not your question, dear christian reader. He who would ask this question is not in the secret which you possess. It is true that you have tasted of real happiness, of eternal life, in the knowledge of the Father, and of Jesus whom He has sent. But this is not to say that you have the full, perfect, unhindered enjoyment of this happiness, this life. This is still before you as the object of your hope. "Then the Christian is not satisfied, any more than others?" It may seem so to the worldling; and it is quite true that in one sense the Christian is not satisfied; but it is in a widely different sense from that in which the worldling is not, and for widely different reasons. The worldling is not satisfied because he knows nothing, is possessed of nothing, which — can either now, or at any time, satisfy him. The Christian knows One who can, and is possessed of One who can satisfy him. He knows Christ — he possesses Christ — he enjoys Christ. Christ is his life — Christ is his peace — Christ is his joy — Christ is his portion; but, as yet, he has never seen Christ. It is by faith he knows, by faith he possesses, by faith he enjoys Him; but the more he knows and enjoys Him thus, the more he longs to behold Him. "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." Yes, my brethren, believing in Christ, whom we have not seen, we love Him; we rejoice in Him with unspeakable joy; we receive the salvation of our souls But to see Christ — to have the salvation which He wrought out on the cross applied to our bodies as well as to our souls — to have it perfected in our experience even as it respects our souls — to have it consummated thus in all who are fellow-partakers with us of Christ — to be with Him, and with them, in our Father's house — to behold His glory which the Father has given Him — to appear with Him in glory when He appears — to reign with Him over a ransomed and redeemed and happy creation — to fulfil our part in the universal harmony of all in heaven, and all in earth, when all shall bow the knee to Jesus, when every tongue shall own Him Lord, and all voices shall join to celebrate His praise; this, and far more than this — far more than heart can conceive or tongue explain, is what we wait for; and, above all, we wait for Him whose return shall introduce us to all this perfect blessedness — we "wait for God's Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." HE IS OUR HOPE. We know Him now by faith as our Saviour, our Lord, our life, our peace, our joy, our all. AND HE IS OUR HOPE. He is plainly said to be so in 1 Tim. 1:1, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, OUR HOPE." And what He is thus in so many plain words expressly declared to be in this passage, He is shown to be by the uniform, unvarying testimony of Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. On few subjects is Scripture testimony more copious; on none is it more uniform and express than on this. The Lord grant us to consider it to our profit.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, at this late hour in the witness of His own in the world which crucified Him, would call our attention to the truth of His coming again. This is the Christian hope. Believers have an appointed witness, a responsible life, but they are destined for glory. God has chosen them to "obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Timothy 2:10). Christ has "died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him" (1 Thessalonians 5:10). This is our prospect, not only to go to heaven, not only to reign with Him in His Kingdom, but to "live together with Him." We are going to "see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).

Many believers, however, are in great bondage. They truly look to Christ for salvation, and have eternal life, though they are scarcely sensible of it. Like Lazarus, when he left the tomb, they really have life, but are unable to walk in liberty, to minister for the Lord, or happily confess His name, because of the grave-clothes which envelop them. They struggle; but they are fettered, and need to be loosed. Some vainly try to get liberty by looking into their own hearts, or are expecting to receive it from some man, instead of looking only to Christ, and believing His Word. It is of the utmost importance that the believer should learn from God's truth his security and standing in Christ; that he is already a child of God, on the other side of death, in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus; not yet with, but in, Christ Jesus. This being realized, the natural inquiry must be, What is my hope? We reply, The Lord's coming. We do not hope to have everlasting life; for he that believeth hath everlasting life. (John 5:24.) We do not hope for forgiveness of sins; this also we have now: "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." (Eph. 1:7.) We do not hope for righteousness; this too we have now; for "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. 10:4.) What, then, do we look for? The inspired reply is, "We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." (Phil. 3:20-21.)

Such was then the present life and power of the Christian while Christ was sitting on the Father's throne. The Jew must wait till Christ comes out to see and own and know Him! The Christian not, because the Holy Ghost is come out, and associated him with Christ while He is within. When He comes out and appears, we shall appear with Him. What then is his hope if this be the Christian's present life and power? What is that in which he abounds in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost? The coming of the Bridegroom, when he will be conformed to the image of God's Son — be with Him forever, and like Him. When and how shall this effect which is before his heart be realised? When Christ comes. The coming of the Lord. This is the object, and with it, the state to which the Holy Ghost directs his mind in hope — to see Christ as He is, to be with Him, to be like Him; and this is at His coming. He is always confident meanwhile (2 Cor. 5:6), he knows that Christ being his life, if he dies before He comes, he will, absent from the body, be present with the Lord; but his desire is not to be unclothed, though in itself it be far better, but to be clothed upon, like Christ in glory — to see Christ who has so loved him, as He is, to be perfectly like Him, so that Christ shall see of the fruit of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. This fills his soul with hope, and he knows that all the raised saints (or changed, for we shall not all die) will be glorified with Him, yea, He glorified in them, and His heart, and surely ours, satisfied.

"For we are saved by hope;" or "in hope" as it would be more exactly rendered. The meaning is, we have not yet entered into the enjoyment of all that is implied in being "saved." We have the salvation of our souls now; we receive it by faith. We have the forgiveness of sins, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the first-fruits of the Spirit. We are now the children of God; but we are saved in hope, as well as in present possession. We have not all the salvation now. Our bodies are still mortal; we are still amid a world where the curse remains, where the usurper rules, and where one universal groan resounds. But in hope we are saved from all this. In hope we have the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body, our manifestation as the sons of God, and the deliverance of all creation into the liberty of the glory which shall then be revealed in us. "But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Well may we pray with the apostle, "The Lord direct our hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ."

If, therefore, "salvation" is used in the same sense in the Romans as in the Hebrews, the "salvation" which is said to be drawing near is that which is wrought by the coming of Jesus for His saints. But as the character and object of the epistles are different, it may be well to inquire whether any light as to the meaning of the word can be gathered from the Romans itself. Let us take this passage — "We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope" (Rom. 8:23-24). The salvation here spoken of then, is not security, or freedom from condemnation, which the believer already enjoys; but a hope for which, though having "the first-fruits of the Spirit," he waits and even groans. Nor is it the death of the body, or the spirit going to be with Jesus. Just the opposite; it is "the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Believers are "predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son" (Rom. 8:29). They have already "received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." But the body is not yet conformed to Christ's image, and the work of adoption is not completed until this also is redeemed. It is, then, for this we wait. This is the salvation for which we hope. But this "redemption of the body" is what Christ effects at His coming for His saints, when living believers "shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye;" or, as stated in Thessalonians, "we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Salvation, then, in the Romans, as in the Hebrews, is the change wrought in believers when Jesus returns to take them to the place He has gone to prepare for them.

No national or empire greatness is their hope; but being justified by faith, and taken into divine favour, they rejoice in hope of the glory of God, of which our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head and Centre. Neither is any betterment of conditions of living in this world their hope. Along with it will increase not only the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, but also the “pride of life.” Their hope is for “the life which is in Christ Jesus.” Already eternal life is theirs, for “He that has the Son has life”; as it is also said, “He that believes on the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36); but they look on to the fullness of it, in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. They look for the Lord Jesus Christ to come as Saviour, to transform their bodies of humiliation, to conform them to His own body of glory. Their life interests are not on earth, but in heaven, where He is; and they await His coming. They look to be like Him, and to see Him as He is. Their hope is in Him. The salvation, the blessing, the redemption, the life, and the grace are all in Christ Jesus, who is their hope. No wonder the Spirit speaks of it in the inspired writings as “the blessed” or “the happy hope.”

The one article given to the two objects brackets them together, not at all as if they are identical, but as here expressly associated to convey the complex and combined outlook. "The blessed hope" is that which alone can satisfy the heart; it is to be in the presence of Christ on high, changed at His coming into His likeness and with Him for ever. "The appearing of the" divine "glory" is bound up with it, and follows in due time, as that display or the divine manifestation in power, which our renewed souls cannot but desire to the utter exclusion of moral and physical evil and of Satan's guileful energy. It is the Lord Jesus Who introduces the world-kingdom of the Lord and of His Anointed (Rev. 11:15). As He brought the grace of God here below, so will He bring the glory to appear in His day. He it is who is called "the great God" as well as "our Saviour" lest we might forget His essential nature, when He emptied Himself to become a bondman, and humbled Himself to the death of the cross, in accomplishment of the infinite devotedness of His love in redemption to God's glory. He is no little God, as Arians feigned, but our great God and Saviour.