Hope, with uplifted foot set free from earth,
Pants for the place of her ethereal birth;
On steady wings sails through the immense abyss,
Plucks amaranthine joys from bowers of bliss,
And crowning the soul, while yet a mourner here, With wreath like those triumphant spirits wear.
—Cowper
In “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” the immortal dreamer has led two of his characters through varied experiences, and now at last they stand before the dark river. They addressed themselves to the water, and, entering, Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend, Hopeful, he said, “I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head.” Then said the other, “Be of good cheer, my brother; I feel the bottom, and it is good.” Soon they are safely across, and enter the gates of the Celestial City, “which,” says Bunyan, “when I had seen, I wished myself among them.”
“Now while I was gazing upon all these things, I turned my head to look back, and saw Ignorance come up to the riverside; but he soon got over, and that without half the difficulty which the other two men met with. For it happened that there was then in that place one Vain-Hope, a ferry-man, that with his boat helped him over . . . When he was come up to the gate . . . he began to knock . . . Then they asked him for his certificate. So he fumbled in his bosom for one, and found none. Then they took him up, and carried him through the air to the door that I saw in the side of the hill, and put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to Hell, even from the gate of Heaven.”
The hope of some men will cause shame by (a) the weakness of its foundation: “The hypocrite’s hope shall perish . . . he shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand” (Job 8:13-15); (b) the insufficiency of its object: “But the eyes of the wicked shall fail . . . and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost” (Job 11:20); (c) the falseness of its assumption: “They were confounded, because they had hoped; they came thither and were ashamed” (Job 6:20). Job had seen much of life and of men, and his voice was thus raised against false hopes.
Our salvation lies in hope (Rom. 8:24). Now, hope has reference to the future, for “hope” that is seen—present and palpable—is not hope. Hope is made up of two elements: an earnest desire for an object, and a confident expectation of obtaining it. In the popular use of the word, however, hope is really only, as McLaren has said, “the reflection of our wishes projected on the screen of the future.” When people say, “We hope—,” they mean they would like to see the desired thing come to pass, but they are not sure that it will. It would be more correct then for them to say, “We wish—.” Wishes do not always bring forth to the birth; but our hope—as Christians—“maketh not ashamed”; it never disappoints us. Christian hope is not a sickly sentiment, but a strong certainty; every human hope is uncertain because of the instability of things around us.
There is a close relationship between faith and hope; they most intimately blend with and support each other. Yet, there are aspects in which they differ, and may be distinguished from each other. Faith appropriates—hope anticipates; faith looks upward—hope looks forward; faith accepts now—hope expects then. In a word, hope is faith for the future-faith in its prospective attitude. Faith and hope act and react on one another with a reciprocal increase; the more we have of the one, the more we will have of the other. Faith’s experience of God’s faithfulness in the present gives to hope the pigments with which to paint the future. Hope “tints tomorrow with prophetic day.”
Hope has a place in reason; it might almost be said to be the jubilee of reason. The Christian is to give to every man that asks him, a reason for the hope that is in him. Hope is also the parent and nurse of all endeavor, nerving us in the work of faith and labor of love. Hope glances forward and sees love working on in front. There is patience in hope, giving us a sustaining power in a time of waiting. Patience is the very heart of hope.
Hope is what we least can spare; it is the life-blood of the soul. Pliny makes hope the characteristic of a true man. This good wine is what makes us men, that God has “given us good hope through grace”—good as God is good, essentially.
The first thing to be noticed about the nature of Christian hope is the solidity of its basis, which is the Word of God. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). “Substance,” here has the meaning of “essence”—that which gives real existence to a thing. The things which, in the succession of time, are still “hoped for,” faith brings home to the believer as real facts. Hope is not a castle built in the air; it has a firm foundation in “that by two immutable things (God’s Word and God’s oath), in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18).
The writer reaches a point of transition here, as he turns to speak of hope under another aspect: “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil” (v. 19). The anchor is not mentioned once in the Old Testament. It is distinctively the symbol of Christian hope, for the Law could make nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did. Jesus, our Lord, is now within the veil, and
Hope has cast her anchor, found her rest
In the calm, sure haven of His breast.
The anchor is not in us; it is external to ourselves. It is fixed on the Unseen, firm in its inherent character, and not subject to the fluctuations of the sea of life. The soul is anchored in the upper blue, and we feel the tug on “the cable passed from His heart to ours.” We shall come into port grandly, because Christ is the Captain of our salvation.
The second thing we observe as to the nature of Christian hope is the magnificence of its Object—the Son of God. The “Lord Jesus Christ . . . is our hope” (I Tim. 1:1). Coleridge has said, “Hope without an object cannot live.” What would we be without Him? Derelicts drifting without anchorage. No substitute for Christ has been brought forward; had He proven false, we would have no other hope. We admit of no other—we are totally committed to Him, and our destiny is irrevocably bound up with His promise. Our hope reposes in Him; He is both the goal and guarantee of futurity.
The two characteristics of Christian hope that I have already mentioned are objective; they lie outside of ourselves. A third characteristic is the fulness of its enjoyment, which is the Spirit of God; this is subjective—brought into our experience.
The Holy Spirit of promise is “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Eph. 1:14). The earnest, or down payment—the first installment of the incorruptible treasure reserved in heaven for us—lies in our present possession of the Holy Spirit of promise. “Of promise!”—what a hope-filled harbinger and guarantee of glory! This is our spending money while we are away from home; our gold is in our trunk at home. Hope is joy borrowed from the future, and God’s full pledge has yet to be received.
Dear hope!
Earth’s dowry and Heaven’s debt;
The entity of things that are not yet,
Subtlest, but purest thing. —Campbell
In Romans 15:13, we read: “Now the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Hope is the springboard from which our souls are to take their bound upward. Abounding in hope—invigorating buoyancy!
Some years ago, I frequently passed a place of business where broken and defective automobile springs were mended. The sign above the entrance read: “Limp in—Leap out!” When our souls repair to the Spirit of God, our hope is lifted into life.
What are some of the “things hoped for”? First, eternal life: “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). Hope is in us—”Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27); hope is also before us—we are to “lay hold upon” it (Heb. 6:18; 1 Tim. 6:12). Hope and eternal life are thus seen to be inextricably bound up together in the one bundle. The present offers us only standing room in these four-and-twenty hours; hope, partaking of the eternal, commands the field of the future, and disdains petty geographical gauges.
Another of the “things hoped for” is the resurrection. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). The grave is no longer the terminus of life for the Christian. If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable. But because Jesus lives—the Lord of life—we shall live also. Being a “living” hope, it is consequently active. It is a great lever, moving us by its impulse, impelling us to service for God among men.
A third “thing hoped for” is Christ’s appearing. “Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). There are more references in the New Testament to the second coming of Christ than there are to either His birth into the world or His death on the cross. Preparatory to His cross, He had spoken of His promised return as being peculiarly the hope of His people. Why then should the second coming be categorically classified by some as only a nebulous theory, dreamed of in the religious rapture of a band of simple Galilean fishermen, but impossible of belief to the hardheaded realist?
The prophesied breakdown of morality; the increasing apostasy of Christendom; the chaotic condition of the nations—these are among the indications of His imminent coming. The liberation of creation from the bondage of corruption resulting from the Fall, awaits the dawning of that Day. This same Jesus, in corporeal form, shall translate His people, and then take up His right and reign. The God of hope Himself has been sustained in all His sufferings for sin in view of that Day. Today we stand upon a momentous margin of time, the very border of the manifestation of His glory and power who once was dead. We shall see Him as He is, and shall be like Him—what we partly are now, but wholly hope to be.