04.02 Faith-Hope-Charity
CHAPTER II
FAITH - HOPE - CHARITY "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three" (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Hope is one of the three cardinal Christian graces. The hope of the Christian differs radically and in many respects from any and every hope the man of the world may have. In defining the word hope we have said it was the expectation of future good. But the Christian hope is more than mere expectation, it is the well-founded expectation of future, even eternal good. What hope the Christ rejector may have of eternal good is ill founded, and is sure to end in disappointment. Moreover, the hope of the unbeliever is at the best vague and uncertain. But the hope of the Christian is both sure and steadfast, and it goes with him all the way to glory. "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil" (Hebrews 6:19).
There are three chief things which the Lord Jesus Christ is said to be unto believers: (1) He is our life. "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4); (2) He is our peace. "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" (Ephesians 2:14); (3) He is our hope. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope" (1 Timothy 1:1).
We trust the Lord Jesus for life and the life we have in Him is everlasting life. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). We look to Him for our peace with God. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). And this peace was made by the blood of His cross. "And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself" (Colossians 1:20). And our hope for heaven with all its glories is based upon our faith in Him. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). In this chapter we shall deal with three things:
(1) The author of our hope, or who produces it; (2) The object of our hope, or what we hope for; (3) The ground or foundation of our hope. The Author
1. The author of our hope is God. Hope is a Christian grace produced in us by the Spirit of God. "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" (2 Thessalonians 2:16). The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, so that our hope maketh not ashamed. "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5). Furthermore, 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." God is here called the God of hope because He is the Author of our hope. And Peter assures us that we have been begotten again unto a living hope. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Hope like all the other Christian graces, is born of God and not of the flesh, nor of the will of man. And the faithful God, who causes us to hope in His son, will not disappoint that hope. The Object
2. The object of our hope is heaven with all its blessings. The things the Christian hopes for are all the heavenly blessings promised in Christ Jesus. This is a good place to be reminded that the word hope is used in a twofold way in the New Testament. The word is used both subjectively as an inner grace in the soul, and it is also used objectively in the sense of what is hoped for. "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel" (Colossians 1:5). We are told about the hope laid up for us in heaven, which has reference to the glories of heaven; all the things that will make heaven such a grand place. It is also a good time to be told that we cannot have heaven until we get to heaven. The blessed things we hope for are in heaven. Our heavenly inheritance is now a matter of hope. And in the other world we will possess this inheritance. "To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4). There is nothing in the nature of this inheritance that will be subject to corruption: it cannot be defiled by anything from the outside; and its joy will be everlasting. Heaven will be no disappointment to the child of God. As to its beauty, it is represented by the most precious things of earth, the most precious things the human mind can conceive of: gold, pearls and precious stones.
Heaven will be a place of freedom; freedom from so many things which have cursed the inhabitants of earth.
There will be freedom from bodily pain. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4). These former things are the very things with which we are all most familiar. Everybody knows the language of tears. We are all familiar with pain and disease and death. But all these enemies of human life will be forever outlawed from the heavenly precincts.
There will be freedom from poverty. Heaven will be a place of plenty. We cannot but think of the large areas of earth where poverty is indescribable. And even in this land of plenty, the poor can be found in large numbers. But there will be no meat and bread problem in the Father’s house; no housing problem in the new earth; no tumble down shacks over there; no health problem, where there is no more pain.
There will be freedom from fear. This world is a place of fear and more fear. As I write men’s hearts are failing them for fear of the things coming on the earth. There is much here to make afraid. Wars and rumors of wars shall continue unabated to the very end. Diplomatic discussions in the interest of peace are warring words which make for deeper hatred and greater fear among the nations. The red horse of war, the black horse of famine, and the pale horse of death still ride furiously. But in heaven there will be none to make afraid. The very word fear will be blotted forever from our hearts. The fearful words of earth will have no place in the dictionary of heaven.
There will be freedom from sin. Here is the word that pinpoints all that makes for pain, and poverty, and fear. Heaven will be a holy place filled with holy people. The Ground
3. The ground of our hope is Christ in His mediatorial work. We delight to sing: "On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand."
Without Christ every man is hopeless. Hope not founded upon Christ and Him crucified is only an idle dream. He who pleads anything before God except the Lord Jesus Christ will find no acceptance with Him. The only voice to which the God of justice will listen is the voice of the blood of Christ, that blood which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.
Consider the state of the fallen angels and we see what our condition would be without the redemptive death of Christ. The angels had nobody to stand between them and the God of justice and so are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the day of judgment. "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment" (2 Peter 2:4). By way of warning, we shall now point out some of the shifting sands upon which many are building their house of hope.
Many hope in the mere mercy of God apart from the mediation of Christ. This was the best hope of the writer before his conversion. He reasoned that, while he was a sinner, God was merciful, and that a merciful God would not punish him in hell. He failed to consider that God is just as well as merciful, and that God might give him justice instead of mercy. He failed to see what he now sees with sunlight clearness, that Christ is the one and only channel of mercy. Christ is the only mercyseat to which the sinner may come and find mercy with God. God out of Christ is not merciful, but is a consuming fire. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God" (Romans 3:25). The word translated propitiation in Romans 3:25 is the same word which is translated mercyseat in Hebrews 9:5. "And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly." Let the sinner try ever so hard and live ever so good, he will not find mercy with God unless he trusts God’s Son.
Some hope for heaven in their common honesty and civility between man and man. They base their hope on their good citizenship. They pay their debts and try to be good neighbors, and vainly hope they will come out all right in the end. These things are good in their place, but no good for salvation and a hope for heaven.
Others hope in their descent from pious and godly parents. They forget that salvation is an individual blessing and does not run in the veins. They do not seem to realize that the family circle can be broken in eternity. And still others hope in the externals of religion. Their hope is in the church and its ordinances. It is surprising the number of people who have no other hope than that they are members of a church and have subjected themselves to the ordinances of religion. Now, the ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s supper, are precious and should never be neglected. But they are not precious as the ground of hope. They are blessed symbols of the gospel of Christ, who is our hope. They are preaching ordinances. They proclaim the death and burial and resurrection of Christ, "Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25).
We cannot but believe that those who find Christ precious as Saviour will find delight in observing the ordinances of His church. But the ordinances must not be allowed to take the place of Christ in salvation.