 | Hope | |
One of the three main elements of Christian character (1 Corinthians 13:13). It is joined to faith and love, and is opposed to seeing or possessing (Romans 8:24; 1 John 3:2). "Hope is an essential and fundamental element of Christian life, so essential indeed, that, like faith and love, it can itself designate the essence of Christianity (1 Peter 3:15; Hebrews 10:23). In it the whole glory of the Christian vocation is centred (Ephesians 1:18; 4:4)." Unbelievers are without this hope (Ephesians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:13). Christ is the actual object of the believer's hope, because it is in his second coming that the hope of glory will be fulfilled (1 Timothy 1:1; Colossians 1:27; Titus 2:13). It is spoken of as "lively", i.e., a living, hope, a hope not frail and perishable, but having a perennial life (1 Peter 1:3). In Romans 5:2 the "hope" spoken of is probably objective, i.e., "the hope set before us," namely, eternal life (Comp. 12:12). In 1 John 3:3 the expression "hope in him" ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, "hope on him," i.e., a hope based on God.
