HOPE IN CHRIST JESUS
"Now abideth—hope." -I Corinthians 13:13 [KJV]
Gospel faith and Christian hope are twin graces in the heart: they are inseparable. Faith exists not without hope. Hope has no being without faith. Such as a man’s faith is, such is his hope. They both flow from God’s word, as light and heat from the sun. Take away a word spoken, and faith has no being. Without a promise made, hope has no existence. Faith receives and takes possession of Christ, as set forth in the word: hope expects all promised blessings, comforts, and joys in Him, with Him, and from Him, according to the word. “The word of God liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23.)
Jesus, Who is the essential Word, “is our hope” (1 Timothy 1:2.) He is the cause of our hope; the object of our hope; and the life of our hope. Therefore, our hope abideth. Yea, though all in nature fails; all in sense forsakes us; and all, as to outward appearances, are against us;—though corruptions rage and foam, and lift up their boisterous waves: though, like St. Paul, we are in the great deep, and see neither sun, moon, nor stars for a season,—yet hope abideth. For Jesus, the object of hope, lives. The grace of hope cannot perish: it is an anchor to the soul; it keeps it sure and steady.
Why? because it is not cast within us, but without us. What a foolish mariner would he be, who should think his vessel would ride safe and steady against wind and tide, because he had an anchor on board! Just as foolish are those professors, who cast the anchor of hope within themselves, on their own graces, inherent righteousness as it is called, etc. Why, as the sea-phrase is, the anchor will come home; it will not hold the vessel: there is no ground for it to fasten in.
But the Christian’s hope “entered into that within the vail.” (6:19.)—Into heaven itself. It fixes and fastens upon Jesus, Who is entered into heaven for us. As by faith we receive the atonement of Christ for our sins, and trust in His righteousness for our justification; so hope looks for, and expects the heart-reviving, soul-sanctifying comforts of this from the Holy Spirit in time; and all the glory and blessedness which Jesus hath, by His life and death, obtained for us, in an endless eternity.
Faith has to do with things invisible to sense. God’s truth is the foundation of faith. Faith keeps hope in lively exercise; “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ” -Titus 2:13.
From thence my hope doth spring:
Founded alone on what God saith,
I can rejoice and sing.
His word is truth, His promise sure;
Hence, faith and hope abide:
My soul in safety shall endure,
Nor aught from Christ divide.
-preacher William Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)
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