Hope in Christ
Notes
Transcript
HOPE The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.
Biblical faith rests on the trustworthiness of God to keep His promises. The biblical view of hope is thus significantly different from that found in ancient Greek philosophy. The Greeks recognized that human beings expressed hope by nature; however, this kind of hope reflects both good and bad experiences. The future was thus a projection of one’s own subjective possibilities (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2.517). Biblical hope avoids this subjectivity by being founded on something that provides a sufficient basis for confidence in its fulfillment: God and His redemptive acts as they culminate in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Old Testament Hope
Words for Hope in the Old Testament
There are several Hebrew words that, depending upon the context, may be translated “hope.”
The verb קָוָה (qawah) means “to wait or to look for with eager expectation” (Hartley, קָוָה, qawah), as upon Yahweh (Holladay, “קוה, qwh”). The essential notion is that the God of Israel is reliable and worthy of His people’s trust. Trusting and hoping in Yahweh, however, is an expression of great faith. Such action on Israel’s part means “enduring patiently in confident hope that God will act decisively for the salvation of his people” (Hartley, “קָוָה, qawah”; Gen 49:18; Isa 49:23; Psa 37:9).
The noun form תִּקְוָה (tiqwah) appears in Ruth 1:12, Job 4:6, and Jer 29:11, where it expresses the idea of “expectation” or “hope” (Holladay, “קוה, qwh”). In the Psalms, the hope of the afflicted will never perish (Psa 9:18). Jeremiah also uses a different noun constructed from תִּקְוָה (tiqwah), מִקְוֶה (miqweh), to instill in the people that Yahweh is the “hope of Israel” (Jer 14:8; 17:13; 50:7). This is the same understanding expressed by Jeremiah in addressing Yahweh: “Our hope is in you” (Jer 14:22).
The verb יָחַל (yachal) refers to “waiting,” and has the effect of making or causing someone to hope (Holladay, “קוה, qwh”). The verb forms convey the idea of “confident expectation, trust” (Gilchrist, “יָחַל, yachal”). This kind of hope is “the solid ground of expectation for the righteous. As such it is directed towards God” (Gilchrist, “יָחַל, yachal”). Those who “wait for Yahweh” are to take courage (Psa 31:24). Yahweh provides those who have “hope” in Him with “loving-kindness” (Pss 33:18, 22; 130:7), answers in crushing times (Psa 38:15), gives His presence to overcome despair (Pss 42:5, 11; 43:5), and offers forgiveness (Pss 130:5, 7).
Finally, the verb שֵׂבֶר (sever) refers in the piel stem to either “waiting” or “hoping” (Esth 9:1; Pss 104:27; 119:166).
Old Testament Hope as Present and Future
In the Old Testament, hope is both the trusting attitude in an active but provisional deliverance, and an eschatological hope in God’s ultimate deliverance. In the Old Testament, God grounds the hope of His people. God acted powerfully in the history of Israel, fulfilling His promise to Abraham to make him a “great nation” (Gen 12:1–3). God rescued them from their slavery in Egypt, provided for their needs in the wilderness, and subsequently formed them into
His own “possession … out of all the peoples” (Exod 19:5). God led the people into Canaan, where they eventually took possession of “all the land that he swore to give to their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled in it” (Josh 21:43).
However, Israel was not always faithful. Many times, the nation turned its back on its powerful God. Even then, hope was not lost: God pleaded, “Return to me, and I will return to you” (Mal 3:7). It was this forgiving God whom Jeremiah describes as “the hope (miqweh) of Israel, its savior in time of distress” (Jer 14:8; compare 14:22, 17:13). Similarly, the psalmist admonished the nation: “O Israel, wait (yachal) for Yahweh. For with Yahweh there is loyal love, and with him there is abundant redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.” (Psa 130:7–8).
If psalms like these produce an expectation of temporal help from God (see also 12:5; 33:20; 119:81), the prophets offer an “eschatological help which puts an end to all distress” (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2.523). Isaiah speaks of such hope: “Look! This is our God! We have waited (qawah) for him and he saved us! This is Yahweh; we waited (qawah) for him! Let us be glad, and let us rejoice in his salvation” (Isa 25:9). Micah boldly asserts: “But as for me, I will look to Yahweh; I will wait (yachal) for the God of my salvation” (7:7).
The people of the Old Testament also hoped for the coming Messiah. Messianic hope emerged from God’s promise to David that He would raise up one of his descendants to “establish his kingdom” and “the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam 7:12–13). For the most part, the Davidic descendants were disappointments. As the people expected their Messiah, they continued to hope for a son of David who would fulfill God’s promise.
New Testament
The New Testament continues to speak of God as the source and object of hope (Rom 15:13). But early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah. Hope was refocused on “God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). Thus, the metaphors of hope applied to God in the Old Testament are now applied to Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, in the New Testament.
Words for Hope in the New Testament
The New Testament, words for hope are the verb ἐλπίζειν (elpizein), and the noun ἐλπίς (elpis). Both have to do with trust and confidence; the expectation of what is sure to come; and the active, faith-filled waiting for God to fulfill that which He inaugurated by the power of His Spirit. The word appears in the New Testament only as a verb or noun, never as an adverb or adjective. That is likely because the emphasis is not on the subjective states of mind we have when we say “hopefully” or “hopeful.” Rather, hope in the New Testament has an objective focus.
The verb elpizein is used throughout the Septuagint in the same way as it appears in the New Testament. The noun elpidas appears in 2 Maccabees 7:14 to signify that which is hoped for: “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him” (NRSV). In every instance, the word means “expectation with the nuance of counting upon” (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2.530).
In Paul’s letters, hope is bound up with eager expectation or anticipation. Paul writes of waiting in hope for the adoption as sons of God through redemption of the body (Rom 8:23–25); waiting for the hope of righteousness (Gal 5:5); and, above all, “the blessed hope (elpis) and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Paul hopes to honor Christ always in his life (Phil 1:20); but, with even greater anticipation, his death will usher him into the presence of Christ where he knows existence “is very much better” (Phil 1:23).
The verb προσδοκάω (prosdokaō), meaning “to await, expect,” can also convey a sense of hope in the New Testament. Luke’s Gospel relates the account of Simeon “looking for the consolation of Israel” (2:25), where the verb προσδεχόμενος (prosdechomenos) appears, suggesting a positive and hopeful expectation of the coming Messiah. Jesus used the verb προσδοκᾷ (prosdoka) when He preached about the eschatological future arrival of the kingdom of God (Matt 24:50; Luke 12:46).
New Testament Hope as Present and Future
These New Testament texts and many others suggest that hope is eschatological in nature. It looks to the return of Christ and presence with Him. In the interim, hope gives rise to an ethical obligation that produces godly character. Following His resurrection, Christ ascended into heaven accompanied by the promise that He would “come back in the same way you saw him departing into heaven” (Acts 1:11). John’s first epistle promises Christians that “whenever he is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is” (1 John 3:2). Thus, while Christian hope has both existential and eschatological dimensions, Paul recognizes that “If we have put our hope in Christ in this life only, we are of all people most pitiable” (1 Cor 15:19; emphasis mine). The certainty of Christ’s resurrection enables Christians to hope in confidence that “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22).
This awareness brings about a purifying effect on the transient lives of those who have their “hope in Him” owing to the fact that He is pure (1 John 3:3). An attitude of hope is the appropriate response to this and all of the promises of God. Therefore hope, in the biblical sense, means that the believer “already participates in the reality for which [s/he] hopes” (Beardslee, “Hope,” 235).
Thus, Christian hope has both already and not-yet dimensions (Cullman, Christ and Time, 86). It is possible to participate in a hope that influences the concrete forms of society now. Jürgen Moltmann insists, “the coming lordship of the risen Christ cannot be merely hoped for and awaited” (Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 329). Christian hope challenges believers to engage the world to better its social structures. On the other hand, full participation in hope waits expectantly for the parousia of Jesus Christ. Until then, believers face the crises of life in the tension between the already and the not-yet.
Above all, New Testament hope is christological. Owing to the kerygma of the apostles, early Christian hope is vectored toward the parousia (second coming) of Jesus and the ultimate coming of the kingdom of God (Matt 6:10). Thus, Christian hope requires the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ. Since, however, the parousia is an eschatological event, Christian hope is an eschatological blessing. With hope, Christians anticipate the future return of Christ; but, in the present, Christians exercise faith and develop confidence in God to fulfill His promises (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2:532).
Ben Craver, “Hope,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).