Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 8:24

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

24. For we are saved ] Lit., and better, we were saved; at the time of our deliverance from darkness into light.

by hope ] “ Hope ” has the article in the Gr. If our English Version is retained, the meaning will be that our conversion was effected, in one sense, by the discovery of “the hope laid up in heaven” for the justified. But the connexion of salvation with faith is so marked and careful in N. T. doctrine that it seems far more likely that the true version (equally proper in grammar) is, we were saved in hope; i.e. when we believed we accepted a salvation whose realization was future, and could therefore be enjoyed only in the hope we felt in view of it. “ Salvation ” here is used (as e.g. 1Pe 1:5,) for the crown of the saving process; final glory.

hope that is seen ] i.e. “the hoped-for object, once seen, (as present,) ceases ipso facto to be hoped for.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For we are saved by hope – It cannot be said that hope is the instrument or condition of salvation. Most commentators have understood this as meaning that we have as yet attained salvation only in hope; that we have arrived only to a condition in which we hope for future glory; and that we are in an attitude of waiting for the future state of adoption. But perhaps the word saved may mean here simply, we are kept, preserved, sustained in our trials, by hope. Our trials are so great that nothing but the prospect of future deliverance would uphold us; and the prospect is sufficient to enable us to bear them with patience. This is the proper meaning of the word save; and it is often thus used in the New Testament; see Mat 8:25; Mat 16:25; Mar 3:4; Mar 8:35. The Syriac renders this, For by hope we live. The Arabic, We are preserved by hope. Hope thus sustains the soul in the midst of trims, and enables it to bear them without a complaint.

But hope that is seen – Hope is a complex emotion, made up of an earnest desire, and an expectation of obtaining an object. It has reference, therefore, to what is at present unseen. But when the object is seen, and is in our possession, it cannot be said to be an object of hope. The Word hope here means the object of hope, the thing hoped for.

What a man seeth – The word seeth is used here in the sense of possessing, or enjoying. What a man already possesses, he cannot be said to hope for.

Why – How. What a man actually possesses, how can he look forward to it with anticipation?

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 8:24-25

For we are saved by hope.

Saved in hope

According to our version we are saved by hope, but that is scarcely in accordance with other parts of Holy Scripture. Everywhere we are told that we are saved by faith (Rom 5:1). The original should be rendered in hope. Believers are saved by faith and in hope. At this present moment believers are saved, and in a sense completely. They are entirely saved from the guilt of sin, from its defilement, its reigning power, and its penalty. Yet we are conscious that there is something more than this to be had. There is salvation in a larger sense, which as yet we see not; for at the present moment we find ourselves in this tabernacle, groaning because we are burdened. We have not yet attained, but are pressing on.

I. The object of this hope.

1. Our own absolute perfection. We have set our faces towards holiness, and by Gods grace we will never rest till we attain it.

2. The redemption of the body (Rom 8:10-11), to consort with our purified spirit.

3. Our eternal inheritance (Rom 8:17).

4. The glory which shall be revealed in us (Rom 8:18) tells us which is a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

5. The glorious liberty of the children of God.

6. The manifestation of the sons of God. Here we are hidden away in Christ as gems in a casket; by and by we are to be revealed as jewels in a crown.

II. The nature of this hope.

1. It consists of three things.

(1) Our hope of being delivered from sin as to our soul, and infirmity as to our body, arises out of a solemn assurance that it shall be so. This is our belief because Christ is risen and glorified, and we are one with Him.

(2) This also we desire at all times, but especially when we get a glimpse of Christ.

(3) This desire is accompanied with confident expectation. Thus our hope is not a hazy, groundless wish that things may turn out all right.

2. It is grounded upon the Word of God, the faithfulness of God, and His power to carry out His own promise, and therefore it is a hope most sure and steadfast, which maketh no man ashamed who hath it.

3. It is wrought in us by the Spirit of God. Ungodly men have no such hope.

4. It operates in us in a holy manner. He that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself. It makes us feel that it is a shame for princes of the blood imperial of the skies to dabble in the mire like children of the gutter.

III. The anticipatory power of this hope. We obtained the first part of salvation by faith. But, besides this, we have in hope the fuller range of salvation. How is this?

1. Hope saw it all secured by the promise of grace. Knowing that the whole of the promise is of equal certainty, hope expected the future mercy as surely as faith enjoyed the present blessing.

2. Hope saw the full harvest in the firstfruits. When the Holy Spirit came to dwell in the body, hope concluded that the body would be delivered as surely as the soul.

3. Hope is so sure about this coming favour that she reckons it as obtained. You get an advice from a merchant beyond sea: he says, I have procured the goods you have ordered, and will send them by the next vessel. The deed is done that makes them yours. So it is with heaven. I have advices from One whom I cannot doubt that He has gone to heaven to prepare a place for me, and that He will come again and receive me to Himself. The apostle is so sure of it that he even triumphs in it (Rom 8:37).

IV. The proper sphere of hope. Hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for?

1. A Christians real possession is not what he sees. Suppose God prospers him and he has riches: let him be grateful, but let him confess that these are not his treasures. One hour with the Lord Jesus Christ will bring more satisfaction to the believer than the largest measure of wealth.

2. But it is clear that we do not at present enjoy these glorious things for which we hope. The worldling cries, Where is your hope? and we confess that we do not see the objects of our hope. For instance, we could not claim to be altogether perfect, but we believe that we shall be perfected. By no means is our body free from infirmity, yet our firm conviction is that we shall bear the image of the heavenly.

3. Away, then, with judging by what you do, or see, or feel, or are. Rise into the sphere of the things which shall be. When there is no joy in the present, there is an infinite joy in the future.

V. The effect of this hope. Then do we with patience wait for it. We wait, but not as criminals for execution, but as a bride for the wedding. The joy is sure to come, therefore do not complain and murmur, as though God had missed His appointment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Salvation by hope

Hope saves inasmuch as–

I. It revives.

1. While despondency benumbs, hope sends a thrill of life through every fibre of our being. If, e.g., you tell a sick man that he has no chance of recovery, how rapidly he sinks; but if you tell him there is hope, he revives, the blood circulates through his veins with a vigour which all the medicines in the world cannot inspire. Take the case of Hezekiah (Isa 38:1-22.).

2. Transfer this to the spiritual. Look at a man who is struggling with evil around and within him. If you make him believe that it can never be subdued, paralysis and death settle upon his energies. But if, in moments of depression, you meet him with instances of success, and show him that the work must succeed, you inspire him with life. How often hope revived St. Paul we know. The hope of his calling, the hope of salvation, the hope of Israel, the hope of the glory of God, the hope that his work would yet bear fruit, that blessed hope, the glorious reappearing of Christ, in his moments of depression, came to him like inspirations from heaven. Had they had no power, the world would have borne a very different look. It is the same with ourselves. Take the hope of forgiveness, the hope of heaven breathes life into the dullest. And when sorrowing for those we have lost, that which reconciles us to the will of God and sends us back to duty is the hope that they are as the angels.

II. It sustains. It is the principal cause of success. In those who watch by the sick this is evident. How it sustains through long nights of weary watching, and enables them to make sacrifice after sacrifice! Without hope, again, who could endure the myriad anxieties of life? Or look at the advocates of an unpopular cause. How hope sustains them! That of St. Paul and his companions is a case in point. To their heart and hand hope gave courage, labour, patience.

III. It incites to active endeavour. If we wish to incite children to diligence, we use hope. It incites the student, the workman, the merchant, the soldier, the sailor, the artist, the statesman. Hope, in fact, is the great mover of the human mind. The hope of doing good is the inspiration of our noblest deeds. The hope of subduing our evils, and of being transformed into the image of Christ, incites us to struggle against them.

IV. It purifies. Every man that hath this hope purifies himself even as He is pure. Conclusion:

1. This hope is Divine, God is the God of hope–its object, its source. The hopes by which men are revived, sustained, or incited, are not their own. They are inspired by the Holy Ghost. And what solidity is here given to our hopes as believers, as citizens of heaven! Their mere existence is a pledge of their reality and truth.

2. The gospel of Christ is a gospel of hope. It does not contradict the soul. Men have always believed that their parentage is Divine. The gospel confirms this: Beloved, now are we the sons of God. They have always believed in immortality. The gospel says, In My Fathers house are many mansions. They have always believed in the Divine nearness. The message of the gospel is, Lo, I am with you alway.

3. See the necessity for preaching it. Tell men they are the children of the devil, and you do the best you can to make them such. But tell them they are the children of God, and you give them hope. (W. M. Metcalfe.)

Salvation by hope

The gospel, as the term denotes, is glad tidings to all, not excepting the chiefest of sinners. It is a Divine dispensation of encouragement. Its salvation is a salvation by hope. To understand this doctrine, it will be necessary to begin by considering generally what mankind stand most in need of as a motive and means to that change of heart and life on which salvation depends. And, first, in case of hardened and abandoned sinners. With respect to such men, at least, I believe the impression is almost universal, that what they stand most in need of is, to be thoroughly alarmed by the terrors of the law, by vivid pictures of the judgment to come if they die impenitent. The argument is, that as bad men, through the indurating effects of sin, have become insensible to higher and better motives, they must be moved, if moved at all, by a fear of Gods indignation and wrath. Sin hardens men, I admit, against a sense of duty and a sense of shame; but it hardens them, if possible, still more against a sense of any spiritual dangers. Howard and Elizabeth Fry, with the men and women who have followed them in their mission to carry the gospel into prisons, are found to have trusted almost exclusively to the power of Christian sympathy, aided by a gentle and kind manner, as a means of subduing those who feared neither God nor man, neither death nor hell. But if this is true of abandoned sinners, how much more so of all such as still have their relentings, whose sin consists, for the most part, in halting between two opinions, having determined that they will become religious at some future day, but not yet. They think it would be harder work for them to be Christians than for most men; that it is beyond their reach, at least for the present; that it would be vanity or presumption in them to make the attempt. Now, I ask, how are these obstacles, all consisting radically in a want of confidence, most likely to be overcome? Clearly as the gospel aims to do it–by inspiring new confidence, by holding out the promise of sympathy and help; by a Divinely authenticated dispensation of encouragement. We are saved by hope. But if I were to stop here, half of my purpose would be left unaccomplished. All will agree, I doubt not, that life without hope from any quarter would be insupportable. Still, some may ask, why look to religion, why look to Christianity for this hope?

1. In the first place, the Christian hope is not limited and bounded, like all worldly, irreligious, infidel hopes, by what men can do. Unless we recognise the being, and trust in the presence and agency of a Higher Power, the hour is coming when the soul will be without hope. Despair will take the place of hope. Here also it is of importance to observe that, with persons of reflection and forethought, whatever is seen to end in despair, begins in despair.

2. Another distinction of the Christian hope consists in its not being limited and bounded, as all worldly, irreligious, and infidel hopes must be, by the present life. Almost the entire language of condolence under grief, hardship, and oppression is borrowed from the Bible, and owes its force to the Christian doctrine that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

3. A third circumstance distinguishing the Christian hope is that, unlike all worldly, irreligious, infidel hopes, it does not profess to measure itself by the real or supposed deserts of the individual, but by the boundless goodness and mercy of the Supreme Disposer. Under the Christian dispensation it is impiety to despair of Gods mercy on account of our past sins: for this would be to suppose these sins to be greater than His mercy. Of course, when we compare what we are and what we can do with what we hope to receive, we cannot fail to be struck with the infinite disparity; but neither is this just ground for misgivings. What is promised is to be regarded, not as being of the nature of wages for work done, but as being of the nature of a gift on condition of obedience; and in this character as a gift, it takes its proportions, not from our poor earnings, but from the munificence of the Giver.

4. Who, it may be asked in conclusion, does not feel his need of this hope?

5. Again, who would not cultivate this hope? As religious dispositions are not of this world they are not likely to spring up spontaneously under worldly appliances amidst worldly avocations. Religion, religion at least in its highest forms, is a delicate exotic, which must not be expected to grow wild in the fields; it must be nurtured with effort and care; it must be sheltered from all ungenial influences, and surrounded, as far as may be, with the atmosphere, so to speak, of its native heaven.

6. Finally, who would knowingly and willingly disappoint or frustrate this hope? Because a man has hope in Christ it does not follow that this hope is well founded in his case. Our very hope may perish; nay, it will do so, unless we establish it in righteousness, and unless we show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end. (Jas. Walker.)

Salvation by hope

I. We can trace some illustration of this great general law in our own lives. Saved by hope. Upon how many lives, how many works, might that be written!

1. One man is saved by hope from indolence: a poor form of hope it may have been, but it kept the life in him till the worthier motive claimed him.

2. Another is saved by hope from the insanity of self-satisfaction: hope startled him with the challenge of a heros life or the pathos of a heros death, and the snare was broken and he was delivered.

3. Another may have been drifting towards the utter loss of self-respect: drunkenness or impurity may have been quenching all the light out of his soul, but hope came to him–the hope of a noble love–and his chains fell off. Yes, hope is the spur of every effort–the strength of every enterprise–the stay of all endurance. As one may go round a garden after winter and there mark the signs of lingering life, and say, Ah! that may come right after all: so may God look into unnumbered hearts, wintry and dull as death itself, and see the half-conscious germ of hope, and know that there is that whereby they may be saved. Aye, and as in the individual life, so also in the whole race of man, hope wields its saving energy. It is the great impulse of all onward movement: the mainspring of progressive civilisation: the instinct of mankind towards the amendment of every circumstance of life. Any hope that is not sinful is better than no hope at all. St. Paul puts terribly near to one another having no hope and without God in the world.. Even a hope which could never call out all the power that is in a man may yet serve to keep his head above water till better help comes.

II. If hope is to have its perfect work, then it must fulfil at least two conditions–it must rest on a sufficient ground, and it must point to a sufficient object.

1. The hope that leads us on must not be like a will-o-the-wisp, hovering over dangerous ground, and vanishing altogether where we thought we must come up with it. Many such hopes there are: e.g., of a startling career, of brilliant originality, of large but vague philanthropy; hopes, hazy and delusive, corresponding to no solid reality, marking out for us no clear course.

2. Other hopes there are which will direct us definitely enough: the hope of money, of success, of power; we may follow them with confidence, but it is like walking down a street that leads us nowhere; we may reach the end, but only to find it as dull and disappointing as a blank wall. In regard to one such hope, the commonest perhaps of all, the hope of wealth, a working-man said to me once, I suppose no one is rich till the day when hes got a little more than he has. His paradox exactly told the truth: the clearest of worldly hopes are at the same time most disappointing.

3. The hope that really saves, and maketh not ashamed, is a hope which points with clearness to an aim which cannot prove inadequate; a hope which will not halt till every power and energy of our life has found its rest, its joy, its perfect and unwearied work. To such a hope hath God begotten us by the resurrection of Christ. It is an infinite enrichment of all human life that we commemorate at Easter; even the gift of one steadfast, serious, sufficient hope.

III. There is no department of life which may not be liberated and uplifted by the hope which the risen lord reveals. Some seem to shrink from laying stress upon the future life lest it should be used to disparage or obscure the duties of the present. But was it so when the living hope was freshest and strongest? Who, for instance, in those first Christian days, really made the most of the great trust of this life? The heathen poet, laughing at the idea of being serious when you have but a few years in which to enjoy yourself? The philosopher, inculcating suicide whenever the pains of life outweighed its pleasures? The heathen emperor, leaving the vast duties of his position to plunge more freely into every phase of vice? Or Paul, the slave of Christ? In all the change that came with the faith of Christ few things are more remarkable than the advancement of hope from the place of a weaknes to the power of a great motive for a good life. And we need never fear that a man will grow careless or halfhearted about the concerns of time, because in and through them all he seeks those things which are above. Much rather does the saving hope that firmly rests on Christs resurrection avail, as nothing else avails, to give steadiness and calmness and confidence to every worldly hope which can be pursued in this life.

1. What a change, e.g., passes over the hope of the student when, beside the empty tomb, he begins to discern the true vocation of the intellect, the range, the use it may hereafter have. In Christ the human intellect has passed to the sphere of its perfect and unending exercise.

2. But what shall we say about that other sphere of effort where the real crisis of our life must find its issue; how can we measure the moral life the saving power of the Easter hope? Here we renew the experience of the Psalmist, I should utterly have fainted; but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

3. Let us see whether the words have not a bearing also upon the life of nations. Is it not to be feared that many cherish less reverently than of old the salutary grace of a true hope? Hope, as we have seen, is essential to the vigour, the harmony, the welfare and happiness of each separate human life. If we were to give up hoping, how would for us the sun be darkened, and desire would fail and purpose falter, and all joy and courage and helpfulness fade out of our life. Must it not be so, in some degree, if the temper, the character, the current literature of a nation begins to discard or trifle with the duty and the strength of hope? Oh! if this be so, then there are two things at least that we can do for England now. Let us see to it that, by the grace of God, we stand sure and steadfast in that only hope which maketh not ashamed, which is nothing else than faith in the omnipotence and in the love of God. And then let us humbly and constantly pray to Him who spanned with an unfailing hope the interval of earth and heaven that He may renew and purify with the knowledge of His truth the heart and thought of England. (Dean Paget.)

A saving hope

We begin with the first of these parts, viz., the general proposition, We are saved by hope. The present salvation of a Christian lies not so much in possession as it does in expectation. The word hope in Scripture does admit of a double signification, either as it denotes the grace or else the object of hope. Now, here in the text it seems specially to be understood of the latter. First, seeing we are saved by hope, it concerns us to strengthen ourselves in the hope of Christianity in general, namely, that there are such things indeed as a Christian doth hope for. Thus St. Paul speaking of himself (Act 24:15). This hath divers grounds whereupon it is raised. First, the promise and covenant of God (Isa 55:3). Secondly, the oath of God (Heb 6:18). Thirdly, Christ Himself in the performance of all His offices. That is another ground of our hope. Christ, He is called the hope of glory (Col 1:27). Lastly, the firstfruits of the Spirit, and the beginnings of glory here in this world, which Christians have in their own hearts and consciences, they are great assurances of this hope unto them. But secondly, not only so, but further, we are to strengthen ourselves in our own hope for our particular condition. That as there is such a hope as this is for the thing itself, so that we also have hope of this hope. Forasmuch as we are saved by hope, it concerns us very much to keep up hope alive in ourselves, not only to have it in the ground of it, but also in the discovery. How may we come to do so? First, by conscionable walking and watchfulness over ourselves. The more holiness, still the more hope. These things they run in a circle. Hope, it provokes to holiness, and makes us to walk more warily; and holiness, it encourages hope, and makes us to walk more comfortably (Pro 14:32). To this I may add sincerity, and uprightness, and fruitfulness, in our places. The hope of the hypocrite shall perish (Job 8:13). Thirdly, by meditation on the promises, and often looking over our evidences and grounds of hope. And lastly, by frequent prayer. The more that we are acquainted with God, the more shall we hope from Him (Psa 62:8). Thus should we confirm our hope for our own particular. Yea, further, we should not only nourish and strengthen this hope in ourselves, but be ready likewise to give a reason and an account of it to others (1Pe 3:15). Lastly, seeing we are saved by hope, as is here in this present Scripture declared unto us. This serves for the just reproof of three sorts of persons: First, desperate, which do exclude themselves from all hope at all. Secondly, presumptuous, which do hope there where there is no ground of hope for them. Thirdly, carnal, which do place their hope in things of the world. First, such persons do plainly offend against this doctrine who are absolutely desperate and hopeless. Forasmuch as we are saved by hope, in what a sad condition are they which do cast themselves out of hope, and do shut up the grace of God against themselves! We see from hence the great aggravation of the sin of despair. It is a trespassing upon the blood of Christ, who hath purchased salvation for us; and it is also a disparagement to the Holy Ghost, whose office is to comfort and to persuade us to come up to Christs terms and conditions. In a word, we overthrow the whole scope and tenour of the gospel, and the rule of Gods grace in it. Secondly, presumptuous persons, they are also from hence condemned, because we are saved by hope; for as despair is a trespass upon hope on one hand, so is presumption likewise on another. Those therefore that take up a hope of their own making, who, though they walk in sinful courses, yet hope for all that they may come to heaven, do exceedingly deceive themselves. Presumption is one thing, and hope is another. Thirdly, carnal and worldly persons, they come under this censure likewise, from the consideration of this point in hand, that we are saved by hope, which is not such a hope as is founded in the things of the world, but in matters of a higher nature (1Pe 1:3; Col 1:5). It is the condition of many people that their portion is only in this world, as the Psalmist speaks of them (Psa 17:14). All their happiness it lies here below, and they rest themselves satisfied with it. Give them but their desires here, and take heaven who will. For hope, etc. The second is the particular description of this hope, what it is; which is laid down negatively, by denying it to be of such things as are seen; but does include the affirmative also in it as being of such things as are not seen. The hope of a believer, it is the constant expectation of good things to come. Let us take notice of that. It is not of things visible, but of things invisible (2Co 4:18; Heb 11:1; 2Co 5:7; Col 3:3; 1Jn 3:2). The ground hereof is not only the nature of hope itself, which is so in all other things, as looking at things which are future for the object of it; but when we speak of Divine hope, as it is considered under the notion of a grace, and proper to a Christian, so there is a further reason why it should be (to choose) of things not seen. And that is that by this means it may bring the greater glory to God by trusting Him on His bare word. Thus do we by hoping for things invisible. We honour Him so much the more in His power, goodness, and all His attributes. And so likewise it shows us the reason why Gods children are so much scorned and contemned by men of the world. It is because they are such persons as have their good things only in reversion. Lastly, seeing hope is of things which are not seen. We may here, by the way, take notice of the difference of these two saving graces–faith and hope. While the former is of those things which are present, the latter of those things which are to come; and though the same things happen to be the object of each, yet under a different notion and consideration. As, for example, eternal life: hope looks upon it as a thing which is future, in regard to its remoteness; but faith looks upon it as a thing which is present, in regard to its sureness. The third and last is the adjunct and concomitant of this hope, which follows in these words, But if we hope for, etc., where we may observe and note thus much, that true and right hope indeed, it is accompanied still with patience, and waiting, and quiet resting, and dependence upon God for the things hoped for (Heb 10:36). Hope, if it be such as it should be, it hath still patience annexed unto it. This is requisite upon divers grounds. First, the ground which is intimated here in the text, because we hope for that which we see not. Forasmuch as the object of hope is invisible, the companion of hope must be patience. Especially if we shall add, moreover, that they are things of special worth, and which do move the appetite to them. Here, now, there is required patience so much the more, for men to be some time without those things which they have no need of, nor no great desire towards them, this is no patience or forbearance at all. Secondly, this hope of a Christian had need have patience to be joined with it, not only from the distance of the object, not only for that the time is long, but also for that the way is troublesome and dangerous and full of annoyance. If a man have never so brave a palace or stately dwelling which he is to come unto, yet if he have a great way before be comes thither, his patience will be exercised about it. But now, further, if as the way is long, so it be also dirty and subject to thieves, here the life will be still so much the worse, and the greater patience required in it (Act 14:22). Thirdly, things contrary to our hope, these likewise do call for our patience. And those are our own corruptions, and the assaults and temptations of Satan, whereby he labours to discourage us. Soldiers had need of patience, that they may go through those several hardships and encounters which they shall meet withal. The contradictions of sinners and the discouragements which arise from wicked men. These made up another consideration for the necessity of this patience likewise. Lastly, patience is very justly and properly required as an attendant upon hope, because hope in the nature of it breeds patience. The more we hope, the more patient we either are, or at least have cause to be, in that regard. Those that have nothing to sustain them, it is no wonder that they should be impatient (Heb 6:19). Now, the application of this point to ourselves may be reduced to these two improvements: First, as a just censure of many people for their defect in this particular, who are many times out of patience when any evil does at any time befal them, or that anything does fall cross to them, from whence they are ready to complain and murmur even against God Himself. This impatience of Christians not walking worthy of their hope does discover itself upon sundry occasions. First, in ease of wants, when they have not presently that which others have or which themselves have a mind to. Secondly, in ease of delays and procrastinations. Thirdly, in ease of distress or any particular trouble and affliction. This is another discovery of this impatience. This impatience, besides that disparagement which it casts upon our Christian hope and profession, is very prejudicial to us in sundry regards. First, it increases our misery and adds to the affliction which is upon us. This it does two manner of ways. In respect of the condition itself, as it provokes God oftentimes to multiply afflictions upon us. Impatience under loss provokes God to the sending of greater. A burden in our condition from the affliction, and a burden upon our spirit from the distemper, and both together do very much press upon us. Secondly, impatience, it puts men upon the taking of indirect courses and the use of unlawful means. Thirdly, this impatience it does disturb all good performances in any way or kind whatsoever. No man can serve God so cheerfully who has this distemper prevailing upon him. Therefore, for a second use of this point, let this serve to stir us up, as a proof of our faith, and the hope which is in us, to labour for this spirit of patience, which is here commended unto us. First, for the encouragements, take notice of them, as, namely, first of all, that here in the text, The earnest expectation of the creature, waiting, etc. The creature, though it groans, yet it waits; let not us be worse than that. Secondly, the practice of the saints, and of such persons as have received the firstfruits of the spirit, who are said here also to practise this patience (Jam 5:10). Thirdly, the practice of all other men besides in other things as to their particular concernments: the merchant in his way, the soldier in his, the husbandman in his, as it is also there expressed in Jam 5:7. Fourthly, the practice of God Himself. How patient is He towards us, and waiting for us! These and the like are arguments, and encouragements, and inducements for it. There are also helps and conducements to it for the obtaining of it. As–First, prayer and supplication. Secondly, study the promises, and dwell more upon the attributes of God. Thirdly, reflect upon former experiences. Experience breeds patience (Rom 5:4). Fourthly, let us set before us future glory, and therein imitate Christ Himself upon the like occasions (Heb 12:2). (Thomas Horton, D.D.)

Salvation by hope

1. This is a very strong expression. But not more so than some others. It is described as one of three cardinal virtues of the Christian character (1Co 13:13); as the great object of Gods gift to us of His Holy Word (chap. 14:4); as an attribute to God Himself as its Author, and as the end of prayer for other graces (chap. 15:13).

2. Such is the place of hope in the Christian system. Its real place in ours is one widely different. Who ever speaks or thinks of the duty of hope? Who ever prays for hope as a necessary part of the Christian character? Who is ever ashamed of being without hope? To be desponding, to be filled with religious fears and doubtings, is by some regarded as almost a sign of grace. And by most Christians hope is regarded rather as one of those late and precarious attainments, or even as a matter of temperament, which belongs only to those to whom it comes naturally.

I. What is hope?

1. In general it is the anticipation of a pleasant future.

(1) It admits of degrees. Like fear, its opposite, like faith, its next of kin, hope is capable of every shade of variety, from the first faint glimmering of a possibility, to fulness of persuasion and conviction.

(2) It is progressive. The cherishing of the thought that a certain thing is possible, tends to form the idea that the possible is probable, and that the probable is certain,

2. And now what is Christian hope? It, too, is the expectation of a pleasant future. But the Christians pleasant future has to do mainly with things inward, and with the time after death. But do not suppose that it is therefore less real, less sensible, or less practical. Nothing surely is so real as that which is absolutely imperishable. Nothing is so sensible as to see things as they are, refusing to be put off with things as they seem. Nothing is so practical as the making a vigorous daily effort to be that which we shall certainly one day rejoice to be, or else vainly wish that we had been. The pleasant future of the Christian is a time when he will be quite holy, when he will so have the mastery over his own rebellious will, as to be entirely in harmony with the will of God. No more struggles therefore, but quietness, peace, and rest for him in God, with Christ, with all the good, for ever. This is a faint glimpse of his far future. And his near future is like it; pleasant in proportion as it is like it.

II. Its difficulties.

1. One of these arises from the observation of the world around us. The Christian sees vast tracks of land still heathen or Mahometan; worst of all, some in which Christ was once known, but which have relapsed into darkness. He sees, too, that superstition has laid its hand upon a large portion of Christendom itself, and that even a perfectly pure faith is no safeguard against a predominantly worldly or sinful life. Now all this is deeply discouraging.

2. Then he turns within. Alas, there chiefly he finds hope difficult. His individual life is by no means all sunshine. How often does he pray, and no answer seems to come! Nay, how often does he pray without praying, striving in vain to summon his own heart to the offices of praise and devotion! How often, yet again, has he heartily prayed, and risen from it refreshed and hopeful, and then, almost before the heavenly radiance has faded from his heart and brow, some little trifling temptation comes across him, and he has fallen! These things sadly overcloud hope.

III. Its encouragements. In general it must rest entirely on God; His character, His revealed intentions and relations. Some of the most elementary of all His revelations are felt in times of despondency to be the most available. Such is the thought of–

1. His holiness; a holy God must desire that we should be holy; and that is what we wish to be, though so far from it.

2. His power; what the holiness of God desires His power can effect.

3. His mercy; a God of love cannot but, if holiness and happiness be one, design to help through their difficulties, and save from their sins, those who in His name and strength are facing them like men.

4. Creation. Do we suppose that a God of infinite knowledge created and endowed man with such gifts only to discard him?

IV. Its uses.

1. It stimulates exertion. I know nothing in the world so indolent as despondency, nothing so paralysing as discouragement. But what can we not do with a prize in view? One victory, ever so small, gained over self contains within it the germ not of a second victory only, but of all victory. Experience worketh hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.

2. It inspires charity. Charity hopeth all things. He who hopes for himself, in spite of many discouragements about himself, may well hope also for another, in spite of many discouragements about another. He who knows in detail what Gods forbearance and longsuffering have been towards himself, will not limit Gods forbearance and longsuffering in cases of which he knows not the details. We hope, and therefore we labour. Conclusion:

1. Hope itself has limits. We are in a day of grace; but every day has its night. When that night comes hope ends; either perfected in enjoyment, or annihilated in despair.

2. The way to hope is through humility. It does not come from ignorance of ourselves, but from that deep self-knowledge which drives us for refuge to God only.

3. It has Christ Himself, not only for its basis, but for its object. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope. (Dean Vaughan.)

Salvation by hope

1. Hope is not simple foresight or expectation, because the foresight and the expectation may be of mischief. We never hope for misery, for mistakes, but for victory, coronation, love, and joy. So hope has this peculiarity, that it is sweet-minded and sweet-eyed. It draws pictures. It fills the future with delights. And then, having created them, it brings them near, and appropriates them. The greatest and most needed architect is Hope; and it builds with the flimsiest material–the fancy.

2. The Christian religion stands contrasted with all others by the hope that is in it. He who represents the Christian faith in any other light than that of joyous hopefulness, misrepresents it. In the Old Testament day there was a certain element of hope; but it was undeveloped. The Jews lived mostly in the present. They said, This do, and live. They pointed to the round of duties which belonged to each day, saying, Perform these, and God shall be well pleased. The Christian faith is for ever looking forward, and cheering men, by the perpetual vision of the future. The contrast of the Christian faith with the faiths of the heathen is still greater. They were mostly religions of fear.

3. Hope is a distinct and peculiar faculty, and exists in different degrees in different persons. Some live by the power of conscience. Duty is their watchword. Some live by the power of caution, constant anxiety. Others are cheerful and expectant. There are many who, if you bend them down to the ground, break short off at the stump. There are others who, like the young hickory, the moment the pressure is removed, spring back again. Yesterday was disastrous; but to-day has come. To-day is dark; but it will clear off before tomorrow. This has miscarried; but no matter, begin again. Hope is a charming trait in men. There is something very admirable in conscientiousness; in the acceptance of unwelcome duty which it carries with it. There is also in fear much that is to be admired. It carries with it great activity and intense provocation. But, after all, commend me to the sweetness and the inspiration of hope.

4. Hope has its own peculiar dangers.

(1) The whole generation of what are called schemers are children of hope. They are not balanced by suitable caution, but they are pioneers of success. If you are starting in an unknown channel, you are not glad of any mishap to him that goes ahead of you; but if he run upon a sandbank he is a buoy for you, and you do not go there. The men who go ahead, however, often scheme, laying the foundation for valuable results, though they do not reap them. The inventor, in his day, received nothing from his invention; but that invention bore fruit in another mans hand a little later. Let me, therefore, speak an encouraging word for the men who drift through society, and are said to be rolling stones that gather no moss. Fortunate are we in the hopefulness of these precursors of society. Blessed is the society that is full of hopeful men.

(2) But there is a disease of hope; there is such a thing as perverted hopefulness. It is hope, in one or other of its perverted forms, that leads men into all manner of gambling. Unperverted hopefulness is specially needed–

I. By all those who endeavour to create the fabric of Christian character. Yon are called, not to a toilsome and burdensome life, unalleviated by promise or cheer. You are called to a higher manhood, to a nobler spiritual ideal, and you find your way beset and obstructed on every side–hope. But God will wait for you, and be gentle with you. Ply, therefore, every instrumentality, and do not give up in despair, saying, There is no use in attempting to be a Christian.

II. By those who are appointed to poverty. When a man is poor, having been rich, or without having tasted of riches, and finds himself perpetually at variance with his circumstances, he needs indeed the light of hope. Now, in ten thousand ways, if men have poverty, they may rise above it by the sense of hope. You are not poor, except among men. Is not your Father infinitely rich? This is not your home. Do you suppose a traveller at a caravansary thinks the cold, desolate building in which he rests is his home?

III. By those who are in the struggles of daily duty. This man is thrown out of business. Sickness befalls another man, and destroys his prospects. What to do they do not know. Some are overthrown by their own mistakes; but they are quite as likely to be overthrown by their connection with friends and neighbours. But, whatever the cause, if it comes to them in mid-life, or late in life, it is most unfortunate, unless they are versatile, fruitful of resources, and hopeful in disposition. If despondency be superinduced upon disaster, in the case of any man, woe be to that man! When you are checked in your career, begin again. Do not let go of manhood and courage. The inward man is better than the outward man. Hold on. Many and many a man carries himself over the critical point by hopefulness. But do you say, I am too old to hope? Do you say, I have, constitutionally, too little hope? Then open your heart to God. Draw near to Him in His great providential relations. I will not let a sparrow fall to the ground without My notice, and are not you of much more value than many sparrows? If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, etc..

IV. By those whose mind becomes gloomy through morbid conditions of the body; as where men find themselves entirely shut up from all the sources of ordinary enjoyment. While there are kinds of sickness that are quite compatible with the exercise of Christian feeling, there are other kinds which carry such distemperature that it is very difficult for a man under their influence to maintain hopefulness. But whatever your condition may be, do the best you can; and do not think that it is a part of the prerogative of sickness to bemoan ones state, and pity ones self. As much as possible, look away from yourself toward God. I have never seen insects that, if they fell into the water, did not attempt to fly out again as soon as possible.

V. By the aged. It is a very painful thing to see a matron who has lived in toil go back over her experience. One has died; another has died; another remains. Would to God he had died also! Poverty comes in, with disappointment. She is seventy. This woman, whose life has been a heroism, goes, it may be, to the poor-house. And it is sad enough. But cheer up. It may be that you have laid up more than you think. You have built no house; there are thousands of things that men rejoice in here that you have not; but you do not know how many comfortable words you have dropped as you have gone along; how your kindness has thrown radiance on the paths of others; how much good you have done with your faith; how much you have lightened the burdens of your fellow-men by the example of your life. When you go hence, one, and another, and another, whom you have directly or indirectly helped in their trouble, will throng the gate of heaven with gratitude. You will be surprised to learn how many know you that you do not know. There is a life not far beyond where the silver cords broken here shall be brought together again. (H. W. Beecher.)

Hope

Let us look at hope.

I. In its relation to home and pressing work.

1. The nurse and loving friend who watch by the sick say, While there is life there is hope. It is curious to see how God, who puts us here as mere strangers and pilgrims, mere grubs, about to burst into the beauty of the heavenly life, should implant in us a keen and obstinate love of life such as we see it here. But so it is. We cannot bear the idea of being dead, and fly for medical help directly there is danger to health. No doubt this is right. Jesus raised bodies to toil a few years more, to die a few years later.

2. But God reverses the saw of the nurse and says, While there is hope there is life. When we can look onward in our work, and believe in progress, then we work with life. Even the sluggard is inspired by results. Thorwaldsen was once found deeply dejected, if not in tears. On being asked why, he confessed that he was satisfied with the work he had in hand; that he accepted this satisfaction, which he had never felt before, as a sign that his powers were decreasing, that he had no higher aim, that the turning moment of his decline had come. So it is in the commonest handicraft. He who hopes to see shoes made better will always work with a reserve of energy and enjoyment. But the moment a man loses heart, i.e., hope, his value is diminished in the labour market; he is merely writhing in the clutch of death, and unless rekindled by the fire of God, will before long disappear vauquished. Hope is the sun, and when it sets the night creeps on from place to place in the soul.

II. In its higher aspects. The constant looking forward to victory is the secret of the Christian life.

1. Life in the Psalms is the confidence of help, David rises before us inspired, irresistible, when he looks beyond the years of guilt and persecution. When he had eaten and was full, when his course was nearly done, there was much in his history we do not like to dwell on.

2. When we turn to the New Testament our eyes are drawn at once to Jesus. In the judgment hall He looks beyond the mob, the scourge, the shame, and thinks aloud, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God. More or less this spirit inspires all true disciples. Hope is the true elixir which confers perpetual renovation.

III. A mysterious incoming Spirit is the Giver of this hope. We have received the firstfruits of the Spirit for we are saved by hope. Have we realised the existence of such a Spirit? or do we look for mere spiritual luxuries which will help us to say a Nunc dimittis? Do we look merely to a calm, comfortable ending of all desires, or to a growing power to take in the things of God? (Harry Jones, M.A.)

Hope

is evidenced–

1. By the mother of it–faith.

2. By the daughter of it–patience.

3. By the companion of it–love. (Elnathan Parr, B.D.)

Hope or sunshine

You have all experienced the difference between a sunny and a foggy morning. When you have risen and beheld the sun shining in its strength, have you not felt an irrepressible emotion of joy? But when the fog has begloomed your atmosphere a shadow has been cast over your very mercies.

1. There is a foggy side morally over which broods blackness of darkness; where hope refuses to take root; where all happiness is evanescent or imaginary. This foggy side is owing to sin. Upon it, we admit, there are clouds which promise much, but they have no water; trees, but they bear no fruit–having no hope, and without God in the world.

2. From this fog there is a way of escape. Just as your lungs were not framed for fogs, so your spirits were not framed for moral gloom. God is light, and coming to Him, instead of darkness earth shall smile with the foretastes of heaven.

3. Let us, then, turn to the sunny side. The hope of the Christian respects–

I. That which is good. And this in common with the world. No man hopes for sickness, failure, misery, death, but the opposite. All men hope good for themselves, even the worst, which shows that God has lodged in the common heart a buoyant hope. Hence hope is opposed to fear. But all hope and no fear would not do. We fear evil while we hope for good. Noah feared as well as hoped when he built the ark, nevertheless, excessive fear kills hope, and unfits man for duty. How delightful to feel that we hope for nothing but good for ourselves and others! This is to be in sympathy with the mind of God.

II. That which is future. Hope that is seen is not hope. Here is a vast difference between the good and the godless man, who is all for the present. Well may our hope respect the future when we consider the promises relating thereto. There may be hope in heaven. How do we know that God will not give us another revelation and roll of promises, and enter more fully into the details of eternity. Anyhow, if we have hope only in this life, if it do not carry us beyond, we are of all men the most miserable.

III. That which is possible. Worldlings often hope for the impossible–without any foundation for what they wish. Hence their expectation is cut off. But the Christian says, All things are possible to God, and therefore to him that believeth in God. If God has said a thing we may confidently expect it.

IV. Trials and triumphs. Every grace is tried in this world of trials; so hope. David, looking at the foggy side, said, I shall one day perish. Looking on the sunny side he exclaimed, Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him. So Abraham, in hope believed against hope, and became the father of many nations. Experience worketh hope, for having gone through six trials we may confidently expect victory in the seventh. Consequently hope maketh not ashamed. The worldling is often ashamed because of the failure of his hopes; but the Christians hope moderated by the Divine promises cannot fail.

V. The supply of all temporal needs: light in darkness, strength in weakness, sufficiency in indigence, ballast in prosperity.

VI. A glorious resurrection. When the wicked man comes to die there is an end of all his hopes, but the righteous hath hope in his death, because Christ hath abolished death, etc. Hence, when bereaved, we sorrow not as those who have no hope.

VII. Everlasting life. (Mortlock Daniell.)

Hope, its power and usefulness

We are saved by means of faith, and on the principle of hope. The land we are to possess is chiefly one of promise. We have a wilderness to pass through with its trials, dangers, and temptations. Salvation on the condition of hope is advantageous. A state of waiting is one of moral worth, and helpful in the spiritual life. It tends to produce and develop the active qualities of endurance and fortitude, and the passive qualities of patience and resignation; and it also fits us to appreciate and form a right estimate of the blessings in prospect. In daily life we see that the prize in the future frequently makes a man what he is; and when his wishes are realised, and his ambition satisfied–in fact, when hope has found its accomplishment and ceased to exist–the same individual has not been unknown to deteriorate. The knowledge that the reward is ours at the end of the course, and would be forfeited or lessened by failure on our part, tends to call out our latent powers, stimulate our efforts, and produce states and habits of the soul which otherwise, without a miracle, could hardly exist. (C. Neil, M.A.)

Hope and faith

Hope is closely allied to, but is distinct from faith. By faith we believe the promises made to us by God; by hope we expect to receive the good things which God has promised: so that faith hath properly for its object the promise, and hope for its object the thing promised, and the execution of the promise. Faith regards its object as present, but hope regards it as future. Faith precedes hope, and is its foundation. We hope for life eternal, because we believe the promises which God has made respecting it; and if we believe these promises, we must expect their effect. Hope looks to eternal life as that which is future in regard to its remoteness; but in regard to its certainty, faith looks to it as a thing that is present. Hope, says the apostle, maketh not ashamed; and he declares that we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Thus he ascribes to it the same certainty as to faith; and in the Epistle to the Hebrews he speaks of the full assurance of hope. Faith and hope are virtues of this life, which will have no place in the life that is to come. Now abideth faith, hope, and love. Faith and hope will cease; and in this respect love is the greatest, as love will abide for ever. (R. Haldane.)

Hopes outlook

A captain in a prayer-meeting recently, by way of testimony, said that when, many years since, he crossed the old ocean, he was much in the habit, from day to day, of looking over the ships side, particularly near the prow, and watching the staunch and noble vessel as she steadily and irresistibly ploughed her way through the waves. Just under the bowsprit, and serving the purpose of a figure-head, was the image of a human face. This face to him came to be invested with a wondrous interest. Whatever the hour, whether by night or by day; whatever the weather, whether in sunshine or in storm, that face seemed ever steadfastly looking forward to port. Sometimes fearful tempests would prevail. Great surges would rise, and, for a time completely submerge the face of his friend. But as soon as the wrathful billow subsided, and the vessel recovered from its lurch, on looking again over the ships side, there, notwithstanding the fearful shock sustained, the placid face of his friend was to be seen still, as heretofore, faithfully, steadfastly looking out for port. And so, he exclaimed, his countenance meantime radiant with the light of the Christians hope, and of spiritual joy, and so I humbly trust it is in my own case. Yea, whatever the trials of the past, notwithstanding all the toils and disappointments of the present, by the grace of God I am still looking out for port, and not long hence I am anticipating a joyful, triumphant, abundant entrance therein.

Hope the boon of man

Oh, blessed hope! sole boon of man, whereby on his strait prison walls are painted beautiful, far-stretching landscapes, and into the night of very death itself is shed holiest dawn, Thou art to all an indefeasible condition and possession in this Gods world. To the wise, a sacred Constantines banner, written on the eternal skies, under which they shall conquer, for the battle itself is victory! To the foolish some secular mirage or shadow of still waters painted on the parched earth, whereby, at least, their dusky pilgrimage, if devious, becomes cheerfuller, becomes possible! (Thomas Carlyle.)

Christian hope

I. The objects it contemplates.

1. The raised body.

2. A perfectly holy nature.

3. Blessed society.

4. The vision of God.

II. From what it saves us.

1. Immoderate sorrow in affliction.

2. Earthly-mindedness.

3. Slothfulness.

III. By what it is sustained.

1. Meditation on God.

2. Communion with Him.

3. Union with Christ.

4. The exercise of itself. (J. Leifchild, D.D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 24. For we are saved by hope] We are supported and are comfortable in the expectation we have of receiving from the hand of our God all the good we need in the troubles and adversities of this life, and of having our bodies raised from corruption and death at the general resurrection.

Hope that is seen is not hope] As hope signifies the expectation of future good, so it necessarily supposes that the object of it is not seen, i.e. not enjoyed; for to see, in Scripture language, sometimes signifies to enjoy, as in Job 7:7: Mine eye shall no more SEE (margin, ENJOY) good. Job 9:25: My days flee away, and SEE no good; i.e. enjoy no prosperity. Ps 50:23: I will SHOW the salvation of God: I will give that man to enjoy my salvation who walks uprightly. Mt 5:8: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE God; that is, they shall enjoy his favour and blessing. See also Joh 3:36; Heb 12:14, and 1Jo 3:2. The hope that is seen, that is, enjoyed, is no longer hope, it is fruition: and a man cannot hope for that which he has in his possession.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Though we certianly believe there is such a redemption or salvation belonging to us, according to the promise of God, yet for the present we have no possession of it; all the salvation we have at present is in

hope, which, according to the nature of it, is of things not yet enjoyed, for vision or possession puts an end to hope; no man hopes for what he sees and enjoys.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

24. For we are saved by hoperather,”For in hope we are saved”; that is, it is more a salvationin hope than as yet in actual possession.

but hope that is seen is nothopefor the very meaning of hope is, the expectation thatsomething now future will become present.

for what a man seeth, whydoth he yet hope for?the latter ending when the other comes.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For we are saved by hope,…. We who have received the firstfruits, who were in a lost perishing condition, and by nature no better than others, than the Gentiles, are saved by sin and wrath to come by Christ, with a spiritual and everlasting salvation. They were already saved in the preparations and purposes of God; in the covenant of grace; in the arms and hands of Christ, through his purchase; and as considered in him; and with respect to the inchoation and application of salvation, in effectual calling, and their right unto it by the righteousness of Christ; and with regard to the certainty of it, in faith and hope: the manner in which they are said to be saved, is “by”, or “in hope”; not that hope is the cause of salvation, but the means by which souls are brought to the enjoyment of it; salvation, or glory, is the object of it:

but hope that is seen, is not hope; for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for? in the former clause, “hope” signifies the grace itself, but here the object of it; which is represented as unseen, not yet fully enjoyed, something future, and to be hoped for; as the resurrection of the dead, which is the object of hope, and is unseen, and even incredible to carnal reason, and is to come, and good foundation there is in divine revelation, to hope for it; and the hope of it is of great use to the saints, whilst in this world of trouble: eternal glory and happiness is also the object of the hope of believers; it is said to be the hope of their calling, which they are called by grace to; the hope of righteousness, which the righteousness of Christ is the ground and foundation of; and that blessed hope, the sum of their happiness; and hope laid up for them in heaven, where it is safe and secure; all which is unseen, and yet to come; but good reason there is to hope for it, since the Scriptures of truth so clearly express it; and the person, blood, and righteousness of Christ, lay such a solid foundation for hope of it: the Alexandrian copy reads, “why doth he yet wait for?” and so the Ethiopic version, with which agrees the Syriac version, reading the whole, “for [if] we see it, why should we wait for it?”

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

For by hope were we saved ( ). First aorist passive indicative of . The case of is not certain, the form being the same for locative, instrumental and dative. Curiously enough either makes good sense in this context: “We were saved in hope, by hope, for hope” (of the redemption of the body).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

By hope [ ] . Better in hope. We are saved by faith. See on 1Pe 1:3.

Hope – not hope. Here the word is used of the object of hope. See Col 1:5; 1Ti 1:1; Heb 6:18.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “For we are saved by hope,” (te gar elpidi esothemen) “for by hope we are saved or delivered;” we are saved or delivered “by or in” hope; day by day in hope of future liberation from this body of sin; because we now have eternal life, we go on overcoming the world, Php_1:6; 1Co 9:26-27; Rom 12:1-2.

2) “But hope that is seen is not hope,” (elpis de blepomene ouk estin elpis) “But hope while it is being seen is (exists not) as hope;” hope in the “we” believers and “we” of the church, is now seen in love’s service of brethren, one for another, Joh 13:34-35. But this, hope is not merely hope, but it is divine knowledge, and revelation, anchored to that one within the vale, 1Jn 3:14; Heb 6:17-19.

3) “For what a man seeth,” (ho gar blepei tio) “For what anyone sees; “in hope we now see, understand, comprehend with assurance, our future adoption thru the power of the Holy Spirit into our new body home, 2Co 5:1.

4) “Why cloth he yet hope for?” (ti kai elpizei), “Why does he also or even hope for it?” You see, hope and love, the two spiritual gifts that follow the acceptance and exercise of the first, the gift of faith, bring the believer an hope and love that result in a knowledge or assurance of those future resurrection and adoption promises, so that hope exists as more than hope, even as assurance, Eph 1:5; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30; Php_3:20-21; 1Jn 3:2:

a) We know we have passed from death to life, 1Jn 3:14.

b) We know we have eternal life 1Jn 5:13.

c) We know we have a building of God, 2Co 5:1.

This is hope, yea, more than hope: Anchored to Christ, Heb 6:19.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

24. For by hope, etc. Paul strengthens his exhortation by another argument; for our salvation cannot be separated from some kind of death, and this he proves by the nature of hope. Since hope extends to things not yet obtained, and represents to our minds the form of things hidden and far remote, whatever is either openly seen or really possessed, is not an object of hope. But Paul takes it as granted, and what cannot be denied, that as long as we are in the world, salvation is what is hoped for; it hence follows, that it is laid up with God far beyond what we can see. By saying, that hope is not what is seen, he uses a concise expression, but the meaning is not obscure; for he means simply to teach us, that since hope regards some future and not present good, it can never be connected with what we have in possession. If then it be grievous to any to groan, they necessarily subvert the order laid down by God, who does not call his people to victory before he exercises them in the warfare of patience. But since it has pleased God to lay up our salvation, as it were, in his closed bosom, it is expedient for us to toil on earth, to be oppressed, to mourn, to be afflicted, yea, to lie down as half-dead and to be like the dead; for they who seek a visible salvation reject it, as they renounce hope which has been appointed by God as its guardian. (261)

(261) When we are said to be saved by hope, the meaning is that we are not fully or perfectly saved now, and that this is what we hope for. “Eternal salvation,” says [ Grotius ], “we have not yet, but we hope for it.” There is present salvation, but that which is perfect is future. The Scripture speaks of salvation now, see Ephesians 2:8; Titus 3:4, 5; and of salvation as future, see Mar 13:13. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Rom. 8:24.The salvation which we now enjoy is by the exercise of hope as well as faith.

Rom. 8:25.The duty of waiting with patient endurance is argued from salvation being yet a matter of hope. It enables all who possess it to wait in patience.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rom. 8:24-25

The sustaining grace.The sustaining grace is hope, for we consider it in this passage subjectively and objectively. We look forward in hope to its object, which is the perfected adoption and redemption of the believer. We may be allowed to consider hope in its bearing upon the whole of the Christian character. Perhaps we may extend the apostolic idea in this passage, as we observe:

I. Hope appropriates the blessings purchased by Jesus Christ.We are saved by hope, and thus it is the instrumental cause of salvation. Thy faith hath saved thee. It is the hand which lays hold upon the hand of Jesus, who leads out of the pit. Hope does not save apart from its objectJesus Christ as mediator. Hope must rest on the foundation-stone laid by God in Zion. All other hope is baseless.

II. Hope is the helmet of salvation.The head the most important part of the human frame, for therein resides the brain. Man of all animals has the largest brain and a weak defence. Reason and the inventive faculty enable him to provide against attacks. The helmet is the artificial safeguard for the human brain. The Christian soldier is crowned with the best helmet, the hope of salvation. In ancient warfare a strong arm would make the sword cleave the helmet and slay the man. No arm is sufficiently strong, no sword sufficiently well-tempered, to cleave the Christians helmet of hope. We are saved by a strong hope.

III. Hope holds the Christians head above water.Hope is like the cork to a netthe lead upon the bottom of the net would sink it, but the cork bears it up; our troubles would sink us, the testimony of our external senses would sink us, but hope sustains. Hope is the life-buoy for the mariner. The ships of earth may sink; the billows may rise mountainous; but hope enables the man to swim in roughest seas. The tempest only makes sweet music in his soul. He rides calmly like the sea-bird on the swelling and rolling waters.

IV. Hope is the pleasant pilot.The pilot takes complete control of the vessel, and conducts into the harbour. He may bring pleasant news from shore. Hope guides the soul, and tells sweet stories of succeeding joys. Amid the gloom that deaths shadows cast over the dying Christian hope brings gracious rays of heavenly light to cheer. Lightsome is life, less stern is death, when hope pleasantly pilots the soul.

V. Hope is not daunted by inscrutable purposes.There are mysteries in life, dark providences in human proceedings. Hope brightens the dark design; hope contentedly waits for the solution of all mysteries. Dr. Payson was once asked if he saw any special reasons for some particular dispensation of providence. No, was his reply; but I am as well satisfied as if I saw the design. Gods will is the very perfection of reason. Hope teaches satisfaction. Philosophy kicks against the unknowable, and is in a state of unrest. Hope accepts the unknowable and also the knowable divine wisdom and goodness, and is in a state of delicious repose.

VI. Hope waits the Fathers time.Then do we with patience wait for it. Time is a human word. Of course all words are human, but by the expression time is a human word we mean that men are subject to time conditions; and in what sense the word may be applied to the divine we cannot tell. Gods time is not measured by human dial-plates. The eternal clocks are made on larger scale than the clocks of time. A child measures time by fitful fancies. A man measures time by prolonged efforts. We are all children with our fitful fancies. Gods time must be measured by mighty purposes which require ages for their unfolding. Hope calmly waits at the post of duty, while Gods great time is moving onward to the development of His benevolent designs.

VII. Hope sees the unseen.Hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? Hope ceases when its object is realised. Perfect redemption is unseen, but we live in hope. Heaven is unseen, but hope is so strong that it brings heaven down to earth. Let a mans citizenship be in heavenlet his thoughts travel amongst the holy angelslet his spirit thirst for the joys of the upper templelet his longings be towards the presence of the Lamb, who is without blemish and without spot, and that man must rise out of a low state of manhood into a condition that shall be sublimely glorious. With such a process carried on to perfection, he will appear as one let down from the upper sphere to this lower world. Blessed hope enables sorrowing disciples to rejoice in days of darkness, and martyrs to sing in the very hour of their martyrdom. It brings rich grapes from heaven with which to refresh the parched lips, and pours healing oil into wounded hearts. It scatters the darkness of death, chases away the gloom of the grave, by throwing around it the divine light of a glorious resurrection, and opens the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Let us then no longer dissipate our lives in a series of trifles; but let us recall ourselves to-day from fugitive events, and strike a nobler aim, and seek a more enduring interest, and cast a further anticipation on the futurity which lies before us, and on that blessed hope the realisation of which will fill our souls with joy unspeakable.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Rom. 8:24-25

How to know hope.Thou shalt know hope by three things, whether thou hast it or not.

1. By the mother of it, which is faith: he that hopeth believeth, for faith is the ground of things hoped for.
2. By the daughter of it, which is patience: thus do we with patience wait for it. Merchants in hope of gain endure the water, martyrs in hope of recompense endure the fire; where there is no patience there is no hope.
3. By the companion of it, which is love: he that hath this hope purifieth himself. If then thou hast a true and lively hope of salvation, remember to increase in faith, patience, and love, which is the fulfilling of the law. Thus we suppress the rising sigh, thus we bow with submission to the will of God which afflicts us, thus we show to ourselves and others that we have the firstfruits of the Spirit. But we wait for the victors crown; we have not actually attained or come to the realisation of that for which we hope: that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, and therefore we patiently wait until the hour of glorious liberty, the deliverance from the bondage of corruption.Adams.

Hope and despair.Despair throws over the soul an oppressive gloom, paralyses the energies, benumbs the powers, and throws the man a wasted wreck on the sands of time; while hope fills the soul with light, braces up the man with strength, and sends him walking through Gods creation, a being endowed with powers of endurance. Despair is the result of sins working in this world, while Christian hope is the gift of God. He has given us a good hope through grace. God might have shut us up to the darkness of despair; but in the midst of our moral darkness mercy appeared and hope spanned the world in its many colours like a rainbow of divine promise.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8

Rom. 8:24-25. Sir Walter Scott.There is pleasure in abiding amid the storm when the anchor of a good hope fastens to the immovable throne of Him in whom is everlasting strength. When Sir Walter Scott was a little boy, he was found sitting on a knoll in a great and terrific thunderstorm. He was lying on his back, listening to the thunder, looking at the lightning, clapping his hands at each successive flash, and exclaiming with glee, Bonnie, bonnie! When Christian hope is in lively exercise, elements of delight may be found in the very storm which causes fear.

Rom. 8:24-25. The steadfast boy.A gentleman in London, having some business one morning to transact at the India House, took with him his son, then only six or seven years of age. The boy was left at one of the outer doors, with instructions to wait until his father came for him. Having been detained within for some time, the father, under the pressure of his engagements, forgot his son, and left by another door. When he reached home in the evening, the first inquiry of the wife was about the missing child, and then the father recollected all. He at once returned to the India House, and found the obedient boy waiting at his post, where he had waited the livelong day. The eternal Father never forgets, but sometimes to our shortsightedness He may appear to forget, and then hope comes to our assistance and teaches us to wait in patience the Fathers time. Wait through the longest day; wait through the darkest night. The shadows will flee away; the morning of perfect explanation will appear. Sorrow may endure for the night; joy will come in the morning of divine revelations.

Rom. 8:24-25. Bedridden for twenty years.A friend once told us that when visiting a woman who had been bedridden for twenty or thirty years, she said to him, What a useless creature I am, lying here doing nothing, just a burden to others, and everybody around me actively employed! I wonder how it is that God keeps me so long in the world? And yet the fact was, as our friend told us, that she was the wonder of all who knew her. They could not think or say enough of her patient, cheerful resignation, her self-forgetfulness, her interest in everything and everyone she saw or heard of, her sweetness of temper, her heavenly, Christlike spirit. Her lowly estimate of herself added a charm to her character and life. Her beautiful exemplification of the passive virtues rendered her one of the most useful creatures in the whole parish.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(24) Why do I say that we wait for the adoption? Because hope in the future is of the very essence of the Christians life. It was by hope that he was saved. Hope, at the time when he first believed, made him realise his salvation, though it is still in the future. This is, indeed, implied in the very nature of hope. Its proper object is that which is future and unseen.

By hope.It is usually faith rather than hope that is represented as the means or instrument of salvation. Nor can it quite rightly be said that hope is an aspect of faith, because faith and hope are expressly distinguished and placed as co-ordinate with each other in 1Co. 13:13 : and now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three. Hope is rather a secondary cause of salvation, because it sets salvation vividly before the believer, and so makes him strive to obtain it.

It must not, however, be overlooked that the phrase translated by hope, may be taken, rather to mean with or in hope. It will then serve to limit the idea of salvation. We were saved, indeed, in an inchoate and imperfect manner, but our full salvation is still a subject for hope, and therefore it is not past but still in the future.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

24. For The apostle now shows the reason why, according to the law and plan of our probation, this glorious consummation is placed in the distance beyond this scene of groaning and corruption.

We are saved by hope Our salvation takes place only on condition of our expectation, and hope looks faithfully forward and upward. Such are our probationary requisites, and these in their very nature require distance and an unseen future. (See note on Joh 16:7-15.)

For hope The hope-object that is seen, by being present and possessed, is not a hope-object, and so precludes the exertion of hope.

Why Or rather, how. Hope, and sight or fruition, are incompatible.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘For in hope were we saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?’

For we were saved ‘in hope’ (through faith – Eph 2:8). When we committed ourselves into the hands of our Saviour we were accounted as righteous and entered into the process of salvation. But that was in order to enjoy the ‘hope’ of what was to come as we awaited the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when our salvation will be completed in the final transformation of our bodies. Thus we can know that we are ‘saved’, while at the same time looking forward with confident certainty (certain hope) to our complete salvation at ‘the redemption of our bodies’. It is not something that we have as yet seen or experienced. For if it were we could not hope for it. We would know that we had it. Thus this hope refers to something promised, but as yet not experienced.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 8:24. Hope that is seen, &c. That is enjoyed. To see is frequently in Scripture phrase to enjoy. Job 7:7; Job 9:25. Psa 50:23. Mat 5:8. Joh 3:36. Heb 12:14. 1Jn 3:2.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 8:24 . . .] Ground of the ., so far as the is still object of expectation; for in hope we were made partakers of salvation . The dative, “ non medii, sed modi ” (Bengel), denotes that to which the . is to be conceived as confined (Winer, p. 202) [E. T. 271], and . is prefixed with the emphasis of the contrast of reality; for “sic liberati sumus ut adhuc speranda sit haereditas, postea possidenda, et ut ita dicam, nunc habemus jus ad rem, nondum in re,” Melancthon. Comp. Tit 3:7 ; Col 3:3 f. Following Chrysostom, others (recently Rckert, Kllner, and de Wette) take the dative in an instrumental sense; by hope thus assuming that Paul characterizes faith , the proper medium of salvation, as hope. Incorrectly, because in general Paul specifically distinguishes faith and hope (1Co 13:13 ), while he always bases salvation only on faith, from which hope thereupon proceeds (comp. Col 1:27 ); and here especially, as is shown by what follows, he brings into prominence the definite conception of hope , which as (Plat. Legg . I. p. 644 C) rests in the (Plat. Def . p. 416 A). Hofmann also takes . in the sense of the means , but so that it shall signify the benefit hoped for , the object of the waiting, which God has offered to us in the word , by which we were converted to faith (Col 1:5 ). Thus, however, the thought that we have been saved by hope (instead of by faith, Eph 2:8 ) is set aside only by the insertion of parenthetical clauses. And in Col 1:5 , the blessing hoped for, heard of through preaching, is set forth as the ground, not of conversion or salvation, but of love .

. . . .] is a deduction from . ., closing the first ground of encouragement, and meaning substantially: “the nature of hope, however, involves our patiently waiting for .”

] But a hope ( ) that is seen, i.e. whose object lies before the eyes (comp. on the objective , Col 1:5 ; 1Ti 1:1 ; Heb 6:18 ; Thuc. iii. 57. 4; Lucian, Pisc . 3; Aeschin. ad Ctesiph . 100). Comp. 2Co 4:18 .

;] Why doth he still hope for it? By is indicated the in the supposed case groundless accession of hope to sight (1Co 15:29 ). Comp. generally, on this strengthening use of the , etiam , in lively interrogation , Klotz, ad Devar . p. 633 f., and on 1 Cor. l.c. Bengel aptly remarks: “ cum visione non est spe opus.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1875
THE OFFICE OF HOPE

Rom 8:24-25. We are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

IF it be asked, What is that feeling of the mind, which, beyond all others, gives life and activity to rational agents? we answer, It is hope. Influenced by this, all persons in every department of life put forth their energies: the merchant braves the storms; the soldier encounters his enemies; the student consumes the midnight oil in his laborious researches. To this also is chiefly to be referred the Christians exertions in the service of his God. True it is, that love and gratitude have a constraining influence upon him: but it is also true, that these principles would be ineffectual to carry his soul through all its trials, if they were not confirmed and animated by the yet more powerful operation of hope. Great, no doubt, are the privileges and enjoyments of the Christian in this present world: he is a child of the Most High God; and has a spirit of adoption within him, enabling him to cry, Abba, Father. He has also the witness of the Spirit testifying both in and by his own spirit, that he is a child of God. But, after all, little solid comfort would he derive from these reflections, if he did not look forward to an inheritance, to which, by virtue of his relation to God, he is entitled. Hence the Apostle represents the Lords people as deriving their chief consolation from the prospect which they have beyond the grave [Note: ver. 23.], yea, and as being saved by hope, through the operation of which upon their minds they patiently wait for the termination and issue of all their present trials.

We propose on the present occasion to consider the nature and effects of the Christians hope:

I.

Its nature

We are most generally said to be saved by faith [Note: Rom 5:1.]: but here salvation is ascribed to hope. There is, in fact, a near affinity between the two: and we cannot adopt any better method of illustrating the nature and operations of hope than by instituting a comparison between it and faith. That faith and hope are very nearly allied, appears from this, that in St. Pauls account of Abraham, he represents the two principles as concurring with each other, and having an united influence on his obedience: Against hope, says he, Abraham believed in hope [Note: Rom 4:18.].

In some things the two principles agree
[They agree in their origin: both of them are the gift of God, and the fruits of the Holy Spirits operation on the soul. Have we faith? it is the gift of God [Note: Eph 2:8. Php 1:29.], the fruit of a divine operation [Note: Col 2:12.], a work of grace [Note: Act 18:27.]: and if we have hope, we have been begotten to it by God himself [Note: 1Pe 1:3.], even by his gracious influence on our souls [Note: 2Th 2:16.]: and to his Holy Spirit must be ascribed all its increase in the soul, together with all the peace and joy that flow from it [Note: Rom 15:13.].

They agree also in their use: both the one and the other being intended to further the salvation of our souls. As we are saved by faith [Note: Rom 10:9.], so are we by hope also [Note: Rom 8:24.].

They agree yet further in their duration: they have no scope for exercise beyond this present life. Faith is by St. Paul opposed to sight [Note: 2Co 5:7.]; and as in heaven we shall see God face to face, and know him even as we are known, the dark and enigmatical visions of faith will cease [Note: 1Co 13:12. See the Greek.]. In like manner we are told in our text, that hope that is seen, is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? We shall have in heaven the actual possession of what is now the object of our hope. Then faith will be lost in sight, and hope in enjoyment.]

In other things the two principles materially differ
[They differ in their foundation. Faith is founded solely on the veracity of God. Hope is founded, partly, on the word of God, and, partly on our conformity to that word. The word of God reveals a dispensation of mercy to sinful man. But what hope does that generate in the minds of the fallen angels? They believe it, as much as we do: but, having no evidence in themselves that they comply with the terms on which that mercy is vouchsafed, they do not hope in it: they believe and tremble [Note: Jam 2:19.]. It is the penitent alone that has hope in God: and his hope arises from his consciousness, that he does embrace the mercy offered him, and conform to the terms which God in his wisdom has prescribed to all who shall ultimately be saved by it.

They differ also in their qualities. Faith is properly a virtue; and the want of it under all circumstances is a sin. As a virtue, there is no other so frequently or so highly commended; (where that has been exercised, humility, and love, and every other grace that has been exercised with it, has been overlooked, and that alone commended [Note: Luk 7:50.]:) and as a sin, no other is so strongly reprobated as unbelief [Note: Mar 16:16.]. Hope, on the other hand, may rather be called a privilege than a virtue; and despondency, a curse, rather than a sin. So far indeed as hope agrees with faith in its foundation, so far it agrees with it in its moral qualities: but as far as it is founded, not on the word of God, but in a mans own conformity to that word, so far its moral qualities differ from those of faith: for instead of its being a sin for an ungodly man to despair of salvation in his present state, it is a sin for him to indulge a hope: it is the vilest presumption in him to think that he can ever be saved in an impenitent and unbelieving state: and to despair of salvation in such a state is his very first step towards heaven.

They differ yet further in their objects. Faith is incomparably more extensive than hope. Faith has respect to both good and evil: it embraces in its view both heaven and hell: but hope has good alone for its object. Faith comprehends every thing that God has revealed, whether past, present, or future: hope looks only to what is future. Faith regards every declaration of God, whether historical or prophetic, promissory or menacing, hortatory or preceptive: but hope has respect to the promises alone. It invariably terminates on some good, which is yet future, and which God has promised.

Lastly, They differ also in their offices. Though both of them agree in their general use, to promote the salvation of men, they have exceedingly distinct offices. Faith apprehends the Lord Jesus Christ, and, by uniting us to him, interests us in all that he has done and suffered for us: it also receives out of his fulness all those graces and blessings which the Father has been pleased to treasure up in him for the benefit of his Church. Hope merely expects those blessings: and, by presenting future good to our view, stimulates us to diligence in the pursuit of it. Both of these principles save us; but faith brings that good into the soul which hope had only anticipated; and, by presenting invisible realities to our view, gives to hope a more ample scope for exercise. Faith is the parent of hope: but hope, once formed in the soul, becomes an active helper to faith. Neither can operate to any good effect without the other. Faith without hope is paralysed; and hope without faith is dead: but, when faith duly apprehends Christ, and hope leads us to wait patiently for his full salvation, then the work of God goes on prosperously within us, and we are in the sure way to everlasting life.]

Such being the nature of the Christians hope, we proceed to inquire into,

II.

Its effects

These are represented under the general term, Salvation; We are saved by it. But how does it effect salvation for us? We answer, By it,

1.

We are comforted in our afflictions

[Afflictions are the lot of all, but especially of the Lords people. All of them have a cross to bear; and tribulation is their appointed way to the kingdom of heaven. Indeed, so painful are the trials which they have to endure for the Lords sake, that, if in this life only they had hope, they would be of all men most miserable, or, at least, most to be pitied [Note: , 1Co 15:19.]. But the prospect of eternal glory so lightens their burthen, as to make it quite easy to be borne [Note: Act 20:24.]. To this effect the Apostle speaks in the chapter before us; (and he delivers the sentiment as the result of his own most careful investigation:) I reckon (I compute by accurate calculation) that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us [Note: ver. 18.]. In another epistle he gives a full and accurate description of his views and feelings on this subject. He was continually delivered unto death for Jesus sake: but he was perfectly satisfied with his condition, because he knew, that He who had raised up the Lord Jesus, would raise him up also by Jesus, and present him, together with his beloved converts [Note: 2Co 4:11-14.], faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy [Note: Jude, ver. 24.]. The prospect of that blessed event made all his afflictions light, yea, lightness itself [Note: 2Co 4:17-18. See the Greek.]. It may be thought, perhaps, that this superabundant grace was given to him as an Apostle, and is not to be expected by us. But it is to be expected by every saint whom God hath begotten to a lively hope: for our blessed Lord tells all his followers, not merely to bear their persecutions with patience, but to make them a ground of joy and exultation, because of the glorious recompence that awaits them in the eternal world [Note: Mat 5:10-12.]. And who that has ever suffered much for righteousness sake, has not found this to be the effect of his hope towards God? Many amongst us may say with David, I should have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living [Note: Psa 27:13.]. But under the influence of this hope their consolations have abounded in proportion to, yea, and far above, all their accumulated afflictions [Note: 2Co 1:5.].]

2.

We are supported in our conflicts

[To all true Christians there are, on some occasions, fightings without, and fears within. But the grace of which we are speaking, serves them as an helmet, that will resist the stroke of their most potent adversary. In the panoply of God, this piece of armour yields to none in point of efficacy and importance: salvation is pre-eminently ascribed to it: it is called, The helmet of salvation [Note: 1Th 5:8. with Eph 6:17.]. It is well known, that persons clothed with armour from head to foot, especially if contending with persons not so protected, enter into the combat with peculiar confidence [Note: This was particularly observable in the French cuirassiers at the memorable battle of Waterloo.]. And thus especially does the Christian whose mind is well established by hope: he is strong and very courageous, not doubting but that God is with him, and that he shall be more than conqueror through Him that loved him. The assaults which he has to sustain may indeed be violent and very terrible, even like the waves of the sea, that threaten to overwhelm the tempest-tossed bark. But his hope, like an anchor sure and steadfast, enables him to out-ride the storm [Note: Heb 6:19.]. That anchor cast within the vail, keeps his mind composed [Note: Isa 26:3.], and assures him, that he is safe, though earth and hell should combine their efforts to destroy him [Note: 2Ti 1:12.]. How this grace operated on the saints of old, we may see at large in St. Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews. Many, under its influence, took joyfully the spoiling of their goods [Note: Heb 10:34.]: and many, even of the weaker sex, when called to endure the severest torments that could be inflicted on them, would not so much as accept the deliverance that was offered them, because they hoped assuredly to obtain a better resurrection [Note: Heb 11:35.]. Thus will it operate on us also. Precisely as the expectation of a future harvest leads the husbandman to encounter all difficulties, and cheers his mind during the long continuance of an inclement winter, so the prospect of reaping in due season enables the Christian to endure unto the end [Note: Jam 5:7-8.]. He has never seen the felicity which he pants after; but he expects assuredly the ultimate possession of it; and therefore patiently waits for the final consummation of all his hopes [Note: Rom 8:25.].]

3.

We are encouraged in our exertions

[To a man who has heaven in his eye, nothing is impossible. Behold Moses, when at the summit of human grandeur and power: an alternative was before him, to suffer affliction with the people of God, or to enjoy the pleasures and honours of the court of Pharaoh: and which did he prefer? He chose the reproach of Christ, esteeming it to be greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. And what guided him to this strange decision? it was hope; he had respect unto the recompence of the reward [Note: Heb 11:24-26.]. In like manner St. Paul pressed forward with incessant ardour in his heavenly course, forgetting what was behind, and reaching forward to what was before. And, if we inquire into the principle which animated him to such exertions, we shall find that it was precisely that which is mentioned in our text,the hope and prospect of securing the prize of his high calling. We may even say that our blessed Lord himself, as a man, was actuated by the same divine principle; since it was for the joy that was set before him, that he endured the cross and despised the shame, and rested not till he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [Note: Heb 12:2.]. And we too, if we would run our race with patience, must imitate him in this respect [Note: Heb 12:1.]; we must keep our eye steadily fixed on him, and continue without intermission looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ [Note: Tit 2:11-13.]. Then shall we be steadfast, unmoveable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, when we are convinced in our mind, that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord [Note: 1Co 15:58.].]

Address
1.

Those whose hopes are presumptuous

[There is no man who does not hope that he shall be saved at last. But we ought to be able to give a reason of the hope that is in us [Note: 1Pe 3:15.]. If we cannot do this, and a satisfactory reason too, our hope is altogether vain and delusive. We have before said, that hope, as well as faith, must, in part at least, be founded on the word of God. Look to it then, that your hope is truly scriptural, and that you seek with all diligence that humility and contrition, that faith and love, that purity and holiness, that zeal and devotedness to God, which are the distinguishing characters of all who shall ultimately attain the kingdom of heaven. If you are without Christ, you are without hope [Note: Eph 2:12.]: but if you flee to him for refuge, you may be perfectly assured of acceptance with him [Note: Psa 130:7-8. Joh 6:37.].]

2.

Those who are harassed with doubts and fears

[There are many, of whom there is reason to hope well, who yet do not enjoy that comfort in their minds which the religion of Christ is calculated to impart. In some this disquietude arises from imperfect views of the Gospel: they do not see the freeness and fulness of that salvation that is provided for them in the Gospel; and they are looking for some qualifications in themselves to warrant their confidence in the Saviour. They do not distinguish aright between the offices of faith and hope: they do not see that the vilest creatures under heaven are warranted to believe in Christ for salvation, and to hope for acceptance with him in his appointed way of penitence and faith; but that to hope for heaven as persons actually brought into a state of salvation, requires an evidence in our own souls, that we are, in a measure at least, transformed into the Divine image. To such persons then we would say, Do not look for qualifications in yourselves to warrant your application to Christ, or your affiance in him; but, whilst you accept salvation freely through his blood and righteousness, look to him also for the communications of his grace to renew and sanctify your hearts, and to make you meet for his inheritance. With some indeed these doubts and fears originate rather in a consciousness of some unmortified lust, or of habitual negligence in the divine life: and where this is the case, we must declare, that peace and confidence would be a curse to them. We must awake to righteousness, and not sin, if we would have any comfortable evidence that we are the Lords people, or any happiness in looking forward to the eternal world. But, from whatever cause mens doubts arise, we would address to them that encouraging exhortation, Turn ye to your strong hold, ye prisoners of hope [Note: Zec 9:12.].]

3.

Those who have a good hope through grace

[Rejoice in the exalted privilege to which God has called you; and endeavour to render to the Lord according to the benefits he has conferred upon you. It is said by St. John, that, he that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as Christ is pure [Note: 1Jn 3:3.]. Take care then that your hope operate in this way: let it stir you up to the utmost possible exertions in the way of holiness. Rest not in low attainments: think nothing yet attained, whilst any thing remains to be attained. Keep your evidences clear: let them not be clouded by any unmortified lust, or secret neglect: and then shall you hold fast the rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end [Note: Heb 3:6.]. This is the way to be both holy and happy: and, thus living, you may be well assured, that your hope shall never make you ashamed [Note: Rom 5:5.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

Ver. 24. For we are saved by hope ] Hope is the daughter of faith, but such as is a staff to her aged mother.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

24, 25. ] For (confirmation of the last assertion, proving hope to be our present state of salvation) in hope were we (not, ‘ are we ,’ nor ‘ have we been ’) saved : i.e. our first apprehension of, and appropriation to ourselves of, salvation which is by faith in Christ, was effected in the condition of hope : which hope (Thol.) is in fact faith in its prospective attitude , that faith which is , Heb 11:1 . The dat. is not a dat. of reference, ‘ according to hope ,’ but of the form or condition. Now hope that is seen (the object or fulfilment of which is present and palpable) is not hope: for that which any one sees, why does he [ also (or, at all )] hope for? If is to stand in the text, it conveys, after an interrogative word, a sense of the utter superfluity of the thing questioned about, as being irrelevant, and out of the question. ‘Qui interrogat ; exspectat aliquid, sed dubius est quid eveniat. Qui interrogat ; desperat de salute, nec eam usquam exspectari posse existimat.’ Bremi in Demosth. Phil. i. 46, cited in Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 137.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 8:24 f. This sentence explains why Paul can speak of Christians as waiting for adoption, while they are nevertheless in the enjoyment of sonship. It is because salvation is essentially related to the future. “We wait for it: for we were saved in hope .” The dat is that of mode or respect. Our salvation was qualified from the beginning by reference to a good yet to be. Weiss argues that the sense of in the second clause ( res sperata ) makes it “absolutely necessary” to take it so in the first, and that this leaves no alternative but to make dat comm and translate: “for, for this object of hope eternal life and glory were we delivered from eternal destruction”. But the “absolute necessity” is imaginary; a word with the nuances of in a mind with the speed of Paul’s need not be treated so rigorously, especially as the resulting construction is in itself extremely dubious. Hope, the Apostle argues, is an essential characteristic of our salvation; but hope turned sight is hope no more, for who hopes for what he sees? We do not see all the Gospel held out to us, but it is the object of our Christian hope nevertheless; it is as true and sure as the love of God which in Christ Jesus reconciled us to Himself and gave us the spirit of adoption, and therefore we wait for it in patience. For cf. Rom 2:27 . : in 1Th 1:3 we have used of a suffering but steadfast Church: is the constancy which belongs to and characterises hope in dark days. In the pastoral epistles (1Ti 6:10 ; Tit 2:2 ) instead of the , , , of earlier letters, Paul writes , , , as if he had discovered by experience that in this life “hope” has mainly to be shown in the form of “patience”.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

are = were. See Rom 5:9.

hope. The creation also is waiting and hoping.

a man = any one, as Rom 8:9.

yet hope for = hope for also.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

24, 25.] For (confirmation of the last assertion, proving hope to be our present state of salvation)-in hope were we (not, are we, nor have we been) saved: i.e. our first apprehension of, and appropriation to ourselves of, salvation which is by faith in Christ, was effected in the condition of hope: which hope (Thol.) is in fact faith in its prospective attitude,-that faith which is , Heb 11:1. The dat. is not a dat. of reference,-according to hope,-but of the form or condition. Now hope that is seen (the object or fulfilment of which is present and palpable) is not hope: for that which any one sees, why does he [also (or, at all)] hope for? If is to stand in the text, it conveys, after an interrogative word, a sense of the utter superfluity of the thing questioned about, as being irrelevant, and out of the question. Qui interrogat ; exspectat aliquid, sed dubius est quid eveniat. Qui interrogat ; desperat de salute, nec eam usquam exspectari posse existimat. Bremi in Demosth. Phil. i. 46, cited in Hartung, Partikellehre, i. 137.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 8:24. ) the dative, not of the means, but of the manner; we are so saved, that there may even yet remain something, for which we may hope,-both salvation and glory. He limits the present salvation, but, while he limits, he by that very circumstance takes it for granted.- ) why yet does he hope for it? Where there is vision, there is no need of hope. The blessed will be sure of the eternity of their blessedness, because they shall have no need of hope; and therefore they will be established in it.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 8:24

Rom 8:24

For in hope were we saved:-[This verse and the following seem to depend upon the mention of waiting in verse 23. Now, this waiting is the very substance and essence of hope. When we believed in Christ, we believed in one who will return again and receive us to himself.] When we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into one who died and rose again, in the assured hope that if we have been planted in the likeness of his death and been made partakers of it, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection and be made at last fully partakers of it. But as regards the adoption and redemption of our bodies, it is future, and so is an object of hope; and so faith, so far as the renewal and spiritualizing of the body is concerned (1Co 15:44), is assurance of things hoped for (Heb 11:1). The assurance of the last six verses gives us hope of the immortal state to come; and by this hope we are strengthened to continue to labor and suffer for the promised blessings.

but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?-The things that are present, that we now enjoy, are not objects of hope; for who hopes for that which he now possesses ? Hope looks to the future blessings.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Saving Grace of Hope

For by hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.Rom 8:24-25.

As compared with the importance and urgency claimed for faith on the one hand, and for love on the other, in the New Testament, it might almost seem as if hope is scarcely regarded as a duty, or as one of the distinguishing marks of the Christian character. Indeed, it would be difficult to show from the Gospels alone that our Lord Himself attached any importance to hope as a frame of mind to be cultivated; or that He ever enjoined or required it of His disciples, as He so very obviously and even urgently demanded of them an almost unbounded faith. It would not be too much to affirm that, according to the record, we have no positive knowledge that the word hope ever proceeded from the Saviours lips, or had any place among those many parables and Divine precepts which we associate directly with His earthly life. O woman, great is thy faith; I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel; Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peacethese are among the gracious and encouraging words which we are accustomed to consider as among the most vital and characteristic sayings of Jesus. We have to come to St. Paul to learn, for the first time, that we are saved by hope.

And yet the whole life on earth of Jesus, the very temper and disposition of our Lord, as we read of Him in the Gospels; His absolute reliance upon and confidence in His Father; the habitual sunny outlook, as it were, the glad and gracious confidence of the Son of Man amid the despairing and the sinful, and even when, as we know, He Himself had not where to lay His head; the entire absence of all fretfulness and complaining, of all bitterness, of all that in these modern days we call pessimism or cynicism, and in ordinary life down-heartedness or discouragement; the habitual cheerfulness, in short, of the Son of Man, even under what seem the most distressing conditions, till, at the last, He gives Himself up to God, fainting and tortured on the cross, with Father, into thy hands I commend my spiritsurely never before, and never since then, has such a lesson of hopefulness been read to the world; such a truly Divine example of a human being, as St. Paul says, saved by hope. And it is the very same lesson in life and in deathoften too, as in the supreme case of our Lord, acted but unspoken, a lifelong song without wordsthe lesson of hope arising out of faith, that has been taught us ever since, by every one of those apostles, prophets, and martyrs, who have followed in the steps of the Divine Lord and Master, who came not to enjoy but to suffer, not to be ministered unto but to minister, not to rule but to serve, and so to give his life a ransom for many.

I

Salvation in Hope

If we were to seek to illustrate what seems to be the plain meaning of the text, we might take the case of a sailor, washed overboard and in imminent peril of drowning. He feels his strength ebbing, and is on the point of giving up, when the flash of a boats lantern and a hail give him fresh hope, so that, hope lending him vigour, he battles on until he is picked up by his rescuers. Of such a one we may say that he was saved by hope. Had hope not inspired him with fresh strength he would have been lost. Or, again, we may, as an illustration of this meaning of the text, remember how, within limits, patients tend to die or to recover according as they are despondent or hopeful. Such things, then, illustrate what seems to be the plain meaning of the text; and what they suggest is in fact true.

But the meaning thus suggested for our text, though true in fact, is not its real meaning. A better though a less simple translation is, We were saved in hope. The text does not tell us by what we were saved. It tells us of something involved in the salvation. Salvation has hope in the heart of it. It is not exhausted in the initial experiences. It is fraught with happy consequences, the hope of which characterizes all those who have been saved. There is an experience, salvation, and something involved in it, hope.

The older commentators for the most part took the dative here as the dative of the instrument, by hope were we saved. Most moderns take it as the dative of the manner, in hope were we saved, the main ground being that it is more in accordance with the teaching of St. Paul to say that we were saved by faith, or from another point of viewlooking at salvation from the side of Godby grace (both terms are found in Eph 2:8) than by hope.1 [Note: Sanday and Headlam, Romans.]

i. Hopefulness

Hopefulness is in a very real sense the keynote of all Christian aspiration; the one ever-present distinction of the Christian religion and life from all that ever went before it (with one notable exception), and from much that has obtruded itself as philosophy, even in these latter days.

1. We know how in pre-Christian times that vast Oriental system of Buddhism (which still counts more adherents, probably, than any other), even with many admirable moralities set forth in the way of precept, was pervaded throughout by a kind of philosophic pessimism; a hopelessness, in fact, which Schopenhauer in these latter days has only adopted and rendered into more modern terms of expression. The world is, at the best, according to that great Oriental philosophy, an illusion; at the worst, and as tested by human experience, a passing show of misery, disappointment, and vexation. It had been better for all of us not to have been born. Best now, for all of us, simply to cease to be. The only beatitude is Nirvana.

2. The pagan idolatries, into the midst of which Christianity was launched at the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, had no such definite incarnation in a single historic figure, nor perhaps any such definite philosophical outcome, as in the case of the religion of the Buddha. But in a pregnant word of St. Paul, addressed to those who had been Gentiles in the flesh, and who, under his teaching, had accepted Christ as their Lord, we find a most striking appeal to their own inward consciousness of the change that had been wrought in their spiritual state. Wherefore remember, he says, that ye were at that time (i.e. before their conversion) strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope, and without God in the world (Eph 2:11-12, R.V.).

3. But St. Paul could even have added to the force of such an argument had he been able to extend it to this present hour, through all the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem, the abominable persecutions of the Middle Ages, and the long endurance under injustice, confiscation, and proscription (even, alas! and mostly, by professing Christians) of which the Jewish communities scattered throughout the world have been, and are even now, the object. For the Jew, even in his worst national aberrations in the earlier days, and still more in the long years of exile and persecution, and more than ever in St. Pauls time under the dominion of Rome, had maintained, as his most prominent and unique national characteristic, an undying inextinguishable hope as to the future of his race and country; a hope founded on faith in the one unchanging Jehovah, who had of old chosen and set apart Israel out of all the nations, and never would desert the people of His choice. This, indeed, is the very point of the Apostles appeal to the Gentile converts in the Epistle to the Ephesians: they were, he says, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and therefore having no hope, and without God in the world.

Hope was the very life of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee. The Lord will be the hope of his people, the confidence of all the ends of the earth. And, if the old fire of hope burned low in the ages of Pharisaic formalism, it blazed out again more brightly than ever when Christ our Lord brought life and immortality to light. Christ in us is the hope of glory, the one living power that could overcome the disgust and loathing of that hard old pagan world where hope was lost. And if its brightness was dimmed again in the dark times of Christian Pharisaism, it was never quite extinguished. Beyond the Dies irae rose Jerusalem the golden.1 [Note: H. M. Gwatkin.]

ii. The Christian Hope

1. The Christian hope is not identical with hopefulness. We shall not understand how we are saved in hope unless we have a clear idea of the hope of which St. Paul speaks in the text. In so far as it is an act of the mind merely, it does not differ from the hope with which we are all familiar in daily life. Everybody remembers Lord Byrons words to Hope:

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Without hope endeavour would languish. No room would be left for design, or for rational enterprise of any kind. Life would become mere lazy, unconcerned trifling. Everybody feels this, and admits the power which that act of the mind, called by us hope, exercises in and upon our lives. But, though the hope of the text, in so far as it is a mere act of the mind, does not differ from natural hope, in other respects it does differ from it very widely.

As faith is the special counter-agent of materialism, so the counter-agent of pessimism is hope. Like faith, this has a natural basis, which is commonest and strongest in the young. But this natural hopefulness, which varies with temperament, can be confirmed into Christian hope only by the power of the Holy Ghost. For the mere natural hopefulness of a sanguine disposition fades when the troubles of life thicken with advancing years, as the clouds return after the rain. But tribulation, says St. Paul, worketh patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope.1 [Note: J. R. Illingworth, Christian Character, 73.]

2. The importance of the Christian hope may be experienced

(1) In our daily life.There is the conflict with sin, in which we often seem to gain no ground, the same temptations recurring year after year with wearisome identity, or disappearing, when resisted, only to reappear in a new form, while our efforts after virtue seem daily to be renewed only that in like manner they may be daily disappointed. And in this long struggle with discouragement, hope is the sole secret of our success, for it is the one thing that enables us to rise after every fall, to take new heart after every failure, resolute to die fighting, rather than accept defeat.

Say not, the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

But though Watts calls his tremendous reality Hope, we may call it many other things. Call it faith, call it vitality, call it the will to live, call it the religion of to-morrow morning, call it the immortality of man, call it self-love and vanity; it is the thing that explains why man survives all things and why there is no such thing as a pessimist. If there be anywhere a man who has really lost it, his face out of a whole crowd of men will strike us like a blow. He may hang himself or become Prime Minister; it matters nothing. The man is dead.1 [Note: Chesterton, Watts, 103.]

(2) In old age.The decrease of capacity, the increase of infirmity, the prospect of the end, oppress the ageing man with gloom, and tempt him cynically to sadden others with the shadow of his own distress. But if we contrast Matthew Arnolds melancholy picture of old age with the stirring trumpet-tones of Brownings Rabbi ben Ezra, we see, in sharp contrast, how Christian hope has changed all this:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith, A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!

(3) In the last hours.This is the climax of our Christian hope: The righteous hath hope in his death. Death, said Aristotle, is of all things the most terrible, for it is an end. And it is precisely because to the Christian it is not an end that his conduct is so different from that of the Greeka contrast well drawn out by Browning in his Old Pictures at Florence. For the Greek and all who think with him must seek their full development in this world; whereas, in the Christian view man has for ever, he can afford to wait, and his whole life is conditioned by this fact. Hence his hope culminates in death, as being but the entrance to the life immortal; he dies looking forward and not backward, and therefore progressive to the very end; for hope is the mainspring of progress, and the righteous hath hope in his death.

Over the grave of the first Bishop of Manchester is inscribed the one Greek word which in our English Bible is translated The trumpet shall sounda word which carries our minds forward to the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, and utters forth the note of expectancy in the place where all hopes might seem to have died. Contrast with this Christian inscription what has been found written over the grave of a priest of the religion of pagan Rome in its decay. He gave to his devotees,such is the praise ascribed by the priest to the god he worshippedhe gave to his devotees kisses and pleasures and fun.1 [Note: P. J. Maclagan.]

I often examine, with peculiar interest, the hymn-book we use at Carrs Lane. It was compiled by Dr. Dale. Nowhere else can I find the broad perspective of his theology and his primary helpmeets in the devotional life as I find them there. And is it altogether unsuggestive that under the heading of Heaven is to be found one of the largest sections of the book? A greater space is given to Heaven than is given to Christian Duty. Is it not significant of what a great man of affairs found needful for the enkindling and sustenance of a courageous hope? And among the hymns are many which have helped to nourish the sunny endeavours of a countless host.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Into the dusk of the East,

Grey with the coming of night,

This we may know at least

After the night comes light!

Over the mariners graves,

Grim in the depths below,

Buoyantly breasting the waves,

Into the East we go.

On to a distant strand,

Wonderful, far, unseen,

On to a stranger land,

Skimming the seas between;

On through the days and nights,

Hope in each sailors breast,

On till the harbour lights

Flash on the shores of rest!

3. Now it is obvious that when St. Paul says We were saved in hope, he is not regarding hope as an unstable or uncertain thing, nor is he regarding it as a quality which we may either take or leave according to our several liking. Far from this, we shall see, if we read the passage aright, that St. Paul is regarding hope as permanent and certain, and as an essential characteristic of the salvation which has already been begun in us; or, to put it more exactly, that very salvation itself is enshrined in hope. But it is noticeable that certain errors with regard to hope are constantly made. Let us see how these errors arise and how St. Pauls teaching refutes them.

(1) Hope is commonly conceived of as if there were the idea of uncertainty implied in itas if to say, I hope for a thing, were to say, I look for it doubtfullyI expect it in a measure, but I am not sure of it. But it is not so. The Apostle says: For we are saved in hope: but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? Here he puts hope and present vision in contrast; it is not certainty and uncertainty that he is contrasting, but things seen and things not seen; and that there is no idea of uncertainty is plain from the 25th verse, If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it, expressing the peaceful, calm security in which the thing is looked for. Not the slightest indication is there here of any uncertainty involved in the expression hope. All that the Apostle conceived to be meant by it was the expectation of a future thing. Now, this being so, it is evident that a serious error is made, the moment we conceive of hope as involving in it uncertainty.

Every human hope is necessarily uncertain, because of the uncertainty of every thing under the sun, the uncertainty of our own life, the uncertainty, in fact, of every thing around us. No wonder that people accustomed thus to see hope doubtfully applied should have associated uncertainty with these words; but observe that the uncertainty is in that on which the hope rests; and, therefore, if a man gets a sure ground on which to judge, there is no need of uncertainty. Faith and hope, in religion, have a reference to the words of God, and these are sure and steadfast; there is, therefore, no reason why they should be uncertain things here. Introduce God as the teller, as the promiser, as the speaker, upon whose testimony our faith goes forth, upon whose promise our hope rests, and then all apology for uncertainty is removed.1 [Note: J. MLeod Campbell.]

What can we do, oer whom the unbeholden

Hangs in a night with which we cannot cope?

What but look sunward, and with faces golden

Speak to each other softly of a hope?

Can it be true, the grace he is declaring?

Oh let us trust him, for his words are fair!

Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing?

God shall forgive thee all but thy despair.2 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Saint Paul.]

(2) Hope has a reference to a future thing, not a reference to a present or a past thing, and it is confounding the objects of faith and the objects of hope to make that which Christ has done for us an object of hope, or to say that we hope that Christ died for us, or that we have an interest in His blood. What, then, is the object of hope? Just that which God is yet to do. The Gospel reveals God as the Governor of the universe, and sets forth the plan of His government; it makes us acquainted with what He has done, with what He is doing, and with what He has yet to do. The object of Christian hope is what God has yet to do. There is a personality, a reference to ones own self, involved in it; but while this is the case, it is this great plan of God that is the direct object of hope, and the personality is just something arising out of what it tells us. We can find no words more definite than St. Pauls own words in the context of our text, as showing what is the great object of hope. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

(3) Hope is not to be regarded as an unnecessary grace. St. Paul says that there are three things which abidethree things, that is, which last under all the changes of fashion and of custom, and of the varying schemes of different generationsthree things which remain as the abiding strands of the human characterand of those the first is faith and the second is hope. Now when we turn to consider hope we are brought face to face with thisthat hope suffers from not being taken seriously, as faith is. Even those who feel most their lack of faith know that faith is essential; they know that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that those who come to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. But with hope it is all different. We look upon hope, do we not, as a kind of beautiful fairy queen; and where hope is so beautiful we are apt to think she can do no useful work. She is like a beautiful woman whom people think to be above doing strong and useful work; but those who know her best, those who have seen the most tragic sides of life, know that although she is bright and beautiful on the bridal morning as the young couple come forth, and think that they are going to tread a path of flowers, yet it is on the tragic side of life that hope is at her best.

Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead

Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,

And the pale weaver, through his windows seen

In Spitalfields, lookd thrice dispirited.

I met a preacher there I knew, and said:

Ill and oerworked, how fare you in this scene?

Bravely! said he; for I of late have been

Much cheerd with thoughts of Christ, the living Bread.

O human soul! as long as thou canst so

Set up a mark of everlasting light,

Above the howling senses ebb and flow,

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam

Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!

Thou makst the heaven thou hopst indeed thy home.

Thus Matthew Arnold. But what did he mean? He meant that Hope, the beautiful queen we think her, too beautiful to soil her hands or mar her face with work, goes up and down the slums of East London with the worker as he toils on through all his difficulties, and that from the worst disappointment he is saved in Hope.

A young man is working in his study. All the glamour of scientific discovery is sweeping over him, and his one great thought is to follow and back up his great master, Darwin. He is studying science, and he makes some of the most original experiments that have ever been made. But the exclusive use of the analytical reason, as in the case of his master, Darwin, clouds his faith. The boyish essay on Prayer is withdrawn from publication, and for years there rests upon his mind a cloud of awful doubt. But he had in his study, at his work, as his constant companion, something that never left him, something that always told him that truth could be learned, that some day his boyish faith would come back to him, something that kept him perfectly honest, perfectly sincere, perfectly true to himself through it all, and that thing was Hope. And when only a week before he died he walked up the Latin Chapel at Oxford, and as a firm believer received the Holy Communion in full possession of his magnificent faculties, it was Hope that walked in front of him, very reverently, having done her work. George Romanes was saved in Hope. It is a calumny, then, on Hope to look on her as a merely beautiful fairy queen. Hope is a nurse, Hope is a worker, Hope is a most delightful and sustaining intellectual friend.1 [Note: Bishop Winnington Ingram.]

iii. The Power of Hope

St. Paul places hope as the second of the Christian graces. It is a tremendous thing to be placed between faith and love. What is the magic power of hope which places her in such a position in the Christian life?

1. The first thing which we notice about hopeand it wants watching to find out the peculiar magic of its poweris that it purifies the human character. Every man that hath this hope in him, says St. John, purifieth himself, even as Christ is pure. It would be weary dismal work indeed to mark, year after year, our little growth, our frequent failure; to find the same temptations still assaulting us, the same meanness or vanity or envy lurking in our hearts. At times, it may be, we have been half inclined to put up with a lower standard, and to come to terms with our sins; to acquiesce in their occupying some portion of Gods territory. But of His mercy, we are saved by hope. We renew the experience of the Psalmist, I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. To see His goodness; yes, and to be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is. There is the hope which from the triumph of the risen Saviour breaks out upon our souls even in the darkest moments of their self-reproach; we are not fighting only to make the best we can out of fifty or sixty years. We could hardly bear to think what we have wasted and misspent if that were all; we could hardly hold on with the knowledge of the failures that we are. What changes everything for us is that through the often baffled hopes, through the fearful resolutions of our faltering hearts, there comes the thrill of that surpassing, saving hope that by His grace we shall one day be brought where sorrow and sighing flee away; where there shall be no more curse, and no more failure; where the storm of temptation shall be utterly forgotten in the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.

Lord, many times I am aweary quite

Of mine own self, my sin, my vanity

Yet be not Thou, or I am lost outright,

Weary of me.

2. But not only has hope this purifying power, not only will it make us believe that we are meant to live with angels and not herd with animals, not only will it lift a man into a different state of mind altogether, and purify his character, but hope is also the strongest influence that we can exert over other people.

If you have read a little story for children called Little Lord Fauntleroy you have read a magnificent account of the influence of hope on others. You remember how the little lad goes to stay with his grandfather, and that grandfather is one of the most selfish, one of the meanest and most unkind of old men that have ever lived. But the boy believes in him. The boy, only about fourteen, keeps saying to his grandfather, Oh, grandfather, how they must love you; you are so generous, you are so kind, you are so considerate to every one you meet. And the lesson of that beautiful story is the influence of hope on character. The old gentleman cannot withstand the belief of his boy; and he grows to be the unselfish generous man that the boy thought him.

3. Hope is the greatest inspirer of corporate work. And here we have to beware of a travesty of hope. Those who serve on boards and committees know that we do not believe very much in the merely sanguine manthe man who has always got a scheme which he thinks perfectly infallible, which he carries through in spite of all advice, and who, by his glib tongue and power of talk, sometimes drags the committee or board into miserable disaster. Now in our proper fear of the merely sanguine man do not let us despise the hopeful man. So far from hope being a hindrance upon boards or committees, social settlements, or any other corporate work, hope is the inspirer that keeps them going. You have sometimes seen the summer breeze sway down the cornstalks in a great field; they all bow beneath its magic power; that is how souls are bowed down by the influence of hope. One hopeful man will save a garrison; one hopeful woman will inspire a parish.

The men of hope carry forward their fellows, as Matthew Arnold has well described, in words that gain impressiveness from their contrast to his own prevailing sadness

Beacons of hope, ye appear!

Languor is not in your heart,

Weakness is not in your word,

Weariness not on your brow.

Ye alight in our van! at your voice,

Panic, despair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall

The stragglers, refresh the outworn,

Praise, re-inspire the brave.

Order, courage, return;

Eyes rekindling, and prayers,

Follow your steps as ye go.

Ye fill up the gaps in our files,

Strengthen the wavering line,

Stablish, continue our march,

On, to the bound of the waste,

On, to the City of God.

iv. The Sphere of Hope

1. Hope that is seen is not hope. The whole point of St. Pauls argument in these two verses is that the attitude of hope, so distinctive of the Christian, implies that there is more in store for him than anything that is his already. And not only is this principle true with regard to the future life and things unseen, but it is supremely true with regard to a building up of character. For to whatever height of excellence men may attain, they will always see above them a vantage-ground which invites fresh effort.

The sphere of hope is things not seen. Hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? Therefore a Christians real possession is not what he sees. Suppose God prospers him in this world and he has riches; let him be grateful, but let him confess that those are not his treasures. One hour with the Lord Jesus Christ will bring more satisfaction to the believer than the largest measure of wealth. Although he may have prospered in this world, the saint will ridicule the idea of making the world his portion. A thousand worlds with all the joy which they could yield are as nothing compared with our appointed inheritance. Our hope does not deal with trifles; she leaves the mice of the barn to the owls, and soars on eagle wings where nobler joys await her.

2. Now the greater part of our salvation belongs to the things not seen. If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Our salvation is partly of the past, but more of the future. For with God there are no unfinished beginnings, no inadequate completions. He is not like the foolish builder, who, without counting the cost, lays foundations wide and deep, and cannot complete the stately tower for which the foundations were planned. When God has appointed Jesus Christ as the chief corner-stone, what will the superstructure be? We may meanwhile obscure the magnificence of His plan by the foolishness of our building. But though it be by the destruction of our work, His spiritual house shall be completed, of which apostles and prophets are the foundation, and victorious martyrs the pillars, and every stone a blameless saint. All this was before St. Pauls mind when he wrote, in hope were we saved.

In ancient times when God delivered His people from the bondage of Egypt, what pledge did He give them? Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I WILL BE hath sent me unto you. I WILL BE, that is the name by which God would be known. I will be what? It was for hope to fill it up. The promise was magnificent by its very vagueness. The children of Israel could fill it up in part by what they knew of God. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. The promise of the name means that, and goes beyond it. The name is not I AM, a revelation of the self-sufficiency of God. It is I WILL BE, a promise of Gods inexhaustible sufficiency through the future for all His peoples need. And so it is now. This God of the will be of the future, is the God of our salvation.1 [Note: P. J. Maclagan.]

Something I may not win attracts me ever

Something elusive, yet supremely fair;

Thrills me with gladness, yet contents me never,

Fills me with sadness, yet forbids despair.

It blossoms just beyond the paths I follow,

It shines beyond the farthest stars I see;

It echoes faint from ocean caverns hollow,

And from the land of dreams it beckons me.

It calls, and all my best, with joyful feeling,

Essays to reach it as I make reply;

I feel its sweetness oer my spirit stealing,

Yet know ere I attain it I must die.

II

Waiting with Patience

1. What are we waiting for?The first thing the Apostle mentions with respect to the goal of our Christian hope is that all things and all life shall be set in their proper places once for all. Waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. The sons of God are hidden now, and the throne of glory has not been unveiled. Things are not in their right places. The light has been put under a bushel; the sun has been obscured. The true order of things has not been set in the light of heaven.

The whole passage preceding the text deals with the goal of our hope. There is one point, however, on which it is of utmost importance that we should be clear and allow no misconception to arise. St. Paul says we are waiting for our adoptionthe redemption of our body. Now by this word adoption he does not mean our acceptance as the sons of God; nor does the redemption mean atonement through the precious blood of Christ; for both these are complete already. But they both mean the final deliverance of the children of God at the second coming of our blessed Saviour, when all Gods people shall be set free from every impediment, and, as adopted children, or as a chosen bride, shall be presented spotless, in perfect freedom before the throne of the Lord.

The traveller in an unknown land, who wishes to explore it, to know how it lies, what it contains, how far its forests and its plains extend, looks out for some mountain from the elevation of which he can best survey it. He climbs to one height, and it takes him clear of the wood, showing how the forest in the distance is bounded by a low range of hills. If he climbs to a higher point, he hopes to see what lies beyond that range. Patiently he toils up the slope, until he gains the desired outlook and beyond the low hills he sees a vast and verdant plain, through which a river flows shining in the sun. But still on the utmost verge his view is restricted by sloping downs, which seem to indicate the presence of the sea beyond. If he can climb to the summit, he hopes to see what now he surmises. In patience, then, he toils upward once more, hour after hour, until, standing on the mountain top, he sees all round the mighty expanse. The forest lies beneath, a dark olive patch; the low hills seem hardly distinguishable from the surrounding plain; the great river is a thin silver streak; and beyond lie stretches of moorland, valley, and grassy downs; and farther still, lies the open sea, like a polished shield, extending far away, until lost on the horizon. At each point, his hope of what he wished to see became reality; it was no longer hope; for what a man sees is not hope, but knowledge. But hope of wider knowledge spurred him on, and, in patience, he plodded upwards, waiting until the object of his new hope was reached. Then all that he had thought and surmised, all that he had toiled for, was accomplished.1 [Note: J. E. Manning.]

2. What is the value for the present life of this hopeful waiting?If we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. There are three tests of the value of a truth for this life. One is the bearing of its burdens; another is victory over our sins; the third is service for the Kingdom of God. Apply these three tests, and bring the Christian hope to bear upon them. Who can bear his burdens, the burdens of this lower life, its weariness, its monotony, its pain, its sorrowswho can bear them like the man who believes in the coming liberty of the glory of the children of God? I reckon, said the Apostle, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. That faith makes every burden light. If we have that hope, we will bear our cross with a glad heart, and we will sing while bearing it: The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And the weight of sorrow shall pass away for ever. And who will fight for purity in his own life and spirit like the man who believes that purity is ordained to determine the destiny of every created thing, like the man who believes that purity means ultimately unfathomable glory? That hope of glory will condemn the impure heart, will burn like a blazing fire in the bones of the man who does not keep his garments white. And the man with this hope will work with the most glowing enthusiasm. Who can work with such greatness of purpose, and might of heart, and strength of arm, as the man who believes in this glorious unfolding, who believes that man is destined for this wonderful central position in Gods new creation, and that this earth of ours, these men and women we see around us, may be sons of God, the dazzling centre of a new creation in a world of everlasting glory? And so this hope fills us with inspiration. For the way is bright before us, and vast shall be the unfoldings of the future.

There is a fine story told of Carlyle,one welcomes anything about that great genius which tends to show him sympathetic with the Christian attitude, inclined towards the Christian faith. He was walking with the late Bishop Wilberforce in the grounds of a country mansion, and speaking of the death of Sterling, the associate and friend of both. Bishop, Carlyle said suddenly, have you a creed? Yes, was the answer of the otherfine in its own way tooand what is more, the older I grow, the firmer that creed becomes under my feet. There is only one thing that staggers me. What is that? asked Carlyle. The slow progress that creed seems to make in the world. Carlyle remained silent for a second or two, and then said slowly and seriously, Ah! but if you have a creed, you can afford to wait!1 [Note: W. A. Gray.]

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Eight onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.2 [Note: Emerson.]

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

saved: Rom 5:2, Rom 12:12, Rom 15:4, Rom 15:13, Psa 33:18, Psa 33:22, Psa 146:5, Pro 14:32, Jer 17:7, Zec 9:12, 1Co 13:13, Gal 5:5, Col 1:5, Col 1:23, Col 1:27, 1Th 5:8, 2Th 2:16, Tit 2:11-13, Heb 6:18, Heb 6:19, 1Pe 1:3, 1Pe 1:21, 1Jo 3:3

but hope: 2Co 4:18, 2Co 5:7, Heb 11:1, 1Pe 1:10, 1Pe 1:11

Reciprocal: Psa 130:7 – for with Jer 2:25 – after Joh 3:36 – see Rom 2:7 – patient Rom 4:18 – against 1Co 13:7 – hopeth Eph 1:18 – is 1Th 1:3 – and patience Tit 2:13 – blessed Tit 3:7 – made Heb 6:11 – of hope Heb 11:13 – and were Heb 12:1 – with patience Jam 5:7 – Be patient

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

-25

Rom 8:24-25. Saved by hope denotes that our hope for everlasting life prompts us to persevere in the kind of conduct that is necessary to receive everlasting life.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 8:24. For we were saved. The tense points to the time of conversion.

In hope, or, for hope; either rendering is preferable to by hope. The fact of salvation placed us in a condition of which hope was a characteristic Luther: We are indeed saved, yet in hope. Inasmuch as the object of salvation is both relatively present and also relatively future, hope is produced from faith and indissolubly linked with it; for faith apprehends the object, in so far as it is present; hope, in so far as it is still future (Philippi).

Now hope that is seen, etc. By these self-evident statements about hope, the Apostle leads his readers up to the thought of Rom 8:25, which is both an encouragement and an exhortation.

Why doth he still hope for! Some good authorities omit the word we translate still (literally also, even), thus giving the sense: why doth he hope (at all)? We prefer the other reading: why does he still hope, when there is no more ground for it?

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

We are saved by hope; that is, we are at present supported by hope, our present expectation of our future glorious condition beareth up our spirit under its sufferings, and carrieth us joyfully through all difficulties; or,

We are saved by hope, that is, all the salvation which we have at present is in hope, not in hand; in expectation, not in possession;

heaven in hope, is more worth than the whole world in hand; and seeing there is a certainty of hope, there is a certainty of salvation: We are saved by hope.

Observe next, The nature of hope declared: ‘Tis an expectation of good things promised but not enjoyed; vision and fruition put an end to hope; none hopes for that he already enjoys: Hope is conversant about things unseen as well as faith: Faith is the evidence of things not seen, and hope is the expectation of those things: The object of hope is a future good, a possible good, a promised good, a good promised by God, and believed by us.

Observe, lastly, The necessary adjunct, and the inseparable companion of hope, and that is patience, and waiting for the good hoped for: If we hope, &c. then do we with patience wait, &c.

Learn hence, That they only hope for eternal life aright, who continue in the pursuit of it with patience and perseverance; there must be found with us a waiting patience, a working patience, a bearing and forbearing patience, with a persevering continuance in well-doing, if we hope for glory and immortality, and eternal life.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Rom 8:24-25. For we are saved by hope That is, our salvation is now only in hope; we do not yet possess the full salvation; but hope that is seen is not hope Hope here, by a usual metonymy, is put for the object of hope; and in Scripture, to see, often signifies to enjoy, and sometimes to suffer. The meaning here is, the thing hoped for, when actually enjoyed, is no longer the object of hope. But if, or since, we hope for that we see not That is, which we do not enjoy; then do we Naturally and usually; with patience wait for it Especially if the object of our hope be very excellent and necessary for us, attainable by us, and assured to us in this way. Thus, if our hope of the heavenly inheritance, valuable beyond all we can express or conceive, be strong and lively, it will produce in us a patient waiting till Gods time be come to put us in possession of it, and in the mean while will render us willing to bear the intervening troubles contentedly.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Vv. 24, 25. For we have been saved in hope; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why would he yet hope for? Now if we hope for that we see not, then do we with perseverance wait for it.

Ver. 24 uses one of the three constituent elements of the Christian life, namely hope (1Co 13:13), to demonstrate the reality of that state of groaning and expectation which has just been ascribed to believers. On the one hand, undoubtedly salvation is a thing finished; this is indicated by the aorist , we have been saved. But, on the other hand, this salvation having as yet penetrated only to the spiritual part of our being, is not fully realized, and leaves room for awaiting a more complete realization. Hence the restrictive specification , in hope. This word, from its position at the beginning of the sentence, evidently has the emphasis. This dative is, as Bengel says, a dativus modi, signifying: in the way of hope. The meaning therefore is: If we are saved, which is certain, this holds true only when we take account of the element of hope which continues always in our present state. We must not, like Chrys., De Wette, Rck., identify hope with faith, and find here the idea of salvation by faith. The whole context shows that it is really of hope in the strict and special meaning of the word that Paul is speaking. Already in the apostolic age we find persons who, intoxicated with a feeling of false spiritualism, gave out that salvation concerned only man’s higher nature, and who abandoned the body to everlasting destruction; so those Christians of Corinth who denied the resurrection of the body (1 Corinthians 15), and those heretics of Asia Minor who alleged that the resurrection was already past (2Ti 2:18), probably because they confounded it with moral regeneration. Were there such men at Rome? Paul must have had some reason for insisting, as he does here, on the outward and future consummation of the edifice of salvation. The meaning of the last two propositions of Rom 8:24 is clear: Now, hope implies non-possession. In the words: hope that is seen, the term hope is taken for the object hoped for, as is often the case, Col 1:5 for example. In the words following the term resumes its subjective meaning. The last proposition has been amended by the copyists in all sorts of ways. In our translation we have rendered the T. R. The Greco-Latin text, rejecting the , yet, signifies: For what one sees, why would he hope for? The Sinat.: What one sees, he also hopes for, or does he also hope for?a reading which in the context has no meaning. The Vatic.: What one sees, does he hope for? This is the reading which Volkmar prefers; for in regard to the Vatic. he gives himself up to the same predilection with which he rightly charges Tischendorf in regard to the Sinat. This reading is impossible. It would require when instead of what: When one sees, does he hope?

The , yet, is by no means superfluous: yet, after sight has begun, along with sight, hope has no more place.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

24. For we are saved by hope. He here means the salvation of the body from mortality. Hope spies out and appropriates in anticipation. Therefore, while shut up in these tenements of clay, we lay hold of the glorious hope of the transfiguration, thus rising superior to our pains, toils and persecutions, and virtually living in the glorious heavenly future, rather than the suffering and sorrowing present.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

8:24 {23} For we are saved by hope: but {f} hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

(23) Sixthly, hope is necessarily joined with faith: seeing then that we believe those things which we are not yet in possession of, and hope does not refer to the thing that is present, we must therefore hope and patiently wait for that which we believe will come to pass.

(f) This is spoken by the figure of speech metonymy, that is, “hope”, which stands for that which is hoped for.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

In the meantime we should look forward with hope to what God has promised and patiently endure present sufferings (cf. Rom 5:4).

"The point of these two verses is that the attitude of hope, so distinctive of the Christian, implies that there is more in store for him than anything that is his already." [Note: Sanday and Headlam, p. 210.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)