0610. The Purifying Hope

The Purifying Hope

"And every one that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1Jn_3:3).

There is no doctrine that holds a stronger incentive to purity of living, than does the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ.

It was the evil servant who said, "My Lord delayeth His coming," and who began to eat and to drink with the drunken.

Illustration: Dr. A. J. Gordon of Boston used to tell how, once, when he was about to make a preaching tour his two little girls asked him the day of his return, desiring to meet him at the train. He told them that he would return the next week, on a certain train, on either Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday. When the stated Tuesday arrived the children dressed in their best Sunday white and went down to meet their father. But Dr. Gordon did not arrive. Wednesday and Thursday was just as disappointing to the children. Friday came, and, as the girls, clothed with the same white dresses, knew that papa must come, their hearts were filled with joy. After the happy greeting was over, Dr. Gordon said his wife remarked: "The next time you leave the city, tell the children that you will come home Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday–it was never so easy to keep the children’s dresses white."

And what manner of persons ought we to be, seeing that we are looking for Christ’s return? Certainly we should give ourselves over to holy behavior and to Godliness.

Christians who are of the day, anticipating the coming of the Lord, should watch and be sober, "putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for an helmet, the hope of salvation" (1Th_5:1-9).

It is in view of the coming of Christ that believers are admonished to give all diligence, and to add to their faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, Godliness; and to Godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love (2Pe_1:5-8).

These are the graces which accompany the life gripped by the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus, and the one who lacks these graces, is blind and cannot see afar off.

In Col_3:4 we read that "when Christ Who is our Life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." It is the next verse that adds: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth."

Surely Christ’s coming is a purifying hope.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR