EDD Espérance
When voters elected Bill Clinton as president of the United States in 1992, countless people heard more about his hometown of Hope, Arkansas. However, hope is more than a town, a noun, or a person’s name. Biblically, the word refers to something that is anticipated with the assurance that it will become a reality. For example, two disciples were talking as they walked to Emmaus from Jerusalem on the day of Christ’s resurrection. The Savior appeared in their midst and asked why they were so sad. The two did not recognize Jesus and began to tell Him that the Messiah had been crucified and that they had hoped He would redeem Israel. Their joy overflowed as they discovered that the Savior was alive and present with them. Biblical hope has countless blessings. The Bible refers to hope about one hundred fifty times. Let’s explore this life-changing theme.
1. Psalm 16:8–11. (See also Acts 2:26.) What does the psalmist mean when he says he rests in hope? Name some blessings that come because of the hope of the resurrection.
2. Jeremiah 17:7–8. Why should a person place his hope in the Lord? How does a tree by the side of a river stay alive during dry seasons? How is hope like a river?
3. Romans 5:1–2, 5. (See also 8:24–25; 15:13.) What is God’s glory? What is our future hope? What does God fill us with as we trust in Him?
4. 1 Corinthians 15:17–19. The Christian’s hope is in the resurrection of Christ. If this were not true, what would happen to our faith?
5. Ephesians 1:18–21. After Paul’s conversion, his spiritual eyes were opened. Discuss the hope of our calling as it is related to salvation, service, sanctification, and glorification.
6. Colossians 1:5, 27. What is the hope stored for us in heaven? What does “Christ in you” mean to you? How can this truth enrich your life?
7. Titus 1:1–2; 2:13. On what basis do we hope for eternal life? What sort of lives should we live, awaiting this blessed hope prepared for us?
8. Hebrews 6:18–19. (See also 7:19.) What are we to do because of the hope that God puts before us? Describe the hope that is an “anchor for the soul.” Why can’t the Law of old give hope?
9. 1 Peter 1:3. (See also 3:15–16.) Why do Bible believers have a living hope? What does this kind of hope guarantee? What preparation does the passage 3:15–16 speak of?
10. 1 John 3:1–6. What change will take place in us when Christ returns? What happens to everyone who carries this hope in his heart?
HOPE—one of the three main elements of Christian character (1 Cor. 13:13). It is joined to faith and love, and is opposed to seeing or possessing (Rom. 8:24; 1 John 3:2). “Hope is an essential and fundamental element of Christian life, so essential indeed, that, like faith and love, it can itself designate the essence of Christianity (1 Pet. 3:15; Heb. 10:23). In it the whole glory of the Christian vocation is centred (Eph. 1:18; 4:4).” Unbelievers are without this hope (Eph. 2:12; 1 Thess. 4:13). Christ is the actual object of the believer’s hope, because it is in his second coming that the hope of glory will be fulfilled (1 Tim. 1:1; Col. 1:27; Titus 2:13). It is spoken of as “lively”, i.e., a living, hope, a hope not frail and perishable, but having a perennial life (1 Pet. 1:3). In Rom. 5:2 the “hope” spoken of is probably objective, i.e., “the hope set before us,” namely, eternal life (comp. 12:12). In 1 John 3:3 the expression “hope in him” ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, “hope on him,” i.e., a hope based on God.
HOPE (Noun and Verb), HOPE (for)
A. Noun.
elpis (ἐλπίς, 1680), in the NT, “favorable and confident expectation” (contrast the Sept. in Isa. 28:19, “an evil hope”). It has to do with the unseen and the future, Rom. 8:24, 25. “Hope” describes (a) the happy anticipation of good (the most frequent significance), e.g., Titus 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:21; (b) the ground upon which “hope” is based, Acts 16:19; Col. 1:27, “Christ in you the hope of glory”; (c) the object upon which the “hope” is fixed, e.g., 1 Tim. 1:1.
Various phrases are used with the word “hope,” in Paul’s epistles and speeches: (1) Acts 23:6, “the hope and resurrection of the dead”; this has been regarded as a hendiadys (one by means of two), i.e., the “hope” of the resurrection; but the kai, “and,” is epexegetic, defining the “hope,” namely, the resurrection; (2) Acts 26:6, 7, “the hope of the promise (i.e., the fulfillment of the promise) made unto the fathers”; (3) Gal. 5:5, “the hope of righteousness”; i.e., the believer’s complete conformity to God’s will, at the coming of Christ; (4) Col. 1:23, “the hope of the Gospel,” i.e., the “hope” of the fulfillment of all the promises presented in the gospel; cf. 1:5; (5) Rom. 5:2, “(the) hope of the glory of God,” i.e., as in Titus 2:13, “the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”; cf. Col. 1:27; (6) 1 Thess. 5:8, “the hope of salvation,” i.e., of the rapture of believers, to take place at the opening of the Parousia of Christ; (7) Eph. 1:18, “the hope of His (God’s) calling,” i.e., the prospect before those who respond to His call in the gospel; (8) Eph. 4:4, “the hope of your calling,” the same as (7), but regarded from the point of view of the called; (9) Titus 1:2, and 3:7, “the hope of eternal life,” i.e., the full manifestation and realization of that life which is already the believer’s possession; (10) Acts 28:20, “the hope of Israel,” i.e., the expectation of the coming of the Messiah. See Notes on Galatians by Hogg and Vine, pp. 248, 249.
In Eph. 1:18; 2:12 and 4:4, the “hope” is objective. The objective and subjective use of the word need to be distinguished, in Rom. 15:4, e.g., the use is subjective.
In the NT three adjectives are descriptive of “hope”: “good,” 2 Thess. 2:16; “blessed,” Titus 2:13; “living,” 1 Pet. 1:3. To these may be added Heb. 7:19, “a better hope,” i.e., additional to the commandment, which became disannulled (v. 18), a hope centered in a new priesthood.
In Rom. 15:13 God is spoken of as “the God of hope,” i.e., He is the author, not the subject, of it. “Hope” is a factor in salvation, Rom. 8:24; it finds its expression in endurance under trial, which is the effect of waiting for the coming of Christ, 1 Thess. 1:3; it is “an anchor of the soul,” staying it amidst the storms of this life, Heb. 6:18, 19; it is a purifying power, “every one that hath this hope set on Him (Christ) purifieth himself, even as He is pure,” 1 John 3:3, RV (the apostle John’s one mention of “hope”).
The phrase “fullness of hope,” Heb. 6:11, RV, expresses the completeness of its activity in the soul; cf. “fullness of faith,” 10:22, and “of understanding,” Col. 2:2 (RV, marg.).