Hope is now and forever
5 Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with our God through Jesus Christ. 2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
5:5–8 Hope never disappoints (v. 5). It does not let the believer down. The reason is simple. God floods our hearts with his love104 through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Hope is rewarded with a fresh awareness of the incomprehensible love of God. God’s Holy Spirit, who enters our life in response to faith, is at work helping us grasp the reality of what it means to be encircled by the love of God. In another place, after speaking of things that “no eye has seen” and “no ear has heard,” Paul pointed out that these very things have been revealed by the Spirit to those who love God and that we have received the Spirit so “that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor 2:12).
People generally think of troubles as evils to be endured as stoically as possible. Paul thinks of them not as simply to be endured, but to be gloried in. Sufferings, or “afflictions” (see on 2:9), is a strong term. It does not refer to minor inconveniences, but to real hardships. No one likes troubles of this kind, but they may be seen as difficulties to be overcome, as ways of opening up new possibilities. One who sees them in this light glories in them.
Character is NIV’s translation of a word difficult to put into English.11 It indicates the result of being tested, the quality of being approved on the basis of a trial; “the temper of the veteran as opposed to that of the raw recruit” (SH). NEB reads “proof that we have stood the test” (cf. Job 23:10). Steadfast endurance leads to the quality of testedness, and this in turn to hope, for the Christian who has been tested has proved God’s faithfulness and will surely hope the more confidently.
Hope comes last in Paul’s list, but it was already present at the beginning (v. 2). Here the apostle goes off in a different direction, saying that hope does not disappoint us. He is, of course, speaking of the specifically Christian hope, not human hope in general. This verb is found in Paul in ten of its 13 New Testament occurrences; it usually means “put to shame“. Paul is saying that hope, the genuinely Christian hope, never puts those who have it to shame (cf. Ps. 22:5; 25:3, 20; Isa. 28:16, LXX; 2 Tim. 1:12, etc.). This is because God’s love is poured into their hearts. Paul’s emphasis on love is strangely overlooked; the apostle is often seen as somewhat pugnacious and argumentative, while John, by contrast, is “the apostle of love”. But the word love occurs 75 times in Paul out of a New Testament total of 116 (nine in Romans). For this apostle love is supremely important, and he comes back to it again and again. As he does here, Paul often stresses the fact that it is God’s love that motivates believers. While the reference is surely to the love God has for us, we should not overlook the truth that the Spirit’s pouring of God’s love into our hearts is a creative act. It kindles love in us, and love “becomes the moral principle by which we live” (Dodd). Poured out points to abundance (cf. Moffatt, “floods our hearts”).13 This pouring out of God’s love is done “through” the Holy Spirit. The thought is that of an action of the Spirit of God on our human spirits. The Spirit is given (the aorist indicates a single, decisive act), which reminds us that this is not a human achievement or insight. Paul loves to emphasize the divine initiative.
One boasts in suffering not just because it produces long-term glory, down the road, but also because it produces Christian character here and now—including, according to vv. 3–4, patience, which in turn produces tested character, which in turn produces a hope which does not disappoint. We have here an elliptical chain where one has to assume that the same verb (“produce”) functions in each case. Notice the “we know” which introduces the chain. This is the voice of shared Christian experience. Unlike some kinds of hope, Paul is not advocating mere wishful thinking, for it is a hope which has already been partially realized in the Spirit’s presence and in God’s love in the life of the believer. Such a hope only whets the appetite, for it serves as a preview of coming attractions.
This character development by enduring suffering produces a mind-set of hope (vv. 4–5)—not just wishful thinking about the future, but a growing confidence that grace is accomplishing the divine purpose in the believer’s life.