Washington Presbyterian Church is a Christ-centered, gospel-driven, Bible-based church in southwestern Pennsylvania dedicated to the city of Washington and the surrounding community. Join us for worship on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.
What will heaven be like? We know only partial answers to this question from the Bible, but this doesn’t stop many from speculating. This is something Christians dearly want to know.
Some of what we know of heaven is stated positively. God will dwell with his people; he will be their God; he will make all things new.
But, curiously, some of what we learn about heaven is stated negatively. Why is that?
I have two main passages in mind. In Revelation 21:4, we learn the following about heaven.
God will wipe away every tear.
Death will be no more.
There will be no more mourning, crying, or pain.
The former things will have passed away.
In addition, we read in Revelation 22:3 that there will be nothing cursed in the new creation.
In 1 Peter 1:4, the apostle writes about our inheritance with negative language. We have been born again “to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.”
Perhaps the reason for this is obvious, but it’s worth saying out loud. The Bible is teaching us what heaven will be like by contrast. Our current life is full of tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain. All of the inheritances we know about perish, get defiled, and fade away. What is heaven like? It is the opposite of all of the cursed parts of our current experience.
From when we’re very young, this is how we learn. We acquire new information by making a bridge from the known to the unknown. We are familiar with pain; we understand physical, emotional, and mental anguish. The new heavens and the new earth will have absolutely none of that.
This short observation is not groundbreaking, but it is an invitation. This week, when you feel the curse of sin scratching its thorns against your shins, or when you feel nearly crushed by the weight of sin and suffering, think of the contrast the Lord has promised you. Look to the future with hope, for one day the earth will be remade and sin will be no more.
The word “hope” is often used, culturally, as a synonym for “strongly wish.” Even among Christians, “hope” might sound vague and squishy. I suspect some Christians’ hope would not withstand much scrutiny.
On what grounds do you have hope? What assures you of your hope? When will your hope be realized?
Peter answers these questions in the early part of his first letter.
A Living Hope
At the beginning of his letter, Peter uses the word “hope” to describe our status as believers.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5)
Specifically, Peter uses “living hope” to describe the state into which God has caused us to be “born again.” Hope is to be so present with Christians that it is our new residence. When we are made alive by God, we are (as it were) citizens of Hope. Christians are the hopeful ones, characterized by the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises.
Importantly, this hope we have is living. This modifier is not misplaced—our hope is living because our Savior is alive! Peter writes that we have been born again to this living hope “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Jesus’s resurrection makes our hope possible, vibrant, and vital.
Peter tells us some of the substance of this living hope, as we have been born again “to an inheritance.” This inheritance is pure and lasting, unlike any earthly inheritance, “kept in heaven” for us.
As Christians, Peter wants us leaning forward, eager for what is coming, like toddlers waiting for the whistle to start an egg hunt.
Hope in God
Later in this chapter, Peter reflects on Christ and the means of our salvation.
He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (1 Peter 1:20–21)
Because God raised Jesus from the dead and gave him glory, our faith and hope are in God. It is the “precious blood of Christ,” which is imperishable, by which we “were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [our] forefathers” (1 Peter 1:18–19).
This is not just splitting hairs. Jesus’s suffering and death secure our ransom, and his resurrection and exaltation are the grounds for our faith and hope. We are always to be looking ahead with the confidence that God will keep his promises to us just as he kept them to Jesus.
Hope in Forthcoming Grace
The first command Peter gives in this letter comes in verse 13 of chapter 1.
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13)
Obeying this command requires our minds to be both ready for action and sober. Hope-setting is not for the lazy, the distracted, or the easily numbed. Our hope is a rudder, a precious tool, and we must be careful where it points.
Further, Peter exhorts us to set our hope fully on upcoming grace. It is not enough that we acknowledge this grace or look forward to it some of the time or with a divided heart. The grace that is coming to us is so transforming and thrilling that it demands our entire hope.
Peter also gives a time frame. We are not called to hope forever nor to look ahead to a vague, unspecified future. At “the revelation of Jesus Christ” everything will change and we will be new. Though we have already received (and continue, daily, to receive) buckets of grace, we will swim in an ocean at the revelation of Christ.
Grace Over All
Peter’s command in verse 13 (above) might sound impossible. It’s the first of several full-throated exhortations in that paragraph: “do not be conformed” to your former passions, “be holy in all your conduct,” “conduct yourselves with fear” (1 Peter 1:14–17).
Let’s not lose sight of the context, though. These commands are given knowing that we were ransomed from our futile, former ways (1 Peter 1:18). Like many commands in Scripture, these urge us to act like the new people we are instead of the former people we were.
Grace, thankfully, hangs over everything. If you feel small or inadequate reading these requirements, that’s good! You are. Like all of us, you need God’s grace which comes to us in Christ. God forgives our sin and enables our obedience by his Spirit.
And we have much to look forward to. One day we will know nothing of our former passions, we will be holy in everything, and we will fear God perfectly. There is so much grace waiting for us at the revelation of Jesus that we can’t fathom it all.
My years as an athlete ended in high school. I was decent in one sport, decidedly below average in a few others, and quite content to leave formal competition behind at graduation.
My high school coaches didn’t fit the stereotype of an athletic trainer. They were encouraging, supportive, and (mostly) kind. Perhaps because of movies and television, I picture a trainer differently: intense, aggressive, and maybe a little bit mean.
What comes to your mind when you think of training? Does training have any relationship to Christian discipleship? In this post we’ll learn about the trainer Paul describes for all believers, regardless of fitness level.
Grace is a Trainer
I’ve recently been turning the following passage over in my mind.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11–14)
God’s grace is training us. That may sound surprising, as many people wouldn’t put grace in the role of trainer. Before studying this passage, I’d list several aspects of the Christian life before grace when thinking of training, including law, God’s discipline, and the example of other believers.
But Paul lands on grace as our trainer. To understand Paul’s logic, let’s look just one chapter later in this letter.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4–7)
We are not saved by our works, but by God’s mercy. We have been justified by God’s grace and have therefore become heirs of God. We are new people, through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
Through God’s favor, we now have an identity we do not deserve and would never choose. We are heirs of God.
God’s grace trains us because reflecting on our new identity is confrontational. His grace is contrary to our expectations, our nature, and even our basic notions of cause and effect. When we encounter God’s grace in this way, it forces us to grapple with what is true about God, us, and the way God really operates.
A trainer might force us to get out of bed to run when we’d rather sleep. The moral and religious path of least resistance is one of works and consequences. Grace, as our trainer, wakes us up and puts the uncomfortable (and wonderful) truth in our faces: we are justified by grace.
Training to Renounce and Live
Training always has a goal. Grace is “training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” In other words, God’s grace trains us to live as the new people we are.
The word “renounce” has teeth. It is different than “reject” or “refuse.” Renounce carries the idea that this was part of me and my lifestyle—but no more. To renounce is to intentionally put what I was behind me. Because we are justified, heirs of God, we can say “no more” to all the ungodliness and worldly passions that defined us.
Grace also trains us to live. This letter to Titus is full of what a “godly” life is like. (See Titus 1:5–9; 2:1–10; 3:1–2; 3:9–10.)
The renounce/live training that grace provides is similar to the put off/put on pattern of repentance that Paul describes in Ephesians 4:17–32. Because this is training, this renouncing and living is something Christians learn and practice throughout their lives.
Waiting For Our Blessed Hope
Part of our new living is “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Most of us don’t like to wait for anything, so we might bristle to learn that waiting is part of our Christian calling. Yet we know exactly what we’re called to wait for: the appearing of the glory of Jesus.
Paul also tells us why we should look forward to this appearing: because of what Jesus has done. Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” When Jesus gave himself for us there were (at least) two outcomes in mind: to redeem his people and to purify his people.
If Jesus gave himself for us for these world-altering ends, why wouldn’t his people eagerly long to see his glory?
The End of Our Training
All training is for a purpose—for an event or an outcome or a season of competition.
Similarly, grace trains us toward an end. We hope for the appearing of Jesus. When we see him, all will be made whole, all will be new. God’s children will receive their promised inheritance.
Paul refers to this as our “blessed hope.” Our progression in the Christian life will choke and sputter without this hope fueling our engines. There are many ways we can grow in hope, but hope is not optional for believers.
But we are not alone as we seek to grow. God’s grace is training us.
Names in the Bible are significant, none more than the names and titles of God. The biblical authors emphasize one of God’s strengths or an aspect of his character by the names they use for him.
In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul is no exception. Among others, he refers to “God our Father” (Romans 1:7), the “immortal God” (Romans 1:23), the “living God” (Romans 9:26), the “God of endurance and encouragement” (Romans 15:5), and the “God of peace” (Romans 16:20). Each title or description of God is both informed by and informs the context in which it is used.
I have been writing about hope for some time now, so I was quite drawn to Paul’s use of “the God of hope” in Romans 15:13.
Why Jesus Came to the Jews
After writing about church unity in the previous chapters, in Romans 15:8 Paul starts to address the inclusion of the Gentiles among God’s people.
He writes, “Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs” (Romans 15:8). Because God promised a deliverer to the Jewish people, and because God keeps his promises, Christ came to Israel first.
However, part of showing “God’s truthfulness” involved the Gentiles “glorify[ing] God for his mercy” (Romans 15:9). Though God’s promises were given to Israel, they have never been limited to Israel. One of God’s earliest covenant promises mentioned blessings in Abram for “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3).
The Gentiles Will Hope in Christ
Note the way Paul quotes the Old Testament in a crescendo in Romans 15:9–12. He layers promises and exhortations to reach the final truth about the Gentiles.
There will be praise (by Israelites) “among the Gentiles” (Romans 15:9).
Gentiles are called to rejoice “with his people” (Romans 15:10).
The Gentiles are exhorted to “praise the Lord,” that “all the peoples” would extol him (Romans 15:11).
Finally, the Messianic promise mentions the “root of Jesse” who will “rule the Gentiles,” and “in him will the Gentiles hope” (Romans 15:12).
This hope in Christ connects to the beginning of the passage, that Jesus came to the circumcised so that “the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy” (Romans 15:9). The gospel message came first to the Jews and then spread to the Gentiles; this was a message that brought hope for people who experienced the mercy of God.
Abounding in Hope
We cannot understand what it means to refer to God as “the God of hope” without this context in Romans 15.
First, this title labels Jesus as God. The Gentiles would hope in the root of Jesse, which refers to Jesus. By using “God of hope” in the next breath, Paul underlines Jesus’s divinity.
Additionally, God is the one who brought all prophecies and promises to fulfillment. The presence of Gentiles in the church at Rome shows “God’s truthfulness”—he sent his son, showing mercy to countless people, as he said he would.
Further, God is the one who can “fill” us with joy and peace, so that by the Holy Spirit we can “abound in hope.”
It may be tempting to think this “filling” is passive, like a donut being filled with jelly. And while such filling will not happen without God’s work, as with many aspects of the Christian life, our seeking and God’s providing go hand in hand.
We abound in hope, therefore, by looking to the God of hope. We seek joy and peace in believing what he has said. In this context, this means we read and rehearse his promises. We envision a world in which these promises all come to pass, and we rejoice at the peace present in that world. We can rest when we are convinced that our promise-keeping God keeps his promises.
I see a lot of pessimism and cynicism in the world today. These attitudes can breed deep discouragement and anger. But there is no need for Christians to be trapped in this whirlpool.
When the God of hope fills us with all joy and peace in believing what he has said, we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). May it be so for us all.
When I sit down for breakfast, I don’t think much about my chair. My simple, wooden, dining table chair has always been solid, and I am far more concerned about spilling my tea or stepping on the cat than I am about my chair. The past sturdiness of my chair gives me confidence about the future sturdiness of my chair.
This track-record link between the past and the future is important when we as Christians consider God. As we seek out ways to grow in hope, in this post we’ll find instruction in an aside found in Romans 15.
The Context: a United People
In Romans 14, Paul warns against passing judgment on or despising others. He commands the people not to put stumbling blocks in anyone’s way.
As Romans 15 opens, Paul exhorts the people to please their neighbors, not themselves (Romans 15:1-2). He notes that Christ did not please himself but took reproach on himself for the sake of others (Romans 15:3). Paul quoted Psalm 69:9 to show the Romans that Jesus’s work fulfilled an Old Testament foreshadowing.
Here is the aside that follows this reasoning.
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4)
I say this is an aside because while Romans 15:5 references verse 4 (see “endurance” and “encouragement”), the themes of unity and welcoming dominate the rest of Romans 15:5–7. This section of Paul’s letter is not primarily about how we use the Scriptures.
How the Scriptures Give Hope
However, what Paul writes here as an aside is quite interesting, particularly to someone who has been writing about hope for no small amount of time. We can learn several things from Paul’s comment.
First, what was written has been written for our instruction. The Law, the Writings, and the Prophets are not just dusty, historical documents. We are naïve and we need instruction, and the writings of the Old Testament give us just that.
Specifically, the result of this instruction is hope for God’s people. These writings should help us endure, and the Scriptures should encourage us to hope.
I’ve been defining biblical hope as the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. If that’s correct, then we can make some sense of why Paul’s mind went to this comment after quoting a Psalm about Christ.
Paul notes that Scripture is being fulfilled in the way Christ did not please himself. The same God that kept this promise will keep all of his promises. And this is why we can have hope.
Much like the faithful wooden chair, when we see example after example of God keeping his promises, we can lean into other promises with expectation. We don’t need to question or wonder if he will come through. He is a promise-keeping God, so when he makes promises to his people, he will keep them. That’s who he is.
A Lens for Reading
Even though it is an aside in his larger argument, Paul provides us with a way to grow in hope. When we read the Old Testament, we can take note of the promises God makes to his people. Not all of these promises will have an obvious fulfillment found elsewhere in the Bible, but many will.
When we encounter such fulfilled promises, we can take a small moment to praise and thank God. Our future hope, ultimately, is based on his faithfulness and his unchanging nature.
Then, when we encounter a promise that is yet to be fulfilled, we can remind ourselves of the God who promised. And maybe, perhaps, our minds can run ahead a bit to imagine what the world will look like when he keeps this specific promise.
In sorrow, we reach for hope because we see how far we are from the fulfillment of God’s promises. We can harness this distance to long for what we do not have.
Joy is a more pleasant path to hope. We can turn God’s delightful provisions into opportunities for hope: we have a small taste now of the promised full experience yet to come and we can train ourselves to look ahead.
The joyful engine of hope can be dangerous, however. Few of us are tempted to seek out sorrow in order to grow in hope, yet that is a pitfall where joy is concerned. We may delight in the person, experience, feeling, or blessing of God so much that we forget it is from God. Many people have valued the gift over the Giver and so put their hearts in peril.
May we all grow in Christian hope, seeing in each blessing the future that is to come. Here are three concrete examples, in which I link joyful experiences to what God has promised about the future.
Feasting
It’s no accident that almost every celebration involves good food, where we elevate meals from mere sustenance to something special and delicious. It should be no surprise that the Bible points to a grand feast in the new earth.
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (Revelation 19:6–9)
When God’s people (the Bride) are united with his Son (the Lamb), the celebration will be glorious, and it will involve food. When we are gathered around a joyful table now, we can catch the scent of the wonderful aromas to come.
Fellowship
Most Christians have probably shared conversations or experiences with other believers that leave them overflowing with gratitude. There’s nothing like connecting with others who share the deepest and highest desires of our hearts.
And while “fellow pilgrims” are given to us in this life for encouragement and help, we don’t leave fellowship behind at death. We will also have friends and companions in the new earth.
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. (2 Corinthians 4:13–14)
We will go with others into the presence of God.
When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 8:10–11)
As God gathers in those from many nations, they will “recline at table’ with each other and with the patriarchs.
The sweet fellowship we share with others in Christ on earth is a foretaste of our heavenly communion.
Rest
If we could bottle up the feelings of contentment, relaxation, and peace that come on vacation, we’d have a best-selling product on our hands. Even a weekend or a long night of uninterrupted sleep can be an enormous blessing.
This is the blessing of reprieve. Broadly speaking, we are looking for relief from the curse pronounced to our first parents in the garden. As many have noted, this is not the curse of work, but it is a curse upon work. And sometimes we groan under those thorns and thistles when we just want to make it through another day.
Rest is good, and it offers a glimpse of heaven.
No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 22:3)
It’s hard for us even to imagine a world in which nothing is cursed, but such a world is coming!
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:8–10)
We need not work for our salvation; Jesus’s work accomplishes this for us. This rest pictures the Sabbath rest for God’s people. As tired and worn out and frustrated as you feel now, there is rest for you in the future.
Joy to Hope
All of the joys God gives us in this life are blessings by themselves.
But many of these joys are joyful precisely because they give us a small picture of larger masterpiece. If hope is the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises, then these small, temporary blessings can direct our attention to our fuller, lasting future.
Hope may not be a fruit of the Spirit, but it is a Christian virtue. And the authors of the New Testament presume that those who are in Christ will grow in hope just as they grow in love and faith. (See Romans 15:13, 1 Peter 1:13, and Hebrews 6:11, for example.)
How therefore do we grow in hope?
The Christian life—and human life in general—offers scores of opportunities to increase our hope reflexes. In this post we’ll address the path to hope through sorrow.
Recognizing All That is Not Right
Here’s my definition of Christian hope: hope is the joyful expectation that God will keep his promises. Some events in our lives offer a brief taste of those kept promises, making us aware of the great fulfillment that is to come. (This will be the subject of a future post.) Yet some circumstances make us see just how far we are away from that fulfillment.
In a world marked by sin, we are bound to see misery and sadness all around us. God does not expect us to pretend that everything is fine; he has given us lament as a category of prayer for just these confusing, dispiriting, and gut-wrenching times.
However, properly understood, lament ends in hope. So, these times of great sadness can be opportunities to grow in this powerful Christian virtue.
Injustice
We do not need to search very hard for examples of injustice in the world. Many Christians have been the target of unjust actions or policies, and all of us have observed gross acts of injustice throughout the world.
We rightly cry out when the wicked flourish and the righteous are victims of hatred and violence.
God is just, and he promises that justice will rule one day. A key part of growing in hope is learning these promises, resting on them, and expecting God to keep them.
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:1–4)
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23:5–6)
Additionally, the notion of hell depends in part on God’s justice. Because God is holy and humans sin against him, these offenses must be dealt with. For Christians, the wrath of God was satisfied at the cross (1 Peter 2:24), and for unbelievers, God will be vindicated in hell (see Matthew 25:31–46, Revelation 21:8).
Sickness and Death
Sickness and death are one of the greatest causes of our sorrow. And we rightly lament this reality because this is not the way things should be. And, of course, this is not the way things will be!
Jesus’s resurrection is the sure sign that resurrection is to come for those united to him. We have these sure promises.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:50–53)
The promise of bodily resurrection from the dead is fundamental to Christian hope. But we must not let familiarity with this promise dull its extravagant audacity. Raised from the dead! New bodies!
Loneliness
Many commenters have written about a modern epidemic of loneliness, but a sorrowful aloneness has been a part of the human experience for millennia. We rightly mourn the loss of relationships and the absence or coolness of friends, but our mourning can point us to a better day on the horizon.
Yes, God is present with his people now and has promised not to forsake them (Hebrews 13:5). But a greater sense of God’s presence awaits us.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:1–3)
God will be with us as our God; he will dwell with us—in fact, that will be his dwelling place.
For those in Christ, all loneliness has an expiration date. God has promised.
From Sadness to Hope
Sorrow is nothing to seek out, but rightly understood it is an opportunity to grow.
Our prayers of lament begin with complaint but they end in hope. We realize that our aching and sadness is a longing for something God has promised. We can build a solid foundation on God’s promises, joyfully anticipating the way he will keep them and turn our sadness on its head.
The fruit of the Spirit are familiar: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22–23). I doubt Paul intended this list to be exhaustive, but at least two Christian virtues are conspicuous in their absence from this hallowed group: faith and hope.
Given that faith and hope are both brought about by the Spirit and that Paul writes much about these qualities elsewhere, their absence from this list may surprising. In this short post, we’ll explore this mystery.
Looking to Calvin and 1 Corinthians 13
Allow me a slight detour. Most know 1 Corinthians 13 as “the love chapter” from its presence at wedding ceremonies. This chapter ends with sweet words that raise an obvious question.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Why exactly is love greater than faith and hope? The answer can be found in the text, but it is nicely summarized by John Calvin.
For faith does not remain after death, inasmuch as the Apostle elsewhere contrasts it with sight, (2 Corinthians 5:7,) and declares that it remains only so long as we are absent from the Lord. We are now in possession of what is meant by faith in this passage—that knowledge of God and of the divine will, which we obtain by the ministry of the Church; or, if you prefer it, faith universal, and taken in its proper acceptation. Hope is nothing else than perseverance in faith. For when we have once believed the word of God, it remains that we persevere until the accomplishment of these things. Hence, as faith is the mother of hope, so it is kept up by it, so as not to give way. […] Faith and hope belong to a state of imperfection: love will remain even in a state of perfection.
In other words, love is the greatest of this trio because it remains into the fulness of the new creation. We have no need for faith or hope in heaven—these are virtues we need only in anticipation of our future home. (Calvin is on solid footing, as 1 Cor 13:8 asserts that “love never ends,” and then the rest of verses 8–12 discuss what will and will not pass away.)
Not Needed in the New Creation
In light of this argument, we see that faith and hope do not belong among the fruit of the Spirit. Perhaps the fruit of the Spirit are those qualities the Spirit grows within believers that will be needed for our new-creation lives.
There is some evidence for this argument within Galatians 5. After listing the “works of the flesh” in Gal 5:19–21, Paul writes, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). There is a link between life in the future kingdom of God and these works of the flesh/fruit of the Spirit.
Love One Another
There is another explanation for the absence of faith and hope from the list of the fruit of the Spirit. Interestingly, Calvin also touches on this in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 13.
For every one derives advantage from his own faith and hope, but love extends its benefits to others.
Paul is relentless in Galatians to show that embracing the true gospel of Christ leads away from slavery toward freedom—the freedom to serve one another through love. (See my fuller discussion here.) The entire earlier paragraph of Gal 5:13–15 is about loving neighbor as self.
While faith and hope affect the way we interact with others, they are called “theological virtues” because they primarily involve our orientation toward God. The fruit of the Spirit are mostly needed for our relationships with others.
Convergence
In the end, these explanations converge. Faith and hope are not properly considered fruits of the Spirit because they aren’t necessary for our interaction with others, either now or in the age to come.
Faith and hope are gifts of the Spirit and they are essential to get to that new age! But they are the ship which takes us across the river and drops us on the far shore. We no longer need the boat for the singing and dancing and living to come.
But what if you don’t get the life you wanted? In the digital age, you might as well not even exist. Failure is obscurity, and obscurity is death. In the post-religious imagination, without success, there is no meaning to one’s life. You can go on surviving, but each day that is spent contrary to what you actually want to be doing is a waste. If enough of these days accumulate, your very self disappears.
I know this all sounds a bit depressing. But our hope has to be real hope if it’s going to sustain us through real life, not the illusory hope of the mirage-like dreams my classmates and I likely had when we graduated. Real hope is only realized when we come to terms with the dismaying reality we all face in this age. Truly facing it is what forges in us “a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12), the kind of heart that Psalm 90 teaches how to cultivate.
This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called God Gives Us Himself. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!
Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.
This past spring, a missionary spoke to our church. He lamented that the people among whom he was living were largely without hope.
This missionary used the word “hope” as we use it in casual conversation. His neighbors had nothing to look forward to, no expectation of good in their future.
When people are missing this sort of hope, they are certainly lacking biblical hope. Even among Christians, biblical hope is not immediate or easy. I’m aiming in this article to lay out three stages to hope.
Stage 1: Hear the Gospel
Biblical hope is only available to Christians. So, the first step to hope must be connected to conversion.
Paul issues a familiar call for the broad preaching of the good news of Jesus.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Rom 10:14-15)
Even more concisely, Paul writes two verses later: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17).
When we sense people are without hope, what they need most is not job training, drug counseling, affordable housing, friendship, or reliable transportation. (Though our churches should care about all of these things!) Their greatest need is Christ and his gospel.
Stage 2: Believe the Gospel
It is not enough to merely hear the gospel, of course. “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (Heb 4:2).
Not all who have faith have hope, but true hope cannot exist without faith. So, the second stage is for faith to take root, for a person to believe the gospel and trust in Christ.
Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification. (WCF, Chapter XI.II) But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace. (WCF, Chapter XIV.II)
We may be able to provide a short description of faith, but that does not make it automatic. Faith is the gift of God (Eph 2:8).
Stage 3: Eagerly Anticipate the Future
You may have met people who believe the gospel but do not act like it is truly good news. They rest on Christ for forgiveness, adoption, and salvation, but they may seem resigned to their future rather than delighted for it.
Notice the way Paul moves from hearing to believing to hope in Ephesians 1.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Eph 1:11–14)
Paul links hope to the sealing with the Spirit (verse 13) and our anticipation of inheritance (verse 14). This all comes after hearing “the word of truth” and “believ[ing] in him” (verse 13).
In a longer passage in the epistle to the Romans, Paul holds up Abraham as an example of faith. In fact, Paul uses Abraham to explain what faith is (Rom 4:16–25). Then Paul relates faith to hope.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom 5:1-2)
Note that Paul writes about rejoicing in hope, which conveys the eagerness of hope.
We can also learn about hope from Paul’s benediction at the end of Romans.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Rom 15:13)
Hope involves “joy and peace in believing.” Also, like faith, hope is a work of the Spirit.
Conclusion
There are three stages to get to hope, but they are not items on a to-do list—they are matters of prayer. For ourselves and those around us, we need God to work if we are to “abound in hope.”
Hope is not a static condition but a gift of God in which we can grow. I plan to address that topic in upcoming articles.
