the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Hope (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (ἑλπίς)
‘Hope may be defined as desire of future good, accompanied by faith in its realization. The object both of faith and of hope is something unseen. Faith has regard equally to past, present, or future, while no doubt in Scripture referring mainly to the future. Hope is directed only to the future. Expectation differs from hope in referring either to good or evil things, and therefore lacks the element of desire’ (J. S. Banks in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , s.v.).
We shall divide our study of the word and idea in the Apostolic Church into two parts: (1) the Pauline conception of hope; (2) the idea of hope in other apostolic and sub-apostolic writings, exclusive of the Gospels.
1. The Pauline conception.-According to St. Paul, hope has for its object those benefits which, though promised to the Christian Church, are not yet within its reach (Romans 8:24). It is therefore described generally as the hope of salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:8; cf. Romans 8:20-24), as indeed the last term includes generally deliverance from all evils and the bestowment of all good. It is the hope of the resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:12), inasmuch as the resurrection is at once deliverance from death and the beginning of future felicity. It is the hope of glory or of the glory of God (Romans 5:2, Colossians 1:27; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:12), in so far as the happiness of the future state is set forth under the figure of splendour and brightness, involving the perfection of the outward as well as of the inward life. Again, it is the hope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5), i.e. of justification, inasmuch as justification, or the acceptance by God of believers as righteous, is the necessary condition of and prelude to final felicity. Once more, as all these benefits are to be realized at the Parousia of Christ, it is spoken of as the hope of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Again, inasmuch as these same blessings are to be enjoyed in heaven, our hope is said to be laid up in heaven (Colossians 1:5); and as the mystical indwelling of Christ is the earnest and promise of future salvation (cf. the present writer’s Man, Sin, and Salvation, 95ff.), Christ in us is spoken of as ‘the hope of glory’ (Colossians 1:27).
Hope is also variously characterized by St. Paul in reference to the foundation on which it rests. It is the hope of the gospel (Colossians 1:23), inasmuch as it is guaranteed by the gospel promises; it is the hope of the Scriptures (Romans 15:4), inasmuch as it rests upon those of the OT. It is the hope of the Divine calling (Ephesians 1:18; Ephesians 4:4), in so far as it is substantiated to the individual by the immediate call of God. It is hope in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:19), as founded in faith upon Him; while God is the God of hope (Romans 15:13), as its Object, Inspirer, and Giver (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:16).
In Romans 5 St. Paul has described the growth of hope with experience. As justified, we already rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2). Tribulations, however, serve to intensify and deepen our hope. Tribulation works patience, and patience experience (δοκιμή, the approved character of the veteran), and experience hope (Romans 5:3-4); and this hope never disappoints, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart through the Holy Spirit given unto us (Romans 5:5).
Finally, hope is one of the most distinctive marks of the Christian life in opposition to the hopelessness of the Gentile world (Ephesians 2:12; cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13).
2. In the other apostolic and sub-apostolic writings.-The only difference between St. Paul and the other apostolic and sub-apostolic writers is that, just as they have less of a theological system than St. Paul, so the references to hope in their writings have a less distinctly theological character. But the substance of the idea is the same.
Christians are heirs of salvation in hope (Titus 1:2; Titus 3:7). Christ is our hope (1 Timothy 1:1, Titus 2:13; Ign. Eph. xxi. 2, Magn. xi., Trall. Introd. ii. 2, Phil. xi. 2). We hope in Him (Ep. Barn. vi. 3, viii. 5, xi. 11, xvi. 8), in His Cross (xi. 8). God has united us to Himself by the bond of hope (Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 7:1 Clem. xxvii, 1; cf. Acts 24:13, 1 Peter 1:21); we hope in Him (1 Timothy 4:10; 1 Timothy 5:5; 1 Timothy 6:17).
A striking expression for the value of hope in the Christian life is found in 1 Peter 1:3 : God has begotten us again unto a living hope by the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Cf. Ep. Barn. xvi. 8, ἐλπίσαντες … ἐγενόμεθα καινοί; cf. also Herm., Sim. ix. xiv. 3, ‘When we were already destroyed, and had no hope of life, (the Lord) renewed our life.’ Hope, in fact, is the content of the Christian’s life (1 Peter 1:13; 1 Peter 3:5, Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 6:11; Hebrews 10:23; Clement, ad Cor. li. 1, lvii. 2; Ep. Barn. xi. 8; Herm. Vis. i. i. 9, Mand. v. i. 7, Sim. ix. xxvi. 2; Ign. Magn. ix. 1, Phil. v. 2). In the beautiful language of Hebrews 6:19 it is, moreover, ‘an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and entering into that which is within the veil; whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us.’
Looking at the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Age as a whole, St. Paul included, we may say that hope is one of its chief characteristics. ‘We are accustomed to describe the Apostle Peter as the Apostle of Hope on the ground of the first letter ascribed to him, but wrongly, in so far as the strong emphasis on hope is not peculiar to him, but can be demonstrated equally in all other writings of this time, although indeed certain nuances exist’ (A. Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit, iv. 71). The special fervour of hope in the NT and the Apostolic Fathers is, of course, in part traceable to the belief in the immediate nearness of the Parousia, which is common to the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Age as a whole. The hope of the Parousia brought the future vividly into connexion with the present. Hence Titius in the above-mentioned work thus describes the age in question: ‘The value of the present consists (for it), though not exclusively, yet essentially, in that the future belongs to it. If the expectations of the future should turn out to be deceitful, therewith everything which makes the present religiously valuable would be annihilated’ (loc. cit.). Christianity, therefore, differs from what has gone before it just in its ‘newness of hope’ (Ign. Magn. ix. 1), its better hope (Hebrews 7:19).
We may effectively illustrate the meaning of St. Paul’s contrast between the hopelessness of the heathen world and the hope of the Christian Church by a reference to E. Rohde, Psyche3, ii. 393f. Here a dark picture is given of the later Hellenic culture. There were certainly hopes of continued existence after death, scattered abroad in the Greek world. But they had no definite or dogmatically defined content. ‘And it is forbidden to no one to give his dissentient thoughts a hearing in his own mind and a voice upon his tombstone, though they should lead to the opposite pole from these hopes. A doubting “If” frequently inserts itself in the inscriptions on the graves before the expression of the expectation of conscious life, full sensibility of the dead, the rewarding of souls after their deeds: “if there below is still anywhere anything.” The like is to be found often.’
Sometimes even doubt is put on one aide, and it is definitely declared that there is no life after death. All that is told of Hades with its rewards and punishments is an invention of the poets. The dead become earth or ashes, pay the debt of nature, and return to the elements whence they were made. ‘Savage accusations of the survivors against death, the wild, loveless one, who, without feeling, like a beast of prey has torn from them their dearest, allow us to recognize no gleam of hope of the preservation of the departed life’ (p. 394). But, again, complaints are declared to be useless, resignation alone remains. ‘ “Be of good cheer, my child, no one is immortal,” runs the popular formula, which is written on the graves of the departed. “Once I was not yet, then I was, now I am no more, what is there further?” says the dead on more than one tombstone to the living, who soon will share the same lot. “Live,” he cries to the reader, “since to us mortals nothing sweeter is given than this life in the light” ’ (ib.).
Finally we meet with the thought that the dead lives on in the memory of posterity, in general form and still more in the devotion of his family; this is the only comfort which many a one in this late Hellenism can find to enable him to bear the thought of his own transitoriness.
Over against this sombre background, then, Christianity shines out in the ancient world like a Pharos, radiating the light of a clear and certain hope into the darkness. Nor is that hope absolutely bound up with the nearness of the expectation of the Parousia, though there is no doubt that it was that which gave to the early Christian hope its extreme keenness. The essence of the Christian hope is the hope of immortality guaranteed by God in Christ; as the contrast with the uncertainty of the decadent Hellenic culture well shows.
Literature.-E. Reuss, History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age, 1872-74 (particularly valuable for its treatment of St. Paul’s conception of hope; it has been freely drawn upon in this article); R. S. Franks, Man, Sin, and Salvation, 1908, p. 95ff.; A. Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit, 1895-1909, iv. 71; E. Rohde, Psyche3, 1903, ii. 393f.; C. Buchrucker, article ‘Hoffnung,’ in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3 viii. [1900] 232ff.; H. M. Butler in Cambridge Theological Essays, 1905, p. 573; J. R. Illingworth, Christian Character, 1904, p. 63; W. Adams Brown, The Christian Hope, 1912, p. 9; J. Armitage Robinson, Unity in Christ, 1901, pp. 123, 153, 265; Mandell Creighton, The Mind of St. Peter, 1904, p. 1; P. J. Maclagan, The Gospel View of Things, 1906, p. 203; R. G. Bury, The Value of Hope, 1897.
R. S. Franks.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Hope (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/h/hope-2.html. 1906-1918.
