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Bible Dictionaries
Hopefulness
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or HOPEFULNESS (Christ’s).—Knowing that all our possessions of grace come from Christ, in whom we believe all fulness dwells, and believing that He alone among the sons of men possessed perfect knowledge, we might be led to doubt whether we could justly attribute hope to Him. As regards His perfect knowledge, we must remember that uncertainty is no essential element in hope. Human hope may be proverbially disappointing, but that is due to the uncertainty of temporal things, and not to the nature of hope itself. Indeed, the glory of the Christian hope consists in the moral certainty of its grounds. It is a ‘better hope’ in part as being ‘sure and steadfast’ (Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 6:19). The fact, then, that our Lord’s faith rendered future objects of desire almost a present possession in no way prevented Him from experiencing this grace.* [Note: Westcott (Life, vol. i. p. 41) writes in his diary: ‘The fart of our Lord never mentioning His own faith or hope is a proof of His Divinity.’ This, however, can hardly be looked upon as a careful statement, but rather as a passing thought, and it was noted down early in his life (aet. 21).] As regards His possessing ‘all fulness’ as the God-man, and so being thought incapable of feeling hopefulness, it may be said that we clearly start our thoughts on a wrong line if we commence an investigation of this kind with our own a priori views of what the incarnate Son of God must have felt or not felt. We can in ourselves be no adequate judges of the limitations which Deity might set upon itself when taking our flesh. Our duty is to study the NT, and especially the Gospels, with the view of discovering what is there revealed as to the true nature of this act of Divine condescension. And such a study teaches us that in our Lord’s Person we have not only a revelation of the Father, but also a revelation of humanity at its highest. He loved to call Himself ‘Son of Man,’ because He thereby taught us to see in Him the ideal Man, and therefore we must expect to see in Him every truly human emotion (and hope is one of them) purified and perfected.
No teacher of mankind ever so frequently pointed to Himself in His teaching as Jesus did, and yet it is remarkable that He rarely revealed His own personal emotions. When He disclosed Himself it was as the source of all grace, so that men might be saved and nourished by His life. He was so absolutely selfless that He rarely sought sympathy by speaking of His heart’s desires. It is not He but the Evangelists who tell us that He was weary, wept, exulted, marvelled. Thus it happens that He never definitely mentions His own hope. Indeed, strangely enough, the word ἑλπίς does not occur in the Gospels (see art. Hope). But as hope is a necessary element of Christian character, being one of the ‘abiding’ graces (1 Corinthians 13:13), Christ, if He be true man, must have experienced it. It is not said that He had faith, but must we not believe that His whole human career was sustained from the first consciousness of childhood to Calvary by faith, perfect in its range and steadfastness? The long nights of prayer surely tell us not only of a general attitude of dependence, but also of a definite trustful belief in the love and presence of His Father, which found its expression in petition. What habitual strength of faith is shown in such words as ‘Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels?’ (Matthew 26:53).
No doubt His faith and hope are so raised above ours by their perfection, that they may no longer seem to be what to us are faith and hope. But He raised all human attributes to their perfection; not thereby altering their essential character, but rather exhibiting them as they ought to be in ourselves. And if He felt no hope, never rejoiced in coming good, never was upborne when wearing the cross by anticipation of the crown, but lived His life in the cold calm of duty, then the Stoic is the ideal of our race.
Not a few evidences, more or less indirect, of Christ’s hopefulness are found in the Gospels. In one case its object was of a temporal nature, namely, when being ‘hungry’ He approached the fig tree, ‘if haply he might find anything thereon.’ (Mark 11:12 ff.)
Little reverence would be shown by interpreting this incident as feigned for the purpose of teaching a moral lesson. ‘If He only pretended not to know that the tree was barren, we should expect the hunger also to have been pretended’ (Mason, Conditions of our Lord’s Life, p. 152). Rather have we an example of hope in the mind of Jesus for a desired good, which circumstances disappointed, and which He turned to a moral purpose.
Evidence of His being cheered during His ministry by hope of the results of His spiritual labours may probably be seen in His words to the disciples when the Samaritan woman had left (John 4:27-38). He had gained one soul, and with prophetic vision saw the land filled with ripened souls ready for the spiritual reaper. His followers, too, would receive wages in the joy of souls won, and ultimately they, with the earlier workers of God who had sown the seed, would rejoice together. So full was His soul with joy of hope already realized, and with the prospect of still greater harvesting, that He was raised above the sense of hunger. The whole passage seems full of the deepest emotion of our Lord; and if so, hope was its strongest element. A similar anticipation of coming joy in the salvation of those He came to save may be felt in the words, ‘Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost’ (Luke 15:6). Further, may we not see that hope realized was the cause of the strong movement of His soul, when He exulted (ἠγαλλιάσατο, Luke 10:21) in Satan’s fall from heaven? It was a rejoicing of His innermost soul, because already He saw potentially accomplished the object of His mission. Similarly must we account for the deep feeling displayed by Him when visited by the inquiring Greeks (John 12:20-33). Here again is hope anticipative. He sees the uttermost parts of the world potentially present in the persons of these Gentiles, and He declares that ‘the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified’ (John 12:23); and yet, foreknowing the terrible fate that awaited Him before the achievement of His desire, He alternated between the joy of hope and the sorrow of human dread, and prayed to be saved from that hour (John 12:27).
In His teaching to His disciples there is the oft-repeated lesson of His return to His Father (John 7:33; John 8:14; John 16:28). Doubtless His chief object was to explain His heavenly origin and to prepare them for His departure, but not a little pathos and increased depth may be recognized in such words if we see in them also a longing hope for the time when the bitter trials of His voluntary humiliation would cease. Thus in His High-Priestly prayer, now that He has finished His work, He pleads for the renewal of the glory which He had with His Father before the world was (John 17:1-5). And thinking of the loved ones to whom His parting would be so bitter a trial, He prays for the realization of the hope that they might ultimately be granted the beatific vision, beholding Him in His glory (John 16:24); then would He drink with them the fruit of the vine new in His Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:29).
Perhaps the most clearly expressed example of hope on the part of our Lord, an example which unequivocally shows His feeling of the emotion, is to be found in the words with which He commenced the Paschal meal. ‘With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer’ (Luke 22:15). Here we have a distinct statement, that He held ardently an expectation of a future good before its realization.
We further find that His ministry was exercised in a spirit of intense optimism as regards both the community and the individual. This is the more remarkable when we recall that He more than any other saw the reality of human corruption. The hidden disease of society, with its outward religiousness and inward godlessness, led Him to predict the overthrow of the ecclesiastical and national life, like Jeremiah of old. But, unlike that prophet, He, notwithstanding His clear view of coming judgment, looked to the future with a splendid hopefulness. His kingdom would yet fill the world (Matthew 13); His gospel would be universally preached (Mark 13:10); and ultimately all men would be drawn unto Him (John 12:32).
The same optimism is to be seen in His dealings with individual sinners. In the most corrupt He saw germs of good; and thus could win sinful women from their ways (Luke 7:50, John 8:11), and publicans from their grasping worldliness (Mark 2:14, Luke 19:9); and He could discover sufficient moral worth in a dying thief and murderer to be able to promise him rest in Paradise (Luke 23:43). The hopefulness of Christ in His message to mankind is fully embodied in His saying, ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33). Thus we see that our Lord was in hope, as in all else save sin, ‘like as we are’ (Hebrews 4:15). And if we in our trials are upborne by the hope of future bliss, He also was upborne to endure the cross and despise the shame by ‘the joy that was set before him’ (Hebrews 12:2).
Charles T. P. Grierson.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Hopefulness'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/h/hopefulness.html. 1906-1918.
