What Is Hope? byJohn Piper Scripture:Hebrews 6:1-12 Where Scripture Teaches This About Hope Now let us go to the Scripture to see where I get this understanding of biblical hope. We will begin at Hebrews 6:9–12. After warning his readers that it is possible for people who have had remarkable religious experiences to commit apostasy and go beyond the point of no return, he says, Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. The Writer’s Confidence in His Readers The reason the writer is so sure that his readers will not be among the apostates is that they have not only been loving servants for God’s sake in the past but are still serving. You see that emphasis on perseverance, don’t you, at the end of verse 10? You showed love in serving the saints in the past, AND YOU STILL DO. Their religious experience was not a temporary decision at camp or at a Keith Green concert or Billy Graham crusade. It was continuing. Perseverance in godliness is the proof of the genuineness of a person’s salvation. That’s why the writer feels so sure of the people: they had served the saints, and they still do. The Writer’s Admonition to His Readers Now comes the admonition in verses 11 and 12 to press on and not become sluggish. But now the battle is described in terms of hope, not just in terms of love and service: And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end. In other words, with all the zeal of the past that enabled you to work and love in the name of Christ — with all that zeal, keep on pursuing the full assurance of hope to the end. There is no fight, no quest, no challenge, no war more urgent than this. Keep your hope hot! “The Full Assurance of Hope” Now what does “the full assurance of hope” mean in verse 11? It means hope which is fully assured. Hope which is confident. Hope that has moral certainty in it. It is not finger-crossing hope. It is not the lip-biting gaze as you watch the place kicker go for a field-goal in the last ten seconds when you are down by two points. In fact, verse 12 implies that hope and faith are almost synonymous. Notice the connection: verse 11 says, Go hard after full assurance of hope; verse 12 says the result of that pursuit of hope is that you will be like those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Pursue hope so that you can be like men of faith. The Connection Between Faith and Hope Let’s pursue this connection between hope and faith a little further. The term “full assurance” (used here in verse 11, plerophorian) is found one other place in Hebrews, namely, 10:22. However, there it is “full assurance of faith” instead of “full assurance of hope.” It says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” Then in the next verse it says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Notice, hope is something that should not waver, because it is rooted in the faithfulness of God. There should be moral certainty in it because the will and purpose of God are like iron, not chalk. But what about the relationship between full assurance of faith and full assurance of hope? Is there a difference? I would suggest that faith is the larger idea and hope is a necessary part of biblical faith. Hope is that part of faith that focuses on the future. In biblical terms, when faith is directed to the future, you can call it hope. But faith can focus on the past and the present too, so faith is the larger term. You can see this in Hebrews 11:1. This is the closest thing we have to a definition of faith in all the New Testament, I think. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Here’s how I would paraphrase this verse. Wherever there is full assurance of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Biblical faith is a confident expectation and desire for good things in the future. But faith is more than that. It is also the “conviction of things not seen,” and some of these are not future. For example, verse 3: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God.” Faith can look back (to creation) as well as forward. So faith is the larger idea. It includes hope, but is more than hope. You might put it this way: faith is our confidence in the Word of God, and whenever that Word has reference to the future, you can call our confidence in it hope. Hope is faith in the future tense. Why This Relationship Is Important There are two reasons this is important to see. 1. One is that it helps us grasp the true nature of biblical hope. Most of us know that biblical faith is a strong confidence. Doubt is the enemy of biblical faith. But if hope is faith in the future tense, then we can see more clearly that hope, too, is a strong confidence and not just wishful thinking. 2. The other reason it is important to see this relationship between faith and hope is that it shows how indispensable hope is. We all know that we are saved by grace through faith. Faith is necessary for our salvation. But we don’t as often speak of hope in those terms. But we should. Hope is an essential part of faith. Take away hope and the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 is destroyed. We are not merely saved by grace through faith. We are saved by grace through hope. Paul Shares This View of Hope Now briefly let’s notice how Paul shares this same view of hope in Romans 4:18. He describes Abraham as the great example of faith, and in particular, of justification by faith. In Romans 4:22 he says, “This is why Abraham’s faith ‘reckoned to him as righteousness.’” And the faith Paul is speaking about is the faith that God would fulfill his promise by giving him a son, Isaac. So the faith which justified Abraham was faith in the future work of God. Verse 21 makes this crystal clear: he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” In other words he had what Hebrews 6:11 called the “full assurance of hope.” Verse 18 describes how faith and hope worked together: “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations.” “Against hope” means that from the ordinary human standpoint there was no hope: Abraham was too old to have a child, and his wife was barren. But biblical hope is never based on what is possible with man. Biblical hope looks away from man to the promise of God. And when it does, it becomes the “full assurance of hope” — the expectation of great things from God. It is not easy to describe exactly what Paul means in verse 18 when he says, “In hope Abraham believed . . . that he should become the father of many nations.” But from the whole context I think it is fair to say that Abraham’s faith was his strong confidence in the reliability of God’s Word, and Abraham’s hope was his strong confidence in the fulfillment of God’s promise. In other words, whenever faith in God looks to the future, it can be called hope. And whenever hope rests on the Word of God, it can be called faith.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:59:32 +0000
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