Hope: One of the three main elements of Christian character (1 Cor. 13:13). It is joined to faith and love, and is opposed to seeing or possessing (Rom. 8:24; 1 John 3:2). Hope is an essential and fundamental element of Christian life, so essential indeed, that, like faith and love, it can itself designate the essence of Christianity (1 Pet. 3:15; Heb. 10:23). In it the whole glory of the Christian vocation is centred (Eph. 1:18; 4:4). Unbelievers are without this hope (Eph. 2:12; 1 Thess. 4:13). Christ is the actual object of the believers hope, because it is in his second coming that the hope of glory will be fulfilled (1 Tim. 1:1; Col. 1:27; Titus 2:13). It is spoken of as lively, i.e., a living, hope, a hope not frail and perishable, but having a perennial life (1 Pet. 1:3). In Rom. 5:2 the hope spoken of is probably objective, i.e., the hope set before us, namely, eternal life (comp. 12:12). In 1 John 3:3 the expression hope in him ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, hope on him, i.e., a hope based on God. !Dictionary)
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:08:59 +0000
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