Part IV: Rediscovering Our Hope

In the business world, we spend a lot of time talking about metrics. A metric is simply a means of measuring our progress toward some outcome. Return on investment, customer satisfaction, and profit margin are all examples of business metrics.

So what would be the key metrics for the Christian life?

Though it’s clear that we’re not to compare ourselves with others, the Apostle Paul mentions three metrics in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and 1 Thessalonians 1:30 to measure spiritual growth. They are:

The degree to which we exercise faith.
The steadfastness of our hope.
Our fervor in love.

These metrics embody the trivium of the Christian life. While distinct, they’re connected in some interesting ways. Growth in the trivium is not a matter of “trying harder” to be more faithful, hopeful, or loving, but through an altogether different mechanism that we’ll discuss in a future post.

Sometimes we can use certain “Christian” words so often as to become detached from their original meaning. It becomes important to revisit them–to rediscover them.

Because hope is often the progenitor of faith and love, we’ll start there.

Rediscovering Hope

Hope, properly understood was a tremendous source of encouragement and motivation for the early church. In especially difficult circumstances it was often all they had. Hope is a thread that weaves its way throughout history and intertwined into God’s purpose.

So when the Bible speaks of our hope what exactly is it referring to? The following scriptures provide some clues:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead…
1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

That God … may give you the Spirit of wisdom … that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…
Ephesians 16:18 (ESV – truncated)

… we … might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Hebrews 6:18 (ESV)

First, we see that our hope is indelibly linked to Christ and His resurrection. Without resurrection there is no hope. With the resurrection our hope is secure. It was through resurrection that the Messiah (Christ) was inaugurated King of Kings. His crowning was not at the end of time (as the Jews assumed) but in the middle of history. This fact has profound implications. Because He is King today, we have a living hope–one that we can engage in the present.

Second, our hope is progressively revealed to us by the Spirit. Hope isn’t an escapist sentiment or finite set of facts. Rather, it expands to fill our awareness. If we’re attuned to it and walk in it, hope will grow in us. It’s within community that the Spirit reveals our hope. Paul speaks of it as our collective birthright.

Third, the New Testament writers attached significant worth to what this hope represented. It had tremendous motivational weight as a source of encouragement, even in the toughest times. For this reason we’re reminded to ‘hold fast’ to our hope. We are not like the hopeless who languish under the looming specter of death. In a world that seems to become more chaotic by the day, we anchor ourselves to this hope as the one certain thing that will not move.

From other scriptures our hope seems to be wrapped up in eschatology. It is a mysterious, culminating, future event coinciding with Christ’s return that will usher in a new era that will dramatically change everything. But despite an overwhelming sense of glory in these verses, the substance of our hope remains vague. As N.T. Wright puts it, our hope is “a signpost pointing into a fog”. It’s leading us somewhere but it’s hard to see exactly where.

Why did the writers use such a simple word to convey such a weighty idea? One reason is that were pointing to something so expensive, so transcendent, and so sublime that no single word could fully capture it anyway. They needed a placeholder to point to the idea. But when the apostle Paul spent anywhere from 4-18 months unpacking and unveiling this idea to his churches, the recipients of his letters would have been very familiar with the references. With further investigation I think we can recapture some of what the early apostles were attempting to convey to those early Christian communities.

Future Anticipation

First, let’s talk about what is implied by the word itself. Sometimes we’ll miss the intended meaning of a verse because of an imperfect translation or improper substitution of a contemporary English word. For example, when we “hope” for something today we tend to think of it as a conditional event (i.e. “I hope Bobby remembers to take out the trash”; “I hope to get a raise next year”; “I sure hope your pants come clean, (Mister!)”.

Conversely, the Greek word for hope in the New Testament is the word ἐλπίς (elpizo). Instead of a conditional event, elpizo connotes a confident expectation or certainty of what will happen in the future. We look forward not with our fingers secretly crossed or with a measure of doubt, but with excited anticipation that it will happen.

Future Bodily Resurrection

When the New Testament writers mention ‘our hope’, I wold bet that many believers assume they are referring to the hope of heaven–the eternal place of rest for the souls of those who are in Christ. But when we look at the scriptural context the word ‘heaven’ seems to refer to a much broader piece of real estate than just what’s behind the pearly gates. Specifically, heaven refers to the realm of God.

Scripture does refer to a state of living after our physical death and before Christ’s return where we’ll be in the presence of the Lord (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8). If this state is what some people mean when they refer to ‘heaven’, then fair enough. However, such an idea paints a vastly incomplete picture of what the apostles are pointing to. What does scriptures say then?

For if we have been united with (Christ) in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Romans 6:5 (ESV)

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 15:51-54 (ESV)

Our final destination will not be an ethereal, disembodied existence amid the clouds. Rather our hope (according to Paul) includes the certainty of future bodily resurrection.

In the process of making all things new, the Lord will once again enflesh our disembodied selves, returning us to our former corporeal form. The difference is that this time we will have an incorruptible, immortal body without the effects of sin (aging, disease, back pain, high blood pressure, dementia, cancer, etc.). We know that Jesus had this kind of body for 40 days on earth after His resurrection (He was not a ghost). During that time, He walked, talked, and even partook of meals. Because our resurrection will be a resurrection “like his”, it will be the same with us.

Imagine that.

Some have wondered what age we’ll be in the resurrection. There’s an interesting theory floating around that says we’ll all remain 33 years old. One reason is that this was the age that Jesus was when He was resurrected. Theory or not, I’ll take it. for me, being 33 years old was about the time when my wisdom curve intersected by physical health curve.

I think it’s healthy to ponder these things. I never understood why Christians only talked about the resurrection on Easter Sunday and at the occasional funeral. Seems like we should discuss it regularly and encourage one another with it. “Remember the resurrection” was a common saying exchanged among the early believers. Maybe it should be for us also.

The Union of Two Realms

Contrary to what the shallows of Christian tradition have taught is, heaven will not be our final habitation. Scripture clearly tells us that, in much the same way humanity will be resurrected into physical bodies, a formerly corrupted creation will also be made new during the same event.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.
Romans 8:19-24 (ESV)

The Apostle Paul tells us that creation itself has its own hope. It says that it eagerly awaits for the sons of God (us) to be revealed (resurrected) so that it might also obtain the same glory that we will. Instead of the Lord “taking us to heaven” and leaving the Earth to burn, there will be a marriage of God’s realm (heaven) and the created realm (earth). They will be made new and joined together once again as they once were in the Garden.

In Revelation 21 we see a vivid picture of the City of God coming “out of heaven” and resting in the midst of creation…

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. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.“
Revelation 21:1-5 (ESV)

In this event we’ll be given renewed physical bodies inhabiting a renewed physical creation. We will also enjoy uninhibited communion with our Lord. What this will look like and how it will operate is all a matter of speculation. But that doesn’t mean we should imagine it to be dull and dreary or fear that it won’t suit our personal tastes. C.S. Lewis suggests that the things that we find good and beautiful on this planet (art, music, nature, sunsets, the cosmos) are all just shadows of what our hearts long for in the renewed creation.

In my life I’ve traveled to different places and seen lots of things. To me, the most beautiful area of natural beauty that I’ve experienced is in the Yorkshire Dales in the UK. (Feel free to google some images). To think that such a landscape is in its corrupted form makes me wonder what beauty a renewed earth will someday hold once again.

Mankind’s Purpose Restored

Have you ever thought about what the resurrected followers of Christ will do for all eternity in the renewed creation? Eternity is, after all, a long time.

Some fear boredom. But take a careful look at scripture suggests that there will also be work to be done. In fact, it will be the work that the Lord had originally intended for us before The Fall.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Genesis 1:26 (ESV)

The Psalmist referring to man says…

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Psalms 8:5-8 (ESV)

And also at the end of Revelation, after the universe has been renewed…

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
Revelation 22:4-5 (ESV)

From scripture, it would appear that the faithful who are in Christ will return to the purpose for which mankind had always been created–to rule over creation and to bear God’s image.

Again, the exact ins and outs of how such a role will be exercised is highly speculative, but it is fun to think about:

Will we hold offices similar to Lewis’ “Kings and Queens of Narnia” whereby we oversee and nurture renewed creation?
What will humans who are indwelt by Christ accomplish that angels, cherubim, seraphim can’t?
Are there other universes for which we might play a part to herald their True King?
What part might we play in the Father becoming all in all?

Again, what this will involve is subject to a lot of speculation, but scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 6:3 (if not hyperbolic) are certainly intriguing.

All Things New

I honestly don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of all that is contained in our hope. Plumbing its depths is as fruitless as plumbing the depths of Christ Himself–we will never get to the bottom. One thing we can take to the bank is that, whatever has yet to be revealed is just a matter of time for those who persevere in Christ.

So chin up, saint! Be mindful of our inheritance! Let’s be intentional using it to encouraging one another. I know that kind of thing isn’t what we normally talk about among our church friends. But why not?

Isn’t this exactly what Paul was doing in His letters to the churches? If he thought it was important to remind them of the resurrection, then maybe we should also. Rather than dusting it off only for Easter stories and eulogies, our hope should be in our minds and hearts as a matter of course. It should be celebrated whenever we gather! In good times and in disasters we look forward with eager anticipation to the final completion of the Lord’s restoration process for all creation.

I understand some people don’t like to talk about this stuff because it’s, well, weird and unnatural–touching on the things of the Apostle John’s Revelation. When I was growing up, any discussion of eschatology was met with fear and dread: “Rumors of wars”, “rivers of blood”, “the Whore of Babylon”, “white throne judgement”, the Left Behind books. All bad stuff.

Only bad stuff.

Now I realize that trying to discern specificity in Revelation is like trying to discern meaning behind a Jackson Pollock painting. It wasn’t until I started seeing the hope at the end of it that I no longer feared it.

This event will not be the end, but rather a new beginning. Just as Lewis writes in the final chapter of The Last Battle, it will mark the beginning of the True Story, “which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before“. That is where we need to keep our focus.

Christ’s past is our future. Remember the resurrection.

First Things