The believer is authorized by God’s Own infallible Word to set forth the basis and the nature of his hope in Christ: –
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
“Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation (i.e., manner of life) in Christ.” (I Pet. 3:15, 16.)
The basis of this hope lies in the efficacy of Christ’s atoning death and in the power of His resurrection. His death, sufficient, as to common grace, to atone for the sins of the whole world, is, however, efficient only for those who are drawn to Him by God the Father through the Holy Spirit (Jn. 6:44; 12:32). All who yield to the gracious working of the Spirit before their hearts are hardened are saved. But God warns those who resist Him: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man” (Gen. 6:3).
We who have been redeemed as well as those who, in the Providence of God, yet shall be, are redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Pet. 1:18, 19). This is the basis of our hope, attested by God the Father in the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby He was “declared to be the Son of God with power” (Rom. 1:4), and His atoning work on Calvary’s cross was sealed with the Father’s full approval.
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (I Cor. 15:19). But the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has, in the abundant mercy of God, “begotten us again unto a lively hope” (i.e. caused to be born within our hearts a living hope, as we ourselves have been “born again”). This hope is the hope of our own bodily resurrection. For the Scriptures affirm that “our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able to subject all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20, 21, A. S. V.).
The Petrine use of the word “salvation” embraces the translation of the believers (see also I Cor. 15:51, 52), as well as the raising of the bodies of those believers whose conscious spirits have already returned to God (I Thes. 4:13-18). That all believers, who are members of the body of Christ, shall escape the wrath of God that is to be visited upon the Christ-rejecting world during the Tribulation, as well as that to be suffered by the ungodly in the Lake of Fire, is assured by the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ bore both the guilt and the punishment of our sins on Calvary’s cross. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1; also I Thes. 1:10; 5:9, 10).
Such is the nature of “that blessed hope” for which we look (Tit. 2:13, 14); and we are exhorted to “hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (Heb. 3:6). It was to confirm this hope in the disciples’ hearts that Christ spoke the words of John 14:1-3, as well as His further words both in the upper room and on the way to the garden, to the end “that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (Jn. 15:11). We are likewise urged to “hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for He is faithful that promised” (Heb. 10:23 A. S. V.). This blessed hope is a transforming hope (Rom. 12:2), and a purifying hope (I Jn. 3:3). Our whole manner of life or “conversation” is affected by it. Our missionary interest is quickened by the imminence of the blessed hope, and our zeal for the salvation of the lost is simulated by it.
The blessed hope, based on Christ’s death and resurrection, and the eager expectation of the fulfillment of His promise to return again for His own, and to redeem their bodies from the power and even the presence of sin, uplifts our spirits in these days that try men’s souls.
Rev. Philip duB. Arcularius
The Independent Board Bulletin
May 1942
