The triad of Christian virtues—faith, hope, and love—are all important. As important as love is (1 Cor. 13:13), we know that faith is not unimportant. We have been working closely on the significance of faith, and we understand the importance of love, but so often that third element in this triad of virtues, hope, gets overlooked in Christian experience.
If there is any word in Romans 5 that we might radically misunderstand, it is hope. There is always an element of doubt that clouds our understanding of Paul’s use of the word. When we use the word hope, typically we use it to describe a wish or a desire that something will take place, something that we are not sure will actually happen. That is not the way that the word functions in the New Testament. When we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we are born anew to a hope that forms the basis for our confidence in living out the Christian life. The only difference between hope and faith is that faith looks to what has already taken place, and we put our trust in it. Hope is merely faith looking forward.
The metaphor used in the New Testament to describe the nature of hope is that of an anchor. Hope, we are told, is the anchor of the soul. We frequently find this nautical image in the New Testament. The unstable are compared to boats that have no anchor, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Such people are characterized by vacillation and uncertainty, but the hope planted in the soul by the Holy Spirit is not like that. This hope gives a foundation and stability and assurance. Hope is the anchor that keeps us from being blown about. It is the hope that God is surely going to do in the future every single thing that He has said He will do.
The fruit of justification is that kind of hope. Justification, in a sense, is the down payment for all that God promises us in His work of redemption. Hope is created by the Holy Spirit within us. Elsewhere Paul will speak about God’s giving to us the “earnest” or down payment of the Holy Spirit, which gives us total assurance for the future. Hope is not taking a deep breath and hoping that things are going to turn out all right. It is assurance that God is going to do what He says He will do.
Ligonier Ministries