Thoughts

Wishful thinking or blessed hope?

Wishful thinking or blessed hope?

By
Bradley Jersak

|
January 5, 2017

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.” (Titus 2:11-13 NASB).

Paul’s epistles to his pastoral protégés, Timothy and Titus, include some of the New Testament’s boldest texts when it comes to placing our hope in Jesus Christ. And, not only hope for the Christian in-crowd.

For example, Paul tells us explicitly what God wants. “He desires all peopleto be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Some theologians don’t believe this. They would rather Paul had said, “all Christians” or “all of the elect.” But that’s not what he said. This is a case where ‘all’ definitely means all.

Not that everyone will somehow enjoy this salvation magically or automatically. There are some means to this end. One of those means is prayer. To this end, Paul says, “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people." (1 Timothy 2:1).

And, while prayer is necessary in Paul’s model, he thinks there’s other work to be done as well. “We labor and strive for this, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of everyone, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). The labor to which he refers is the mission of sharing the good news of God’s love for everyone, expressed most beautifully in the gift of God’s Son, Jesus, to the world.

Why did Paul consider this mission ‘striving’? It was because for the very religious, whether Judaizing hardliners or Gentile idolaters, the good news stood as a threat to status quo spirituality, resting as it did in industries marketing their own righteousness. The love and grace of God subverts every such system—indeed, sharing it got Paul in a lot of hot water. Some say half his ministry years were spent in jail.

Paul says, on the one hand, that God-in-Christ is the Savior of all (and ‘all’ still means all) … so why ‘especially’ for those who believe? Quite simply, because those who already believe God loves them can enjoy that love today. Those who believe God has forgiven them can enjoy freedom from guilt and shame right now. Those who believe in God’s Son have already stepped into the eternal life to come.

So Paul is into praying and preaching now because the world suffers now from the blindness of not seeing, not believing and not enjoying what is already theirs in Christ—the unfailing love of God shining in their hearts (2 Cor. 4:1-4).

In addition to praying and preaching for everyone, everywhere to see and embrace this beautiful gospel, Paul’s gospel announces that this saving Grace has appeared (past tense) to all people (Titus 2:11) as a person—none other than Christ himself. He is the Grace that has appeared, in the flesh, for the whole world.

He is also the “blessed hope” that will appear (future tense – Titus 2:13). That is, we don’t just hope that Christ saves—Christ is the Hope who will save—and the Hope who is now saving. Even now, Christ is transposing the good news of his death and resurrection in real time and real life—rescuing, redeeming and restoring lives today.

So our Hope is not merely wishful thinking that 2017 might be a little less hopeless than 2016; our Hope is a living person whose love and mercy we can count on wholeheartedly.

In Paul’s model, hope isn’t the weaker sibling to faith or knowledge. Hope is the object of our faith and knowledge and He has a Name: Jesus (Yahweh saves) / Emmanuel (God with us). This is the blessed Hope who invites us to hope in Him.

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus name

On Christ the solid rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

All other ground is sinking sand.

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