What the Bible says about Hope for Salvation
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Paul clearly links our hope with our calling, which is God's summons into His presence so that we may have a relationship with Him. In the context of the first paragraph of Ephesians 4, the implication is that this hope is a factor that unites us into one body. Our calling is an end to pessimism, negativity, and despair and the beginning of a confident, bright, and optimistic life filled with endless possibilities because this unique hope gives positive expectancy to life here and now and beyond the grave as well.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Elements of Motivation (Part Three): HopeRelated Topics: Calling | God's Calling | Hope | Hope as Expectation of Fulfillment | Hope as Motivation | Hope for Salvation | Hope of the Resurrection | Hope, Continuous
Jesus Christ is our hope because He is at the foundation of our earnest yearning, our confident expectation, and our patient endurance for salvation. He is both the Source and the Object of these qualities.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Perseverance and Hope
II Timothy 1:8-9 and Titus 3:5 together reveal that our hope for salvation and completion as a son of God in Christ's image, prepared for the resurrection to eternal life, all comes down to one thing - God. Was it not God who saved Israel from their slavery? Was it not God who provided for them the whole way through the wilderness, then gave them their inheritance regardless of any promise? Would they have had any hope without Him in the picture, first giving the promise and then fulfilling what He said He would do?
Could they have delivered themselves? Could they have provided for themselves? Could they have taken over the Promised Land? Their hope had to be in God, that He would follow through. The promise did not save them. It was the God who made the promise.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Perseverance and HopeRelated Topics: Children of God | Hope for Salvation | Hope of the Resurrection | Sons of God | Transformation | Transformed into His Likeness
Here hope is seen as being external. Even though we carry the thought, the understanding, the knowledge of it in our own minds, and it appears to be internal, it is actually external to those who have it. Our hope is something that we flee to for refuge, and this hope has entered behind the veil for us.
This kind of hope, which is used more frequently in the Bible than internal hope, is seen as what stirs us and produces the hope within. This kind of hope is what the Christian's hope—the object, the concept, the idea, the fact—is in. For instance, our hope can be in God or in Jesus or in salvation, as Scripture may say. It can be in God's promises, His Word, eternal life, His steadfast love, His grace, the resurrection from the dead, and sharing the glory of God. Our internal hope is motivated by these aspects of the external hope.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Trumpets Is a Day of Hope