Romans 8:23-25 “More Hope”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³but not only [them], but we ourselves, [the] very ones having the firstfruits of the Spirit, also are groaning in ourselves, ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For we were saved in this hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? ²⁵But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.

There are still more thoughts I’d like to record from this passage. First, it’s not surprising that a discussion of hope ends with waiting. Interestingly enough, in Hebrew, their word for hope is the same word for waiting. Anytime you read a passage that says anything about waiting for the Lord, just realize it could have been translated hoping in the Lord, or vice versa. Of course, the original language here in Romans is Greek, not Hebrew, but I would suggest that in any language, you really can’t separate the two logically. If you truly hope for something, you must be waiting for it, and, again, vice versa.

Then, speaking of hope and waiting, one ends up discussing patience. In the New Testament, there are two words which might be translated “patience.” One would be literally our idea of simple “patience,” while the other leans more toward “endurance,” although the two obviously differ little. Here in Rom. 8:25 is the one that leans more to endurance. The last phrase of the verse could be translated, “… we are waiting/hoping eagerly through endurance.” Life in this world certainly calls for a lot of endurance!

Then I was reading the thoughts of a fellow named W.M. Metcalfe regarding that two-sided coin of faith and hope. Based on his thoughts, it occurred to me that faith is, in a sense, what points our boat in the right direction, but it is hope that fills our sails and carries us on. That is the dynamic which was working in David’s life when he wrote, “I would have fainted, except I believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:13,14). In those two little verses, you see it all – faith, hope, waiting, patience, endurance – but note it was hope that was carrying David forward. Someone has said that faith is the mother of hope, yet, I would add that hope is, in fact, the engine that keeps us going.

I also like to think how true it is that “where we’re going” comes down to love, so there you have the blessed triumvirate of “faith, hope, and love.” That also explains why “the greatest of these is love.” Love is the destination, the port for which we sail. Once we arrive there, we leave the ship behind.

Then, as I’ve studied, there were several verses I found encouraging:

I John 3:1-3 – “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! …  Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Here is that same “You will, but not yet” dynamic. Children of God “is what we are,” yet “when we see Him,” only then “we shall be like Him.” And what does that hope do for us? “All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Our hope of heaven doesn’t make us lethargic but rather stirs in us that desire to be more like Christ

Rom. 15:13 – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Notice that He is “the God of hope.” The rest of the world can go on believing He is a mean, vindictive God throwing His lightning bolts at everyone, but you and I know the truth. He is “the God of hope.” If hope is what fills our sails, then our God is our dreams come true! And He doesn’t just want you to have hope, He wants you to overflow with it!

And what was John the Baptist’s cry? “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29). What was John seeing in Jesus? Hope. Hope that this horrific disaster of sin will not last forever, that Jesus is the Messiah who will conquer it all and give us again the wonderful world God created us to enjoy!

Then consider how people without the Lord are described in Eph. 2:12: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, … without hope and without God in the world.” “Without hope and without God.” That’s not who we are anymore. We do have God and we do have hope. Even as we groan in this broken world, God help us to remember we get to know You and we get to be people of hope!

Last of all, consider Jesus’ words in John 14:1-3: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” What is Jesus doing in these verses? He’s giving us hope. What He is giving us is a promise. To believe that promise is faith. And what does that faith do for us? It gives us hope. That in turn enables us to be patient, to endure the miseries of this world. And what does that free us to do? It frees us to actually love, to rise above our natural compulsion to be driven by our fears, and instead to simply invest love in the people around us – quite confident our good and gracious God has already secured a glorious future for us!

Hope is a wonderful thing. How great is it to know the God of hope, who wants us to overflow with hope, whose Gospel is “good news,” and would make us people of hope, even as we live out our lives in this broken world!

Hope is a wonderful thing!

 

Romans 8:23-25 “Patiently”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³but not only [them], but we ourselves, [the] very ones having the firstfruits of the Spirit, also are groaning in ourselves, ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For we were saved in this hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? ²⁵But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.

We should all take note, reading this passage, one of the things the Lord wants to give us is hope. To know Jesus, to have a real relationship with the Most High God, is to be a person of hope. Listen to what He will say later in Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13). That is certainly a glorious privilege our salvation has given us and something we should deliberately appreciate and thank the Lord for.

It is even extremely important to Him in that our hope is a major tool He would use to draw others to Himself, as we read in I Peter: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (3:15). I rather suspect we don’t even realize how much hope shines out of our lives. I fear we take it for granted and we are certainly all prone to letting ourselves get discouraged, yet I would suggest we probably don’t realize how different we seem to people around us who frankly have no real hope – only hope-so’s. Perhaps that is something we should all pray for occasionally – that the Lord would help us to sincerely live our hope and that, whether we know it or not, He would use our hope in someone else’s life?

However, one more twist I’d like to suggest is that we should all ask ourselves, when we interact with others, are we people who infuse hope? Jesus does. To know Him is to feel real hope for maybe the first time. What about each of us? Do we infuse hope to others we deal with? It seems to me that rather, what most people hear all day every day is criticism, sarcasm, put-downs, mocking, belittling, and just downright discouragement. Just to say something encouraging to them is probably a far greater kindness than we even realize. I wonder, when we do, if we don’t sometimes make their day, perhaps their month! – just because it’s so different. God help us – here we are, enjoying this hope Jesus has given us so abundantly that we take it for granted. Wouldn’t it be right for us to in turn be people who deliberately try to give hope to others? As the old saying goes, “What if everybody did?”

Then here’s another crazy thought and I’m feeling like this is something really deep I’ve never quite pondered before. Here we are. The entire Creation is groaning under the curse of sin. We’re groaning ourselves. The Creation simply suffers. They don’t really know why. Back in v.20, it was even specifically said that Creation’s suffering is “not by its own choice.” Even as Creation suffers, still it is true that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” Creation is still glorifying God, but only because it simply does. Angels glorify God, but they’re already in heaven. They don’t have to suffer at all. Then, out of all Creation, both in heaven and on earth, we are the only ones granted the privilege of suffering willingly. It says in our passage that, because we have hope, we wait for our redemption patiently. The word literally means “with endurance.”

What I’m suggesting is that, to suffer with hope, to suffer, yet to take it patiently, is one of the ways we believers get to uniquely glorify God. Creation suffers but doesn’t know why. Angels apparently don’t suffer at all. They all glorify God in their way. However, out of them all, we are afforded the unfathomable privilege of declaring to the universe that God is so great we can trust Him and love Him and serve Him even while we suffer. Even while we are groaning in this world of death, we look up to Him and cry, “Abba, Father!” Even wallowing in the squalor of this world’s morass of evil and heartache, we look up to Jesus with our dirty emaciated faces and say to Him, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created!” And note we do it willingly. Like our Savior, we say to the Father, “If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” When He says to us, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” we respond, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me!”

I don’t want to suffer. I don’t like to suffer. I’m certainly not asking for suffering. However, this truth seems deeply comforting, to realize that, out of all Creation, we believers uniquely get to glorify God precisely because we choose to trust Him and believe His promises and be people of hope – even while we suffer along with the entire rest of this material Creation. Angels in the glory of heaven can swarm around the throne and sing, “Holy, holy, holy”, but only we can glorify Him in suffering.

Hope, real hope, is a wonderful thing. How much more wonderful to realize that very hope, as we live it, actually uniquely glorifies God! That is one more reason why He leaves us here on earth, one more reason why we’re still here, one more reason to say to Him, “Lord, I’m ready to be done here. I want to come and be with You. I want You to make me holy and let me be done with sin forever. However, yes, I’ll stay here for You. If I can yet glorify You, even here, then, not my will, but Thine be done” – and do it willingly.

Patiently

O for grace, to trust Him more!

Romans 8:23-25 “Hope”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³but not only [them], but we ourselves, [the] very ones having the firstfruits of the Spirit, also are groaning in ourselves, ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For we were saved in this hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? ²⁵But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.

It is interesting that here it says what we are waiting for is the “redemption of our body.” You would have thought it enough just to say “our redemption.” Why is Paul zeroing in on our body specifically? I would suggest it is because, in Romans, we’re never far away from the contrast between Adam and Christ. I am convinced, theologically speaking, that our “problem” is specifically this Adamic body we still live in. Obviously, my spirit still possesses Adam’s wickedness as well. My heart is still desperately wicked and deceitful above all things and my “natural man” still bears the image of my father the devil. Anyone who would deny these things needs to take a closer look in the mirror. It takes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit Himself to help me be a “spiritual” man. However, still, where is the problem coming from? I’m convinced it is the Adamic body which is not only a body of death itself, but somehow contaminates my spirit as well. All of this is why the Bible specifically calls our problem “our flesh.”

The basic change that needs to take place is that I need a new body. I need a body I didn’t get from Adam. That, of course, is exactly what Jesus will do. In Phil. 3:20,21, it says, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.” The same thing is taught extensively in I Cor. 15, particularly vv. 42-54, where we read, “The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven … and just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the Man from heaven” (vv.47-49). That passage goes on to say, “When the perishable has put on the imperishable and the mortal immortality,” then the saying will come true, “Death has been swallowed up in victory!” (vv.53,54). At that time, it will be true that death is gone for us specifically because we’ve shed our Adamic body, this body cursed by sin, this “body of death.”

I probably need to interject here that none of this justifies mistreatment of our bodies. On the one hand, Paul says, “I beat my body and make it my slave (I Cor. 9:27),” but then speaking of ascetic rigors, he says of their “harsh treatment of the body,” they “lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (Col. 2:23). Speaking very specifically about our bodies, the Lord says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you are bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your body” (I Cor. 6:19,20). Romans 12:1 urges us to “present your body a living sacrifice,” and back in chapter 6, we were urged to “offer the members of your body to God as instruments of righteousness” (v.13).

Somehow, although the problem specifically is my Adamic body, yet still the problem is spiritual. This physical body of bones and muscles, etc., is just a vessel in which I live and the “I” who lives in it is still the problem. This is all somewhat of a mystery and maybe beyond our understanding, but it has to fit together and finally leave us as “ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body.” Somehow, I cannot be free of sin and death until I shed this Adamic body, yet, until then, it remains the body I live in and the only vessel through which I can serve Jesus in this present world.

To be free of sin and death brings us to the subject of hope in v. 24. I want to say, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood hope until studying these two verses, 24 and 25. Here we learn, “We were saved in hope.” Interestingly, in Greek, this could be translated, “We were saved in hope, by hope, or to hope.” Any one of the three would be a legitimate translation and, if you peruse several different Bible versions, you will see all of those prepositions show up. There is probably some sense in which it means all three, yet I would suggest the “in” is the best translation. Throughout the Bible and very specifically in the book of Romans, it is a big deal that we are saved by faith. Here’s the deal: Faith is a matter of believing God’s promises. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” but specifically faith is that response of believing. However, what does that believing do for us? It gives us hope.

In a sense, faith and hope are two sides of the same coin, yet, there must be the faith (believing God’s promises) in order for it to be real hope. Our world is full of “hope-so’s” which have no secure basis for that hope. The only truly secure hope arises from faith in the promises of God, found clearly written in the Word of God. We were saved by faith (believing God’s promises), but that faith was a very desirable thing specifically because it gave us hope, one way or another a hope that we could be free of this world of death.

In fact, that hope is so important, Paul stays on the subject for these two whole verses, “For we were saved in hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.” Here is where I would suggest it’s not saved “to hope.” What it leads to is this “waiting eagerly through patience.” Hope was not something yet to be attained after our salvation. Instead, having been saved by faith and in hope, we now have the blessed enabling to live out our lives “waiting patiently” to see our faith and hope realized.

This “patient waiting” is probably worthy of entire study of its own. However, it is no doubt “a pearl of great price” to understand that, in a sense, that is what I’m doing here. In the context, we are groaning, along with the entire material Creation, suffering in this world of death. As Paul said elsewhere, “I would rather depart and be with Christ!” However, we’re still here. Heaven is our home, eternal life is our hope, yet we go on living in this world of death. That seriously calls for patience!

I like what Julian of Norwich said back in about 1300 AD. She suggested it is as if the Lord was to sit down with us and say something like, “You are now My child and I have a wonderful eternity of endless happiness prepared for you. However, I need for you to stay here in this world of pain and suffering and death for just a little longer. I want to save many other people just like you, but, in order for that to happen, I need you to go on living in this world. In this world, you will suffer just like they do, but you will be different because you will suffer in hope. Your faith will give you a hope and a love I can put on display for all the world to see and be drawn to. Your hope and love even in your suffering will open their hearts to this salvation I want to give them.” “Knowing that,” He asks, “Would you be willing to stay here … for Me? Would you be willing to go on suffering just a little longer, just like them, to help Me reach some?”

As He would look deeply into our eyes, awaiting our response, what do you find your heart saying? Is it not, “Of course, Lord, I would do anything for You. Yes, go ahead, use me as You see fit, only may Your grace be sufficient for me. May Your strength be made perfect in my weakness. Give me day by day the patience to live in this faith and hope I got from You to start with. Help me to fear no evil, ‘for Thou art with me.’”

Yes, I’m groaning. It is VERY painful living in this world, in a hundred million different ways, but I groan in hope, because of faith, and to a patience I can only hope and pray the Lord will use to draw others into this same hope!