Why Do Christians Have Hope?
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23
What is hope? It is a woman in a war torn region of Africa with a child in one arm carrying a bag of donated aid food on top of her head back to her village and her family. It is the opening of a newly built school in a region where children have, up to that point, had few educational opportunities. Hope is a doctor’s report that the treatments are proving to be effective. Hope is an Operation Christmas Child shoebox being given to children along with music and Bible stories that tell them about Jesus and his love. Hope comes in many forms and is indispensable for human existence.
How are faith and hope different? Faith is believing in something we cannot see. Hope is believing in something that has not yet happened. Hope is an important element in Christian belief. The apostle Paul said, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people to be most pitied” (I Corinthians 15:19). The future hope of Christianity is an essential element of it. We live faithful lives in the world because we know that a future world, the kingdom of God, awaits us. Christianity also gives us hope in this life because it holds the promise to enhance our lives, build community among us, and improve the world.
The Christian hope begins with the promise of salvation. The hope of salvation does not lie in ourselves. This is because we are unable to save ourselves. Why is this? It is because we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Some have suggested that we are only wounded by sin. Reformed belief replies that our situation is more desperate. We are not merely wounded but mortally so. Whereas a wounded person might rise up to healing, a dead person cannot. God must reach down, awaken our spirits, and raise us to new life.
What is the source of this life? It is God who is gracious. Sinful humans do not deserve the kindness of God. Rather, the anger of God toward us would seem more likely. Yet the Bible declares that the grace of God supersedes his anger. God’s heart is turned toward us in gracious affection. For that reason, his love did not leave us, even in our fall into sin.
The central act of grace on God’s part is his sending his Son to assume our nature. He lived a life of poverty and suffering on the earth. He lived as one of us amid the various troubles and difficulties of life. His life culminated in a supreme act of identification with us by going to the cross to free us from slavery and death.
How did the death of Christ on the cross free us from slavery and death? Christ bore the weight of condemnation that our sins brought upon us. He did so after fulfilling the perfect obedience that humans owed to God but were no longer able to give. Christ fulfilled all righteousness, which no person had been able to do, and thus qualified as a worthy sacrifice for the sins of others. That Christ was innocent of sin enabled him to suffer for the sake of others. That he was the only begotten Son of God made his sacrifice of such worth and so precious in the eyes of the Father that it swept away the infinite weight of humanity’s sin. Jesus Christ was a sacrifice of infinite value in order to pay for an infinite number of sins. In the end, Christ redeemed us to God and opened to us the great hope that the Christian faith has brought. The promise and hope of salvation opens to all human lives a new dimension of optimism. Because we are saved and forgiven, all of life now radiates with hope.