Hope

ἐλπίς

תִּקְוָה

Confident expectation of the good God has promised.

HOPE

1. A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. 2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God's gracious promises; a scriptural sense.

In Scripture, hope is the confident expectation of good that God has promised but not yet given. It looks forward by nature: "hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?" (Romans 8:24). What makes it sure is not the strength of the one hoping but the faithfulness of the one who promised — he is "the God of hope" (Romans 15:13).

For the Christian, hope has a fixed center. God "begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3), and that hope is "an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and stedfast" (Hebrews 6:19).

In everyday speech hope often means a wish with an uncertain outcome. Webster's first sense is close to that; his second — "a scriptural sense" — is the one the Bible means. Biblical hope may be uncertain about when, but not about whether, because it rests on what God has said.

Hope is learned by remembering who God is. In the ruins of Jerusalem the writer of Lamentations says, "This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope" — and names the reason: "great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:21-23). Hope does not deny grief; believers sorrow, but "not, even as the rest, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). And hope changes the present: "we with patience wait for it" (Romans 8:25), and "every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself" (1 John 3:3).

In the ASV hope is shared almost evenly between the Testaments. It is heard most in the Psalms, where the soul is told to "Hope thou in God" (Psalms 42:11); in Romans, where Paul ties hope to faith, love and the Spirit; and in Job, where a sufferer wrestles with whether any hope is left (Job 14:7).

Tiqvah comes from a root meaning to wait for or look eagerly toward, and the same word names the "line of scarlet thread" Rahab bound in her window (Joshua 2:18). The Old Testament also expresses hope through its verbs of waiting: "I wait for Jehovah, my soul doth wait, And in his word do I hope" (Psalms 130:5). In the New Testament elpis nearly always means a confident expectation, and its object is often the return of Christ, "the blessed hope" (Titus 2:13).

Terms

• hope

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, Who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

The psalmist speaks to his own downcast soul and tells it to hope in God.

I wait for Jehovah, my soul doth wait, And in his word do I hope.

Hope waits — and it waits on God's word.

This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope. It is of Jehovah’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Even in ruin, remembering God's faithfulness brings hope back.

and hope putteth not to shame; because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us.

Hope in God will not leave us ashamed, because his love is already in our hearts.

For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?

Hope by its nature reaches for what is not yet seen.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

God himself is the source of hope, and his Spirit makes it overflow.

which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and stedfast and entering into that which is within the veil;

Hope holds the soul steady like an anchor, fastened in God's presence.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

A living hope, grounded in the resurrection of Jesus.

But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope.

Christians grieve, but not as those who have no hope.

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