What All Believers Look Forward To

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

As we continue looking at the main realities that all believers in Christ share, we’re now coming to the doctrinal content of our unity. In Paul’s list for the Ephesians, he begins with the indivisible unity of God’s people, then adds our shared life and power animating and renewing us, and then speaks of our “hope”.

The word “hope” is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Bible’s teaching, since it’s been used so long as a verb in casual conversation. But the New Testament’s use of the noun “hope” is always something believers know. Yet it’s knowledge of a future experience that can now only be known through faith in God’s promise.

The truth that I want us to look at in this lesson is Paul’s declaration in his list of unifying realities, including our one Spirit,

“. . . just as also you were called in one hope of your calling . . .” – Eph. 4:4

To understand the hope all members of Christ’s body share, we first need to know what’s meant by “your calling.” Paul introduces the Roman believers he writes to by describing them as “the called of Jesus Christ” who are “called as saints” (Rom. 1:6, 7). Here, he says that they were called by Jesus Christ to be saints, or holy ones. But how did the Lord call them, along with all believers?

Paul describes the calling of believers in 2 Thessalonians 2:14 by writing,

“It was for this [salvation] He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Hence, whenever the New Testament writers refer to God’s calling all believers in general, they mean His invitation to them to trust in Jesus by learning the good news about Him, and His requirement of sinners to believe. This calling is then not merely a possible opportunity to gain glory through salvation, but God’s appointed means by which He “grants repentance” and faith to sinners, so that they receive His forgiveness through faith (2 Tim. 2). This is why Paul says that the Thessalonian

s were called for the purpose of gaining the “glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

If the “calling” of believers that “calls” us into the “one hope” is our divine enablement to believe the gospel, then this hope must be something we gain as soon as we believe. And this can’t refer to any lesser hopes, but to the one hope we have as believers. Again, what is hope exactly?

Paul gives a clear general definition of hope in his famous Romans 8 passage about the blessings of the Holy Spirit:

“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” – Rom. 8:24-25

So, hope is something that we don’t experience now, but “wait eagerly” for. It’s something that we expect. What is our ultimate expectation? It has to be our unhindered knowledge and fellowship with our Lord and Savior, as Paul declares to Titus that we’re,

“. . . looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us . . . to purify for Himself a people for His own possession . . .” – Tit. 2:13-14

Likewise, Peter urges the resident aliens in 1 Peter:

“. . . fix your hope completely on the grace to be brough to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” – 1 Pet. 1:13

What is this grace that will be brought to believers when Jesus is revealed from heaven with His holy angels? It is the grace that will “purify” us completely, so that God will

“transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His [Christ’s] glory . . .” – Phil. 3:21

In other words, our ultimate hope is to “become like Him, for we shall see Him just as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2b). This is the future state of things that we confidently await. First, we’ll be made perfectly like Jesus in His moral and bodily nature, and along with this we’ll enjoy a “new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). This is the hope God has given all whom He’s called to trust in the Lord Jesus. And this is the only hope we have, compared to all others. At least a couple implications for Christians’ unity stem from this fact.

The One Experience We Long For

The first application of believers having one hope is that our ultimate aspirations and dreams involve and serve this one hope. At the bottom of every believer’s heart, there’s a longing to be free from sinfulness, and to enjoy a world of unbounded harmony and goodness. In other words, all Christians want the same basic thing – God’s glory and glorification.

If we can’t agree on what exactly to do while we’re on this earth, can we at least agree that we want the Lord Jesus to be worshiped and obeyed by everyone? I think we can.

This informs our mission in this earthly age, as well. There are many believers who seem to have overshadowed the one hope of eternal perfection with the “hope” of some semi-heavenly earth. This is the error of many Christians who expect a less than perfect kingdom of God on a fallen earth still corrupted by sin. Some look forward to a world in which most people are God’s worshipers, rather than all. This is not the hope we’re waiting for! We’re looking for a new heavens and a new earth, where everyone loves and serves our God and Father.

Yet, at the same time, we should understand that our Spirit-led redemptive work on earth has an effect on when our blessed hope will appear. The Lord promised that “the end” would come when the gospel was preached to “all the nations” (Matt. 24:14). Thus, the greater our efforts to expand the influence of Christ’s body to the unreached areas of the world, the sooner that point will come when all the nations, or peoples, are won to the Lord Jesus through the gospel. And when this happens, the Lord will come to judge the world, and to make all things new. This is what we’re longing for, and what we’re all working toward.

As Peter writes in his second letter:

“. . . what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat.” – 2 Pet. 3:11-12

Since all Christians have the one hope of the glorious kingdom of our Lord and Savior, then we ought to work together to accomplish our one main mission on earth, and rejoice in Christ’s promised coming, when we will all be conformed into His likeness, perfectly united in faith, hope, and love. Yet we should increasingly realize that even now, our common faith unites us more than our differences divide us. It is this faith that gives us our one hope.