“For the grace of God has
appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and
worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,
looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God
and Saviour, Christ Jesus; who gave Himself for us, that HE MIGHT REDEEM us
FROM EVERY LAWLESS DEED and PURIFY FOR HIMSELF A PEOPLE FOR HIS OWN POSSESSION,
zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2: 11-14, NASB)
Introduction
The Holy Scripture declares that until we, non-Jews,
accepted Christ as our personal Saviour and Lord, we were without hope in this
world (Ephesians 2:2). Hope is a very
significant and helpful quality of the mind.
A life without hope is an aimless life.
A life without hope beyond this world is a miserable life, a fear-laden
and spiritually insecure existence. No
wonder the Scottish theologian and philosopher, Thomas Chalmers, said: “the
grand essentials of happiness are something to do, something to love, and
something to hope for.”1 Hope
is something we cannot do without if we desire purposeful and meaningful living
on the earth.
What really is hope?
What is the Blessed Hope? From
where does the Blessed Hope originate and what does it contain? What do we need
to sustain this hope in our minds? What
about its influence? Most importantly,
how can one who is bereft of this hope acquire it? These are questions we will deal with in this
article.
What is
hope?
The Word Book
Dictionary defines hope as “a feeling
that what one desires will happen. The
thing hoped for. A cause of hope; a
person or thing that gives hope to another or that others hope in. Thus to hope for something is to wish and
expect it, to desire a thing passionately and look forward to realizing it. Generally speaking, this is hope. However, in the sense of the Bible, hope is
the translation of the Greek word eipis
which means “favourable and confident expectation. It has to do with the unseen and the
future. In the New Testament eipis is frequently used to signify: (a)
The happy anticipation of good (Titus 1:2; 1st Peter 1:2); (b) the
ground upon which hope is based (Acts 16:19; Colossians 1:27); (c) the object
upon which the hope is fixed (1st Timothy 1:1).2
What is the Blessed
Hope?
The Blessed Hope
or our Blessed Hope is what all true
believers joyfully hope for, joyfully look forward to. It is called Blessed Hope because when realized we shall be completely and
eternally happy. We shall be completely
and eternally satisfied. Hope in this
context means the very thing hoped for, i.e. the glorious appearance of our
Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, the Blessed Hope is
the second coming of Christ our King.
At this point it is important to explain the use of
the conjunctive preposition and
(Greek kai) in Titus 2:13. Some preachers and teachers have been led by
this preposition to separate and differentiate the Blessed Hope from the glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. They say the Blessed Hope refers to the Rapture of
believers before the Great Tribulation, while the glorious appearing of our
Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ refers to the second coming at the end of
the Great Tribulation. Thereby they
represent the Rapture of the saints to heaven as an event completely separate
from and unconnected with the second coming.
But that is never the teaching of Holy Scripture. In Matthew 24:30-31, 39-41; 1st
Thessalonians 4:16-17 and 2nd Thessalonians 2:1, it is clearly shown
that the Rapture takes place at the Second Coming. Rapture is the first event associated with
the Second Coming. The Lord must descend
before the saints are gathered to Him.
The Lord must be in the air before the saints, resurrected and living,
join Him there. To separate the Rapture
from the Second Coming is unwarranted by Scripture.
Now, unlike the use of and in English as a conjunctive, it is used not only as a
conjunctive in Greek, but equally and validly as an epexegetic, that is, to define what precedes it in a sentence in the same way i.e. or a long dash
--- is used in English. Thus and in Titus 2:13 is used not
conjunctively to make the Blessed Hope
different from the glorious appearing of
Christ. It is used definitively to
define and signify the Blessed Hope as the Glorious Appearing of our Great God
and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Acts 23:6 provides another example of the
use of and epexegetically so
that the resurrection of the dead
defines the preceding hope. The Amplified Bible translation of Titus 2:13
confirms our point: “Awaiting and looking for the [fulfillment, the realization
of our] blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior
Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed One).”
The glorious
appearing of our Lord means His return will be laden with blazing brightness, with
awesome splendor. God’s glory is the
manifestation of God’s presence represented by a glow of flaming fire (Exodus
16:10; 19:14-19; 24:15-17; 40:34-35; Isaiah 4:5; Matthew 17:1-3). Thus the glorious appearing speaks of the
majestic splendor, intimidating and overwhelming light and brightness, flaming
and shining train of angels riding on shining white horses, holding their
glittering swords, and awesome trumpet blasts which Holy Scripture clearly
shows, will characterize the Second Coming of our Lord and King (see Revelation
19:11-16).
Our Blessed Hope – the Second Coming of our Lord - is a
single event which will unfold in
three stages: (1) The Parousia Stage – His
presence on the earth plane. (2) The Apokalupsis
Stage – His self-revelation from previous hiddenness. (3) The
Epiphaneia Stage – His splendid
appearance, visible manifestation or glorious exposure. Matthew 24:29-31 captures these three stages
of the Lord’s coming. I will elaborate
more on this in a book on the Second Coming that I am working on currently.
The Source
and Content of this Hope
As indicated in verse 11, the source of this Hope is
the grace of God, God’s favour and kindness to us humans that we do not deserve
nor merit, made manifest through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ and His
gospel. The Hope is contained in the
salvation brought by the grace of God.
Every truly saved person possesses this Hope. Indeed
it can be said that it is a basic component of the experience of
salvation in Christ.
Things
needed to sustain this Hope
What should we be doing while looking for the Blessed Hope? How should we live as we wait for the Second
Coming of our Lord? There are certain
things God requires us to do in order to sustain our hope in the Blessed
Hope. They are indicated in verse 12:
(1) Negatively, we are to deny ungodliness.
This means we are not to associate with those who have no time for God
and His way of life, nor behave like them.
Among them are the atheists and agnostics. It also means we are to actively refute their
atheistic ideologies. Next we are to
deny worldly lusts. This means we are to
have nothing to do with the lusts of the flesh (sensualism), the lusts of the
eyes (materialism), and the pride of life (egotism) (see 1st John
2:15-16). We are to cultivate the habit
of the blessed man “who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand
in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers” (Psalm 1:1, NASB). (2)
Positively we are to live soberly, i. e. live constantly with the consciousness
of our heavenly citizenship, noting that we are sojourners on earth. It also means we are to live thoughtfully,
prayerfully and be spiritually alert
always. Next we are to live righteously,
committing ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and blamelessness, always
remembering that our Lord is coming back for a church that is morally pure and
spotless. Then we are to live godly in
the present age. The meaning is that we
have to ensure that our thoughts and actions are love-driven. We should passionately desire and pursue
Christlikeness in character, thought, word and deed as we wait for the Lord’s
return. Finally, we are to commit
ourselves to good works, meeting the needs of the needy and poor among us and
proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom.
While we look for our Blessed Hope we can become the five foolish
virgins if we fail to live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age,
and engage in good works. The hope for
the Blessed Hope is sustained in our hearts when we do these things.
Influence of
this Hope on life
A passionate expectation of the Second Coming of our
Lord is highly beneficial for our spiritual development and stability. Its impact on our life in Christ is edifying
and sanctifying (see 1st Thessalonians 1:3; Hebrews 6:18-19; 1st
John 3:1-3. Our souls get purified and
we become keenly watchful against the entrance of sin into our daily life.
What does
the LORD GOD require of us?
Our Blessed Hope is the Second Coming of our Great God
and Saviour Jesus Christ. By the Spirit,
the Apostle Paul says we should be looking
for. That is, we should be constantly expecting the return of our King; we
should be expectant daily regarding the Second Coming. The original word translated looking for means to look favourably, to joyfully expect the return of the Lord
Jesus. It seems to me, as I watch the
behavior of contemporary believers, that many are not looking for what we hope
for. Many of us are so busy
enthusiastically pursuing earthly things to the extent that we have forgotten
the irrefutable fact that we are sojourners on earth, that we are never going
to be here for long, that many end-time Bible prophecies are being fulfilled in
our time, indicating that the return of our King is around the corner, because
of which we should be looking for our Blessed Hope. Let the truth be told: the desire for and
experience of abundant prosperity is being used by the enemy of our souls to
divert our inner focus on the Blessed Hope.
We ought to be like the Thessalonian believers who passionately looked
for our Blessed Hope such that when false teachers propagated the false news
that the Day of the Lord had come, they became very much upset (2nd
Thessalonians 2:1-3.
Looking for
the Blessed Hope demands that we
discern the signs of the end, become end-time prophecies-conscious, avoid
sinning, and keep ourselves pure. Let it
be said again: The Lord Christ is coming
back to earth for a Church that is pure, holy and without blemish (Ephesians
5:27).
Conclusion
Sometimes I have wondered how human life on earth
would have been if God did not provide a reasonable object of hope for us. Without doubt life would have been utterly
hopeless and meaningless. We have to
thank God our Heavenly Father for the hope He has given us in Christ. Nothing in the world gives life meaning and
purpose like this hope. It is indeed
“the anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). I plead with the reader to take some
moments and meditate on these questions: Do I have hope beyond the grave? Do I
have hope beyond this world? Do I have the hope of heaven? Do I have hope of
resurrection? Am I hoping for the Rapture
of the saints? Do I have the hope of the
glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ? Do I have the hope of eternal life with God
in Heaven and in the coming New Earth?
Scripture shows that in spite of the suffering for righteousness that we
face in this world, we rejoice in hope (Romans 5:2-5; Psalm 16:9; Hebrews
3:8). According to Colossians 1:27 the
presence of Christ within a person produces this hope in him. Therefore I invite you to surrender your
heart to Jesus and receive this hope.
Then as you begin to walk the ancient paths, the old paths, you will
find rest unto your soul and the assurance and hope of everlasting life.
THE LORD’S SCRIBE
NOTES
1Ben Patterson, The Grand
Essentials (Camel, New York: Guideposts, 1987), p. 13
2Vine’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of old and new testament words, 1996 ed., p. 311
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