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 After
reminding the Colossians of their reconciliation to the Father
through Christ, Paul admonishes them to “continue in the
faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. .“ (Col. 1:23). The hope of sinful man must
ever be peculiarly identified with the gospel of Christ. The
very point and purpose of the gospel involves this hope. To the
Ephesians Paul writes that “ye were called in one hope of your
calling” (4:4). He prays that they might be enlightened in
knowing what is the hope of this calling (1:18). Similar
enlightenment should be sought by all who have aspirations
concerning such a hope--especially in view of popular
unscriptural notions concerning this subject.
The
hope of the gospel is not an earthly millennial reign of Christ.
It is not world peace or social reform. In fact, such hope is
not oriented to this world at all. Paul says we would be most
pitiable if our hope in the Lord was confined to this life (1
Cor. 15:19). The hope of the gospel is the hope of
immortality! As Paul points out to king Agrippa, it is the
hope of Israel and involves the raising of the dead (Acts
26:6-8). It is the hope held by Paul and others of the Way “that
there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust (Acts
24:15). In Rom. 8 it is called the redemption of the body.”
The hope of the gospel is the hope of eternal life (Titus 1:2)
and is further identified as “the hope which is laid up for
you in the heavens” (Col. 1:5). Despite the fact that certain
door-knocking “disciples” tell us they don’t want to be in
a place called “heaven” despite Garner Ted’s
spoofing the idea of anyone
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“being saved in heaven.” God says
that is where our hope is “laid up”. Peter connects our “living
hope” with the “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled,
and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
you” (1 Pet. 1:4). The Bible knows no other hope and Bible
believers aspire to no other.
The
hope of the gospel is just that — it is of the gospel because
no other source reveals such hope. Paul says that life and
immortality have been brought Ii, light through the gospel (2
Tim. 1:10). That’s where the Colossians heard it (Col. 1:5),
“in the word of the truth of the gospel.” It is a
gospel-connected hope because nothing else has the power and
promise of God behind it. Only He who raised Christ can give
life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:14) and He has
promised just that: “. .in hope of eternal life which God, who
cannot lie, promised before times eternal..” (Titus 1:2). Such
hope is of the gospel because it is only there that we learn how
to attain it. From no other place can we learn how we ought to
live so as to please God (1 Thss. 4:1), not even from an
adulterated or perverted “almost” gospel. Only the pure
gospel can lead men to its objective, the salvation of souls
(Jas. 1:21) according to God’s eternal purpose.
As
an anchor for the soul, the hope of the gospel keeps us where
God wants us. Paul says that we are not to be moved away from
the hope of the gospel. You might say it keeps us as we keep
it. Dan S. Shipley
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