Waiting With Hope

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Romans 8:24-25

In  the preceding portions of Romans 8, we have frequent occasion to note, how one prominent thought or idea leads to an expansion of the same; how one strain in the Song suggests a prolonged note. It is again so here.  "Waiting for the adoption," formed the central theme in the former verse.  That grace of "Waiting" is to be farther dwelt upon and developed.  It is described by an equivalent word; a word which, in itself, represents one of the mightiest and most stimulating of spiritual forces.  That word is HOPE.

We may venture to personify HOPE, and regard it as a beautiful Incarnation.  The HOPE the Apostle speaks of is not the apotheosis of the secular poet.  But "the Hope of the Gospel,"--"the Hope full of immortality"--"the Hope laid up for us in heaven."  "The Hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began."

The train of thought seems to be this (if we may venture on a paraphrase)--"I have recently spoken of the sufferings of the present time. These are mysterious--often utterly baffling to sight and sense--beyond our 'why and wherefore.'  But be not discouraged.  I have recently adverted to your rank in the heavenly hierarchy and household, as sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ.  Sufferings, prolonged and severe, may seem to you strangely inconsistent with these exalted titles and so magnificent a heritage. But be not discouraged.  I have just brought before your thoughts 'the first fruits of the Spirit.'  Have these pledges failed to assure you?  Can you, under these gloomy skies and battering storms of suffering, see no pledge of the promised golden harvest?  Be not discouraged. No, rather, hope against hope. Seek to submit with calm acquiescence to the divine will.  'Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.  And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.'  We may be unable to see the needs be; 'But if we hope for that we see not, then (knowing the faithful promise and the Faithful Promiser) do we with patience wait for it."

When Columbus was approaching his yet undiscovered "Treasure Trove"--the mighty continent he was destined in due time to claim as his own--stray branches, or fragments of branches with berries which here and there floated on the waves, as well as the land birds circling round his vessel, formed the earliest indications of unknown shores.  These may be regarded as appeals to his faith. Hope--the Apostle's impersonation, had a different evidence to substantiate these expectations.  She, seated as it were at the vessel's prow, could see nothing.  "Hope that is seen is not hope."  But she "hoped for that she saw not," and "with patience waited."  She strained her eyes along the blue troughs of the ocean, for the evidence of things not seen, until, at last, faintly in the far distance was discerned the streak of shore, studded with dwarf-palm, and heard the music of the breakers.  Faith and Hope could then sing together in concert their "eureka."  "The shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country" (Acts 27:27).

So it is with the believer.  In his case also, "Hope that is seen is not hope."  The hope of the Christian deals with an unseen Lord and an invisible future.  "He walks by faith, not by sight."  That muffled future is nevertheless a verity. Despite of the haze and the darkness, he knows that the morning comes.  The star of Hope is hovering over the eastern horizon.  He has implicit reliance in the Bible chart, and steers with confidence through blinding fog and buffeting waves.  He claims a heritage in his Lord's beatitude--"blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

That same Hope, under a new and familiar symbol, is described as "an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;" and imparting "a strong consolation" for we "who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."  The anchor (I speak of the earthly emblem) is unseen by the mariner.  It grasps the rock or shingle far down out of view.  But he knows how safe he is. While other ships--unmoored--may be plunging and heaving around him, he has no thought of danger.  His vessel is as secure as if it were sleeping on its shadow in summer seas.  That anchor, in the divinely spiritual sense, cast into the Rock of Ages will ride out all storms.

Perhaps some who trace these words may be unable to realize the strength and certainty and consolation of this hope.  The anchor, "sure and steadfast," may not appear to be holding them.  There may be fitful alternations of doubt and despondency, with the agonizing quest, "Where is now my God?"  This is exactly what we have previously seen the Apostle recognizing in the composite dual nature.  It is exactly what he implies in our present verses, when he speaks of the need of "patience" and the need of "waiting."  The people of God have, in every age, been subject to seasons of hopelessness and depression.   "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?"  Yet, there is but one solution--"Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." (Psalm 42:11)

Let it not be so with you.  Having access into this grace wherein we stand, rejoice in hope of the glory of God--making Paul's motto and watch-word your own--"we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.  May that good and gracious Spirit who gives pledges and first fruits of the coming heavenly inheritance renew and quicken you with fresh ardor.

Lord!  I shall seek, in calm expectancy, to tarry for that blessed hope and blessed day-dawn!  I shall take down my harp from the willows and sing the midnight melody,  "I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope."  (Psalm 130:5)

~John MacDuff, excerpts from A Practical Exposition of the Eighth Chapter of Romans