LESSON SIXTEEN
THE HOPE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Eph. 1:18 The eyes of your heart having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Because of man’s fall there is no hope for the fallen human race. The only expectation unbelievers have is death. Death is their destination. Day by day, they are living with a view toward their death, and they are on the way to death. Thus, death is their future.

As those who believe in Christ, we have a life full of hope. Our hope is the Lord’s coming back. Furthermore, our hope includes resurrection and rapture. Resurrection is not only a matter of life, but a matter of life overcoming death. When life overcomes death, that is resurrection. Rapture is something that goes even beyond resurrection. A person may be resurrected and yet not be raptured.

RESURRECTION AND RAPTURE

The holy life for the church life is a life with a future, a life with hope. This hope is not merely the Lord’s coming; it is the Lord’s coming with resurrection and rapture. The coming back of the Lord Jesus will cause the resurrection and the rapture to occur. As we have just pointed out, resurrection and rapture are both in addition to life. Today life is our possession. We have life, we are in life, and we are enjoying life. However, we are awaiting the Lord’s coming, and His coming will bring resurrection and rapture.

Resurrection, of course, is for those who have died. Today, we are living a holy life for the church. If the Lord delays His coming back, we all shall eventually “sleep,” that is, die physically. All the believers who have died are waiting for resurrection. If we live until the coming back of the Lord Jesus, we shall not need resurrection. However, we shall still need rapture. Furthermore, those who have died will need to be resurrected and raptured as well. All believers, the dead as well as the living, need rapture. Rapture, therefore, is actually the end of our life on earth. This means that the conclusion of our life is neither death nor resurrection—it is rapture. (Life-study of First Thessalonians, pp. 139-140)

HOLDING FAST THE BOAST OF HOPE

The unbelievers, being without Christ, have no hope (Eph. 2:12; 1 Thes. 4:13). But we, the believers in Christ, are a people of hope. The calling that we receive from God brings us hope (Eph. 1:18; 4:4). We have been regenerated unto a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3). Our Christ, who is in us, is the hope of glory (Col. 1:27; 1 Tim. 1:1), which will issue in the redemption, the transfiguration, of our body in glory (Rom. 8:23-25). This is the hope of salvation (1 Thes. 5:8), a blessed hope (Titus 2:13), a good hope (2 Thes. 2:16), the hope of eternal life (Titus 1:2; 3:7); it is also the hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:2), the hope of the gospel (Col. 1:23), the hope laid up for us in the heavens (Col. 1:5). We should keep this hope always (1 John 3:3) and boast in it (Rom. 5:2). Our God is the God of hope (Rom. 15:13), and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we can have hope (Rom. 15:4) all the time in God (1 Pet. 1:21) and can rejoice in it (Rom. 12:12). This book charges us to hold fast the boast of hope firm to the end (3:6), to show diligence unto the full assurance of our hope until the end (6:11), and to lay hold of the hope set before us (6:18). (The New Testament Recovery Version, Heb. 11:1, footnote 2)

References: Life-study of First Thessalonians, msg. 16; The New Testament Recovery Version, Heb. 11:1, footnotes 1-4.