THE GROUND OF HOPE

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1889

THE GROUND OF HOPE.

THE hope of the Christian may be sufficiently well defined as a reasonable expectation of a blessed immortality. Of course this is but the general outline of it. Hope itself includes all that enters into reconciled relations with God, and all that goes to make up that character without which it is impossible that any sinner should come into the presence of God and live. Sin, of course, is the obstacle that first and chiefly stands in the way of a blessed immortality. It is not possible that any may enter Heaven whose garments are not washed and made white and clean. How a sinner may come into peace with God is the great problem of religion. Somehow, our sins, which are many, must be forgiven, and we must be justified from the guilt which attaches to transgression, so that the holy law of God, which is but the necessary expression of his righteousness, may be at peace with us. All religions seek to cover these points, for it is inherent in the religious nature of man to recognize the demerit of sin and the necessity of discharging the conscience before God. . . . The first question therefore which confronts an inquiring sinner is: "How shall I obtain peace with God? On what grounds may I hope that I am forgiven, accepted, and justified?" To this question many answers are given. But . . . we need not enumerate the methods which man has invented or adopted, but turn at once to consider the only ground on which a sinner may come to God and find acceptance and salvation.

We have not to do with the theory of justification, but only to state the ground on which it rests. When the apostle says, in his letter to Timothy, that the "Lord Jesus Christ is our hope," he no doubt included in the statement all that he elsewhere states in respect of his divine sacrifice as well as his person and work. In reconciling the world unto himself God was in Christ. The method was by Jesus Christ, and is said to be in this wise: "For he hath made him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be the righteousness of God in him." The completest statement of all to be found in the New Testament is probably that magnificent passage in the third of Romans: "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins" "that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," it is elsewhere declared, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." Again, it is said that he "was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification."

It is needless to multiply passages of Scripture on this point. Our purpose is only to show that Jesus Christ in his whole life and work, including, of course, his voluntary death and his powerful resurrection, affords to sinners the sole ground of justification or acceptance with God. "He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." We do not care to discuss the "how" of this divine method, but only to point out again that here, and here only, do we find ground for hope. There is place, and abundant place, in the Christian life for all good works, for all religiousness in the way of appointed observance of ordinances, for the growth and development of character, and, of course, for all Christian experience wrought in us by the Holy Ghost; but none, nor all, of these make the ground of hope. It is Jesus only and his finished work that is the ground of justification.

This is most important. Every Christian, as well as every inquirer, should get this clearly in mind as well as in heart. For so long as other things are looked to or rested in there will be unrest and uncertainty in the heart. Here is something which God has freely made over to us, which he has accepted as being abundantly satisfactory and sufficient, and which he calls upon us to accept and be at peace. Now, if God has worked this out for us, and assured us at the same time that "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ," why should we look for anything else? God must be the final judge of what sin is in its nature and in its relation to himself and to the moral law of the universe. If Christ's finished work satisfies him, and all demands of righteousness, it ought to satisfy us.—Independent.