Hope Realized | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 30, 1864

Hope Realized.

At his second coming the Lord Jesus will fulfill all the expectations and desires of his people. Expectation and desire are, as before stated, the component parts of hope. The former has reference to what God has said, and the latter to the state of the heart toward it. A person may expect what he does not desire, and he may often desire what he has no good ground for expecting. Now what does the saint expect and desire? Perfect knowledge; he hopes soon to know as he is known, and no longer to see through a glass darkly. When Christ comes there will be a "revelation of God." It will be "a morning without clouds," a day of resplendent glory. Then the understanding will be clear, the memory retentive; the eye will then be satisfied with seeing, and the ear with hearing. Increase of knowledge will not increase sorrow then, but every new discovery in heavenly science will bring new tides of joy unto the soul.

The believer desires perfect purity.—This is secured to him by God's promise, and shall be realized at the coming of Jesus:—“when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”—This hope of being perfectly holy is a lively hope; it stirs up the soul now to purify itself, even as Christ is pure. Perfect happiness is anticipated also by the believer. To desire to be happy is natural to man, but alas, in what foolish ways does he seek to gratify his desires, and realize his hopes. If we ask the worldly man in what happiness consists, he will talk of health, wealth, honor, and earthly relations, and tell us that if he could have all these, have plenty of them, and that forever, he would be perfectly happy; but this cannot be; time and death sternly forbid it; and even if it could, man could not be satisfied with these. But let these words be considered as referring to spiritual things, and let these have the impress of eternity upon them, and we have indeed all the elements of happiness. When the Lord Jesus comes he will give to both soul and body perfect and perpetual health, and will enrich them with the treasures of eternity, raise them up to the highest honors, introduce them to the whole family in Heaven, not one of whom shall ever die; and above all, he will make them heirs of God, and joint-heirs with himself for ever and for ever.

Once more, the believer longs for the reign of order and harmony. It grieves him to hear the groans of creation, the yells of blasphemy, and the wailing of sorrow; he longs to see Satan cast out, God enthroned, creation renovated, and man restored to his true dignity; he knows that all shall be done when Jesus comes again. The heavens must receive him until the times of the restitution of all things; then shall he come "the second time without sin, unto salvation;" and then shall God's kingdom of order and harmony come, and his "will be done on earth even as it is done in Heaven." The hopeful heart listens to these testimonies, and cries, "Even so, come Lord Jesus."