By Tony Payne / Director of the Centre for Christian Living and Lecturer in Christian Thought (Ethics)
“So these Big Three remain,” says Paul in the wedding sermon he was apparently delivering in 1 Corinthians 13: “faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these,” he says, looking down at the happy couple, “is love.”
Would you share that evaluation? (If you were at a wedding service, you would, of course—if you had half a heart!)
But if I asked you which of Paul’s Big Three was the most important for your Christian life, would you say, perhaps, “faith”? Faith, after all, is the empty hand that grasps hold of Christ, and receives him and all his gifts. The Christian life is faith, from beginning to end.
Then again, love is the kind of life that faith sets us free to live. As Paul says in Galatians 5, forget all this circumcision and religious stuff; what really matters is faith expressing itself through love (Gal 5:1-6). Love is the form that the faith-filled Christian life takes.
So which is really greater: faith or love?
We could argue about this, but I think we would all agree that hope comes a slightly disappointing third. The Christian life, for most of us, is faith and love—and, oh yes, hope. Mustn’t forget hope.
But for the apostles, hope is not an also-ran; it’s a vital member of the Big Three. It’s never far from their thoughts about what it means to live as a Christian. Paul says:
For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Gal 5:5-6 ESV; emphasis mine)
By the work of God’s Spirit, as we trust in Christ, we wait eagerly for something that is already guaranteed, but which is still to come: the hope of standing before God and living with God in righteousness.
Hope is the eager expectation of our promised, guaranteed future in Christ.
Hope is integral to the Christian life, because the gospel is historical. The gospel announces something that God has definitively done at a particular time and place when Christ shed his blood on the cross, providing justification for his people. It also proclaims the bodily resurrection in history of the crucified Christ, who now lives and reigns at the right hand of God. And it declares the historically future reality of his rule when he comes again to save and to judge.
In one sense, you could say that the Christian life looks up to the crucified risen Christ and trusts completely in him, and thereby receives all his benefits now by faith; looks around to the people God has given us to love; and looks forward to a glorious future that is certain to come, but is as yet unseen.
Hope is that eager, expectant, forward lean of the Christian life. In the New Testament, it has three important effects on our daily lives.
First, it fills us with joy. When you know—when you absolutely, completely know—that a great good thing is coming your way, you can hardly contain the bubbling excitement of your anticipation. This is why joy is deeper and more satisfying than happiness. Happiness responds to the pleasure of the immediate, but joy can just as well celebrate what is to come. Joy is a rich gladness in what is true, real and good—whether that reality is present now or is still to come.
This leads us to the second crucial effect of hope: it revolutionises our perspective on suffering. The eternal weight of glory that lies in our future profoundly changes our view of the “light and momentary trials” we endure now (2 Cor 4:17). In this present life, we experience, as Hamlet says, “the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”.[1] But because of our future hope, the consummation we devoutly wish for is not (like Hamlet) the sleep of death, but the hope of glory. And so we endure trials with patience, endurance and joy, knowing that in so doing, we are building the muscles of hope.
Hope shapes the Christian life in a third way: it pulls us forward to be the kind of people who are fit for our future. “What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,” says Peter, “if you are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells?” (cf. 2 Pet 3:11-13). Paul says much the same in Colossians 3:1-14: since you have been raised with Christ, and your true life belongs with him and with his future appearing and kingdom, how can you continue to live the degrading sinful earthly life of your former existence? Toss out those disgusting, filthy old clothes and put on the new garments that you will wear in that future kingdom. The garment that caps off the whole outfit and brings it together is love.
Perhaps that’s why love gets the top place on the podium of the Christian life: it springs from faith and is only possible because of faith. Our faith-filled love is worked out in joy, day by day, in the midst of trails and sufferings, as we wait for our blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).
[1] William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1599-601) Act III.1.62-63.
