Romans 8:24

Since he was speaking of future things, which many did not believe, he urges: do not doubt, O believer, concerning what I say; on the basis of what you have already received, be confident also concerning the future. Just as before, when God granted you …

Then when he says, "for we are saved," he proves what he had said with the following reason: hope is concerned with things not seen in the present but awaited in the future. But we have been saved through hope; therefore, we wait for the …

For we are saved by hope - Our salvation is now only in hope. We do not yet possess this full salvation.

It is our having received the first-fruits of the Spirit, which both quickens our desires and encourages our hopes, and both ways raises our expectations. The first-fruits did both sanctify and ensure the lump. Grace is the first-fruits of glory, it is glory begun.

It is acknowledged that one of the principal graces of a Christian is hope ( 1 Cor. xiii. 13 ), which necessarily implies a good thing to come, which is the object of that hope. Faith respects the promise, hope the thing promised.

For we are saved by hope,.... We who have received the firstfruits, who were in a lost perishing condition, and by nature no better than others, than the Gentiles, are saved by sin and wrath to come by Christ, with a spiritual and everlasting salvation.

ACCORDING to our version "we are saved by hope," but that is scarcely in accordance with other parts of Holy Scripture. Everywhere in the Word of God we are told that we are saved by faith. See the first verse of the fifth chapter— "Therefore being justified by faith." Faith is the saving Grace—not hope—unless only as hope is, under some aspects, tantamount to faith. Faith is the saving Grace and the original should be rendered thus. One wonders that it is not so in the Revised Version—"We were saved in hope."

For we are saved by hope--rather, "For in hope we are saved"; that is, it is more a salvation in hope than as yet in actual possession. but hope that is seen is not hope--for the very meaning of hope is, the expectation that something now future will become present. for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?--the latter ending when the other comes.

ACCORDING to our version "we are saved by hope," but that is scarcely in accordance with other parts of Holy Scripture. Everywhere in the Word of God we are told that we are saved by faith. See the first verse of the fifth chapter— "Therefore being justified by faith." Faith is the saving Grace—not hope—unless only as hope is, under some aspects, tantamount to faith. Faith is the saving Grace and the original should be rendered thus. One wonders that it is not so in the Revised Version—"We were saved in hope." It would prevent misapprehension if the passage were so rendered, for as that eminent critic, Bengel, well says, "the words do not describe the means, but the manner of salvation: we are so saved that there may even yet remain something for which we may hope, both of salvation and glory." Believers receive the salvation of their souls as the end of their faith and it is offaith that it might be of Grace. They are saved by faith and in hope. At this present moment Believers are saved and, in a certain sense, completely saved. They are entirely saved from the guilt of sin. The Lord Jesus took their sin and bore it in His body on the tree. He offered an acceptable Atonement, by which the iniquity of all His people is once and forever put away. By faith we are at once saved from the defilement of evil and have free access to God our Father. By faith we are saved from the reigning power of sin in our members. As says the Scripture, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the Law, but under Grace." The crown is removed from the head of sin and the arm of its strength is broken in the heart of every Christian by the power of faith. Sin strives to get the mastery, but it cannot win the day, for he that is born of God does not commit sin with delight, or as his daily habit, but he keeps himself so that the Evil One touches him not.

For we are saved by hope - We are supported and are comfortable in the expectation we have of receiving from the hand of our God all the good we need in the troubles and adversities of this life, and of having our bodies raised from corruption and death at the general resurrection.

For we are saved by hope - It cannot be said that hope is the instrument or condition of salvation. Most commentators have understood this as meaning that we have as yet attained salvation only in hope; that we have arrived only to a condition in which we hope for future glory; and that we are in an attitude of waiting for the future state of adoption. But perhaps the word “saved” may mean here simply, we are kept, preserved, sustained in our trials, by hope. Our trials are so great that nothing but the prospect of future deliverance would uphold us; and the prospect is sufficient to enable us to bear them with patience. This is the proper meaning of the word “save”; and it is often thus used in the New Testament; see Mat 8:25; Mat 16:25; Mar 3:4; Mar 8:35. The Syriac renders this, “For by hope we live.” The Arabic, “We are preserved by hope.” Hope thus sustains the soul in the midst of trims, and enables it to bear them without a complaint. But hope that is seen - Hope is a complex emotion, made up of an earnest desire, and an expectation of obtaining an object. It has reference, therefore, to what is at present unseen. But when the object is seen, and is in our possession, it cannot be said to be an object of hope. The Word hope here means the object of hope, the thing hoped for. What a man seeth - The word “seeth” is used here in the sense of possessing, or enjoying. What a man already possesses, he cannot be said to hope for. Why - How. What a man actually possesses, how can he look forward to it with anticipation?

As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all the Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable.

The truth is that the tradition of Christianity (which is still the only coherent ethic of Europe) rests on two or three paradoxes or mysteries which can easily be impugned in argument and as easily justified in life. One of them, for instance, is the …

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope …