The Hope of His Calling

Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil. HEBREWS 6:19

Evans is convinced that the church speaks far too little about hope. He says so in Feasting at the Table, in He Holds My Tomorrows and in a series of sermons on Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1. Faith is preached about constantly, and love at least sometimes, but hope, the third of Paul’s three great jewels, is rarely given its due. Evans thinks he knows why. We have let the world’s idea of hope replace the Bible’s.

The world’s hope and the Christian’s

In everyday English, Evans points out, hope always carries a shadow of doubt. We hope it will not rain tomorrow, but it may. A student hopes to pass his examinations, but he may fail. We wish a couple well on their wedding day and hope they will be happy, knowing that marriages sometimes break. The word expresses a wish with a possibility of disappointment attached.

Christian hope, he insists, has no such shadow. He describes it as a longing expectation of something already sure. The child waiting for a birthday present is his favourite picture: the child does not know what is inside the wrapping, but has no doubt at all that the gift is coming. The waiting is full of longing, not of anxiety.

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. ROMANS 5:5

Such hope does not disappoint, because it rests not on our wishes but on God’s promises and on what He has already done.

Paul on trial for hope

Evans’s favourite illustration of hope is Paul standing before governors and kings. Brought before the Jewish council, before Felix and later before Agrippa, the apostle does not defend himself chiefly as a man who believes certain doctrines. He says that he is on trial for the hope of the resurrection.

And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers. ACTS 26:6

Paul was not saying, Evans notes, that he hoped there might be a resurrection and that he had not thrown away a promising career for nothing. He was saying that he knew. His hope was a settled certainty, and it made him bold before men who could have had him killed.

That certainty rests on the resurrection of Christ. In He Holds My Tomorrows Evans sets out, in a teacher’s orderly way, why he regards the resurrection as one of the best attested events in history: the empty tomb, the appearances to many witnesses at once, and the willingness of the apostles to die rather than deny what they had seen. The whole of Christian hope, he argues, stands or falls with that one event. He finds it foreshadowed even in the brief record of Enoch, who walked with God and was not, for God took him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 PETER 1:3

The helmet of the mind

As chapter three noted, Evans distinguishes hope from faith by placing it in the mind. Faith and love are a breastplate over the heart; hope is a helmet on the head. Hope, he says, shows itself in confidence. That is why he connects it with the exhortation in Hebrews not to throw away our confidence:

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. HEBREWS 10:35

Many believers, Evans observes, lack exactly this confidence. They are uncertain of their salvation, anxious about their standing with God, unsure whether heaven is really theirs. He wants them to be able to say, as he likes to put it, that they know beyond any doubt. He points to John’s purpose in writing his first letter: that those who believe on the name of the Son of God may know that they have eternal life. Christian assurance is not presumption. It is the proper fruit of hope.

He applies the same distinction, as we saw, to much popular teaching about claiming promises. When a believer declares that God has said something and so it will surely come to pass, Evans suggests, that believer is exercising hope, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is called by its right name and rests on promises that truly apply. The confusion comes when this confidence of the mind is called faith and then used as a lever to move God.

What we hope for

What, then, does the Christian hope for? Evans’s answer, drawn from Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1, is breathtaking. We hope for resurrection and for being with Christ. But we also hope for the full enjoyment of an inheritance so great that Paul can only call it unsearchable.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. EPHESIANS 1:18

In a sermon on this verse, Evans asks what Christ Himself has inherited: the name above every name, the keys of death and hell, the throne, and the worship of heaven. Then he adds that Christ’s inheritance is not yet complete. It will be complete in His bride, the church, the saints. We are part of His inheritance, and we are joint heirs with Him of all that is His. The Spirit given to us now is the pledge, the first instalment, of that inheritance.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. ROMANS 8:16–17

This is why Evans can speak of hope as something to be enjoyed now and not only later. The believer who knows what awaits him lives differently today. He holds this world loosely, like the patriarchs who confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. He can face illness, loss and old age with peace. Evans has spoken, with restraint, of meeting serious illness in his own home and finding there a peace he could only explain as the gift of God.

A caution and an encouragement

A careful reader may want to hold Evans’s placement of hope in the mind and faith in the heart a little loosely. Scripture speaks of believing with the heart (Romans 10:10) and of a heart that hopes, and the images of breastplate and helmet are not meant as a map of the soul. But his main point is precious and needed. Christian hope is not wishful thinking. It is an anchor fastened within the veil, in the very presence of God, where Christ has gone before us.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. ROMANS 15:13

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Notice this week how often you use the word hope with a shadow of doubt in it. Ask what it would mean to hope as the New Testament does.

2. Write out Romans 8:16–17 and read it each morning for a week. Thank God that you are His heir.

3. If you are uncertain of your salvation, read 1 John 5:10–13 slowly and bring your doubts to God. Talk with a mature believer about them.

4. Consider what you would say if, like Paul, you were asked to give an account of the hope that is in you. Write a short answer, in plain words.

5. Name one fear about the future that hope in Christ addresses, and pray about it by name.

A PRAYER

God of hope, You have begotten me again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Let that hope be an anchor to my soul when the waves rise.

Open the eyes of my understanding, that I may know the hope of Your calling and the riches of Your inheritance in the saints.

Keep me from throwing away my confidence. Where I am anxious about my standing with You, let Your Spirit bear witness with my spirit that I am Your child.

Fill me with joy and peace in believing, until I see Your face. Amen.