Here is a follow up to the understanding faith, hope and charity and other concepts post, under label "saved by hope." I thought of this example of how to explain plainly through analogy the error in looking for copying human "role models" of the concepts of faith, hope and charity.
Suppose that you spot a person you think is really charitable and you decide to role model after him. He pays for the building of a hospital wing dedicated to some branch of medicine, such as child care, acute care, cancer, cardiology, etc. So you figure that if you raise money for a hospital wing that you are copying the "best in charity you could find." Logical but wrong. Here is why.
1) If everyone starts to copy the same concepts of charity, they are less likely to be listening to what one's own calling from God truly is.
2) You have no way of knowing what is really going on inside a person. Their outward charitable events are often the worst way to judge a person's innards. How do I know that? Heaven, according to Jesus, is packed with poor people, not those who do "good deeds" or human based charity.
How to apply this to scripture? Well, think about lepers, who are mentioned frequently in the Bible as being unclean (for a variety of reasons, including being contagious). But here's my point. Can you understand how people of the Bible, if they had misunderstood charity, might have poured all their money into charitable works aimed at lepers? There would be a leper hospital on every block. And yet medicine eventually overcame this disease. If people do the charitable copy cat thing they stop working on 1) the actual problem that requires charity and 2) their relationship with God, which all charity is actually directed on behalf of.
Suppose the Bible authors were busy building leper hospitals instead of writing the scripture? Maybe some Apostles would take a few hours a day away from Jesus while he was alive in order to "donate their charitable time at the local leper hospital?"
You see the point? I thought so.
Showing posts with label Saved by Hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saved by Hope. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
understanding faith, hope, charity & other concepts
I love when I hear people discuss the scripture, especially when they have a restored joy in their actual understanding. However, I am dismayed when a fundamental error continues to take place. So here is the error and how to avoid it.
The error: You correctly understand from the scriptures that God instructs that one must have faith, hope and charity. You get that part just fine. However, you then try to understand "how" to apply faith, hope, charity and etc. by looking at fellow human "role models." That is so fundamentally wrong.
For example, you look around you for people that you think have a "lot" of "good" faith, and or a "lot" of "good" hope, and or a "lot" of "good" charity, and then you try to copy them. There is a breakdown of both faith and reasoning when you do that. The first is that God is speaking of divine faith, hope and charity, not human based faith, hope and charity. So you misunderstand what God speaks of if you think human faith fully explains what God means by faith, that human hope fully explains what God means by hope, and or that human charity fully explains what God means by charity.
Quickly I will give examples of how in scriptures you know that is an error. Jesus points out the loudly praying Pharisee as a hypocrite (comparing him to the quietly humble publican who is praying for forgiveness). Yet in those times many people would have used that arrogant Pharisee as the "biblically accurate role model for faith." The odds are that if you are looking at someone who is highly visible in their faith that you are open to being misled inadvertently because you short circuit developing your own faith based directly on what the Bible instructs and speaks to your own heart, because you truncate your understanding by studying only a human who may or may not be actually a "role model of faith."
Second, "hope" means hope of being saved, not hoping for the things that humans "hope for," whether those are good things or not. I will hone in on helping you to understand that by writing more about it below. But to make the general first point Paul states that hope is for eternal life, and you need to notice that no one describes hope as being directed toward any earthly event or object, regardless how worthy it might be to hope for, in a human context. Biblical "hope" is reserved for salvation alone.
Third, "charity" is a highly individual concept, and cannot be viewed as "works," "acts" or some sort of heavenly accounting. How do we know that? Because if you read the Beatitudes you understand that tons of really poor people are in heaven, and if you think about that, how many poor people can really do "works" of charity? Most are lucky to feed their own children. Obviously middle class and wealthy people are very tempted to fall over the stumbling block of thinking that the more you "have" the more you can "give away in charity" and thus the more "works of merit" and "good deeds" you earn. Wrong! Remember Luke 16 where that rich guy ends up in hell not because he was not a worthy Jew and probably did all the right things, including charity, but he didn't help the ONE man that God wanted to help.
I'm going to copy a list from the index of my Bible of hope related passages. Sometimes reading an index or a table of contents really conveys the point succinctly and holistically. So here it is and then I will discuss some of the specifics. But I can well imagine that you will get my point after simply reading this index!
A gift of God 2 Thess 2 16
Saved by Rom 8 25
Should abound in Rom 15 13
Called "blessed" Titus 2 13
Inspires holiness 1 John 3 3
Helmet of salvation 1 Thess 5 8
Given by Scriptures Rom 15 4
A heavenly treature Col 1 5
For eternal life Titus 1 2
An abiding principle 1 Cor 13 13
Leads to patience Rom 8 25
Is not seen Rom 8 24
Of Christians, in death Prov 14 32
Deferred, makes the heart sick Prov 13 12
Prisoners of Zech 9 12
"Hope against hope" Rom 4 18
Maketh not ashamed Rom 5 5
Anchor of the soul Heb 6 19
Assures immortality Acts 24 15
Of wicked, shall perish Prov 11 7
Christians rejoice in Rom 12 12
Give a reason for 1 Pet 3 15
A triumphant Rom 8 38,39
A living 1 Pet 1 3
Amid trials 2 Cor 4 8
Here is the list for "hopelessness":
State of unbelievers Eph 2 12
Caused by apostasy Jer 2 25
Caused by affliction Job 17 15
The cure for Isa 49 13-16
You see the problem? None of these scriptures refer to either earthly hope (such as "hoping" that something will happen) or to role modeling people who seem "hopeful" aka optimistic, perky, uplifting, etc. People who are hopeful in an earthly sense are optimists about earthly things, and that may or may not be wise or appropriate, but teaches you nothing about God's concept of hope, which is only directed toward salvation and being close to God.
Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
You see, Paul is explaining one thing you might wonder in the list of scriptures of "hope" that I provided from my bible above. Why are so few Old Testament scriptures about "hope?" Because when the people of Israel lived within a theocracy (a king appointed and anointed by God and the Jews lived entirely within God's instructions and word) then they "have God," they are not "without God in the world." That's by the way why there is few references to hell or heaven for that matter in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a people of God, saved, or fallen away, as a whole. That does not mean that individual people are not judged by God on death, of course (Luke 16). But when one lives in a nation founded by God and compliant to God's will, then one does not need hope per se because one is living within the hope that God established for them. Christians, however, had to find their own hope individually as they went out into the world from the safety of the Old Covenant and into the assured, but invisible, New Covenant with God.
So Paul is explaining here that someone who is foreign to (not native of, and thus the word "alien" which does not mean imaginary space visitors) God's community, which was previously Israel and the Jews, is new to the concept of hope and, indeed, had been living in ignorance without hope.
In the Old Testament, therefore, you can now understand that hopelessness is not a state as moderns think of being pessimistic, being depressed, losing expectations of gaining some earthly object or event, but of being estranged from God and or thus risking loss of salvation.
Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst, but thou saidst, There is no hope: no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
When one abandons the true God for imaginary strange gods and concepts, then one loses hope through apostasy, whether one realizes it or not, or whether one goes through the motions of outward obedience or not.
Job 17:15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
Job has lost everything he had. But he is not hoping for restoration of his goods. He realizes that he had been blessed by God and now for some reason unknown to him (Satan) is unjustly estranged from God. So Job wonders where God is because God is his hope.
Isaiah 50:13-16
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me.
By the way, this passage about hope never mentions the word hope. This is one critical reason you must not rely on just looking up occurrences of certain words representing concepts you are researching in the Bible, because many times there is a wealth of information that is NOT actually mentioning the one word you are thinking about!!!!!!!!!! You learn about "hope" by reading the whole Bible (imagine that) rather than assuming hope is "discussed" or "explained" only where the translated word "hope" appears, like this is a legal text or a big old dictionary! The entire Bible is about "hope!"
God is saying that his people should rejoice in him, even in their misery of earth, because he has not forgotten them (unlike nursing mothers some of whom actually do neglect their children!) That is what is truly meant by God's hope.
Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Notice Paul does two things that are crucial. He explains that hope is found in the scriptures, reading, studying and following the scriptures using patience and for comfort. But he also continues to role model as hope being a work in progress, not a slam dunk assurance that someone has in their pocket! This is why he phrases it as "we...might have hope." None of the Apostles, including with them Paul, ever misleads people into thinking that "hope" means anything but forward looking hopefulness, not something that once gotten is never lost and never needs to be continually worked upon.
1 Thessalonians 5:8
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
OK, how many of you in sports who use a helmet take your helmet off after wearing it once and saying "Hey, I wore the helmet once, and I own one, so I don't need to wear it every time I race." Um, that would be dumb. A helmet needs to be worn all the time, not just "owned" but put in a closet. Likewise hope is an ongoing condition where one wears it as a helmet, just as one covers the chest with the breast plate of faith and love.
Why does Paul use this imagery? Faith and love (charity) are matters of the heart (the chest). Hope is a matter for the head (the brain, for thinking and remembering through logic).
I hope this has helped and do read the other scriptures I've listed. Understand that this is how to understand holistically a singular concept such as hope.
The error: You correctly understand from the scriptures that God instructs that one must have faith, hope and charity. You get that part just fine. However, you then try to understand "how" to apply faith, hope, charity and etc. by looking at fellow human "role models." That is so fundamentally wrong.
For example, you look around you for people that you think have a "lot" of "good" faith, and or a "lot" of "good" hope, and or a "lot" of "good" charity, and then you try to copy them. There is a breakdown of both faith and reasoning when you do that. The first is that God is speaking of divine faith, hope and charity, not human based faith, hope and charity. So you misunderstand what God speaks of if you think human faith fully explains what God means by faith, that human hope fully explains what God means by hope, and or that human charity fully explains what God means by charity.
Quickly I will give examples of how in scriptures you know that is an error. Jesus points out the loudly praying Pharisee as a hypocrite (comparing him to the quietly humble publican who is praying for forgiveness). Yet in those times many people would have used that arrogant Pharisee as the "biblically accurate role model for faith." The odds are that if you are looking at someone who is highly visible in their faith that you are open to being misled inadvertently because you short circuit developing your own faith based directly on what the Bible instructs and speaks to your own heart, because you truncate your understanding by studying only a human who may or may not be actually a "role model of faith."
Second, "hope" means hope of being saved, not hoping for the things that humans "hope for," whether those are good things or not. I will hone in on helping you to understand that by writing more about it below. But to make the general first point Paul states that hope is for eternal life, and you need to notice that no one describes hope as being directed toward any earthly event or object, regardless how worthy it might be to hope for, in a human context. Biblical "hope" is reserved for salvation alone.
Third, "charity" is a highly individual concept, and cannot be viewed as "works," "acts" or some sort of heavenly accounting. How do we know that? Because if you read the Beatitudes you understand that tons of really poor people are in heaven, and if you think about that, how many poor people can really do "works" of charity? Most are lucky to feed their own children. Obviously middle class and wealthy people are very tempted to fall over the stumbling block of thinking that the more you "have" the more you can "give away in charity" and thus the more "works of merit" and "good deeds" you earn. Wrong! Remember Luke 16 where that rich guy ends up in hell not because he was not a worthy Jew and probably did all the right things, including charity, but he didn't help the ONE man that God wanted to help.
I'm going to copy a list from the index of my Bible of hope related passages. Sometimes reading an index or a table of contents really conveys the point succinctly and holistically. So here it is and then I will discuss some of the specifics. But I can well imagine that you will get my point after simply reading this index!
A gift of God 2 Thess 2 16
Saved by Rom 8 25
Should abound in Rom 15 13
Called "blessed" Titus 2 13
Inspires holiness 1 John 3 3
Helmet of salvation 1 Thess 5 8
Given by Scriptures Rom 15 4
A heavenly treature Col 1 5
For eternal life Titus 1 2
An abiding principle 1 Cor 13 13
Leads to patience Rom 8 25
Is not seen Rom 8 24
Of Christians, in death Prov 14 32
Deferred, makes the heart sick Prov 13 12
Prisoners of Zech 9 12
"Hope against hope" Rom 4 18
Maketh not ashamed Rom 5 5
Anchor of the soul Heb 6 19
Assures immortality Acts 24 15
Of wicked, shall perish Prov 11 7
Christians rejoice in Rom 12 12
Give a reason for 1 Pet 3 15
A triumphant Rom 8 38,39
A living 1 Pet 1 3
Amid trials 2 Cor 4 8
Here is the list for "hopelessness":
State of unbelievers Eph 2 12
Caused by apostasy Jer 2 25
Caused by affliction Job 17 15
The cure for Isa 49 13-16
You see the problem? None of these scriptures refer to either earthly hope (such as "hoping" that something will happen) or to role modeling people who seem "hopeful" aka optimistic, perky, uplifting, etc. People who are hopeful in an earthly sense are optimists about earthly things, and that may or may not be wise or appropriate, but teaches you nothing about God's concept of hope, which is only directed toward salvation and being close to God.
Ephesians 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
You see, Paul is explaining one thing you might wonder in the list of scriptures of "hope" that I provided from my bible above. Why are so few Old Testament scriptures about "hope?" Because when the people of Israel lived within a theocracy (a king appointed and anointed by God and the Jews lived entirely within God's instructions and word) then they "have God," they are not "without God in the world." That's by the way why there is few references to hell or heaven for that matter in the Old Testament. The Israelites were a people of God, saved, or fallen away, as a whole. That does not mean that individual people are not judged by God on death, of course (Luke 16). But when one lives in a nation founded by God and compliant to God's will, then one does not need hope per se because one is living within the hope that God established for them. Christians, however, had to find their own hope individually as they went out into the world from the safety of the Old Covenant and into the assured, but invisible, New Covenant with God.
So Paul is explaining here that someone who is foreign to (not native of, and thus the word "alien" which does not mean imaginary space visitors) God's community, which was previously Israel and the Jews, is new to the concept of hope and, indeed, had been living in ignorance without hope.
In the Old Testament, therefore, you can now understand that hopelessness is not a state as moderns think of being pessimistic, being depressed, losing expectations of gaining some earthly object or event, but of being estranged from God and or thus risking loss of salvation.
Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst, but thou saidst, There is no hope: no, for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
When one abandons the true God for imaginary strange gods and concepts, then one loses hope through apostasy, whether one realizes it or not, or whether one goes through the motions of outward obedience or not.
Job 17:15 And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
Job has lost everything he had. But he is not hoping for restoration of his goods. He realizes that he had been blessed by God and now for some reason unknown to him (Satan) is unjustly estranged from God. So Job wonders where God is because God is his hope.
Isaiah 50:13-16
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands thy walls are continually before me.
By the way, this passage about hope never mentions the word hope. This is one critical reason you must not rely on just looking up occurrences of certain words representing concepts you are researching in the Bible, because many times there is a wealth of information that is NOT actually mentioning the one word you are thinking about!!!!!!!!!! You learn about "hope" by reading the whole Bible (imagine that) rather than assuming hope is "discussed" or "explained" only where the translated word "hope" appears, like this is a legal text or a big old dictionary! The entire Bible is about "hope!"
God is saying that his people should rejoice in him, even in their misery of earth, because he has not forgotten them (unlike nursing mothers some of whom actually do neglect their children!) That is what is truly meant by God's hope.
Romans 15:4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Notice Paul does two things that are crucial. He explains that hope is found in the scriptures, reading, studying and following the scriptures using patience and for comfort. But he also continues to role model as hope being a work in progress, not a slam dunk assurance that someone has in their pocket! This is why he phrases it as "we...might have hope." None of the Apostles, including with them Paul, ever misleads people into thinking that "hope" means anything but forward looking hopefulness, not something that once gotten is never lost and never needs to be continually worked upon.
1 Thessalonians 5:8
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breast-plate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
OK, how many of you in sports who use a helmet take your helmet off after wearing it once and saying "Hey, I wore the helmet once, and I own one, so I don't need to wear it every time I race." Um, that would be dumb. A helmet needs to be worn all the time, not just "owned" but put in a closet. Likewise hope is an ongoing condition where one wears it as a helmet, just as one covers the chest with the breast plate of faith and love.
Why does Paul use this imagery? Faith and love (charity) are matters of the heart (the chest). Hope is a matter for the head (the brain, for thinking and remembering through logic).
I hope this has helped and do read the other scriptures I've listed. Understand that this is how to understand holistically a singular concept such as hope.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
I'm rebuked for bad manners/not being "saved"
This is primarily a Bible reading and commentary blog entry, but I decided to give everyone a thrill and use a "National Enquirer" type of title for this blog posting! I mean, who wants to read another of my "Bible reading" or "Bible commentary" titles when they can read one about my being sad or uncomfortable or afflicted instead? ;-)
Being homeless I have been taken in by a Christian man where I earn my keep being his housekeeper. Tonight he rebuked me for some bad manners of mine from yesterday (cussing) and while he was on the subject mentioned that I'm not saved, don't know what God wants, and belong to a pagan cult (he means the Catholic Church).
Well, he said his piece and I said mine and I hope he feels better, since I sure do not.
However, I'm good at making lemonade out of lemons, and wine out of vinegar (much harder than the lemonade trick) so this lesson or, rather, this quiz for my readers popped into mind. (I'm logged on using my battery power on the laptop to save electricity, it sure costs a lot around here...)
I have a question for any Christian reading this blog. Why did Jesus say the following using the words he used and not the alternative I suggest below?
What he said:
"Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions. Were it not so, I should have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be. And where I go you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where thou art going, and how can we know the way?" (Matthew 14:1-5)
Now, before I point out the specific question I have, I need to put this in context. This statement by Jesus is the beginning of a long passage where he is comforting the Apostles at the Last Supper. Jesus knows he is going to be betrayed and in fact the whole episode of Jesus announcing that someone will betray him and the betrayer thereupon leaving (Judas Iscariot) the Last Supper has just taken place (Matthew 13:21-30). For those of you who do not have the scripture in front of you, even though Jesus identified Judas as the betrayer and Judas did leave the table, the Apostles did not make the connection that Judas was the betrayer and leaving the table in order to do so: "But none of those understood why he said this to him. For some thought that because Judas held the purse, Jesus had said to him, "Buy the things we need for the feast"or that he should give something to the poor (Matthew 13:28-29).
OK, here is my question to you. And yes, I know the answer. Do you?
Why didn't Jesus say either or both of the following:
1. "I go to prepare a place for you, except for the betrayer Judas Iscariot."
2. "I go to prepare a place for you, except for the betrayer Judas Iscariot, and I also go to prepare a place for the disciples not present here at this Supper, and also for every person who believes in me in the future."
Since the Apostles understood that Jesus was speaking to them (that's why I included up above that Thomas' being the first to reply makes that clear), but they did not know that Judas had left not on routine business but to betray Jesus... why would Jesus during some of the last words he ever spoke to them make clear that Judas was not having a place prepared for him in heaven? Why would Jesus have allowed the Apostles to assume that Jesus, who never lied or was disingenuous, meant all Twelve, including Judas? And to be perfectly clear, why is Jesus only referring to preparing a place for the Twelve, but not the other seventy disciples, not at the Last Supper, or, better yet, state that he, as the Son of God, is preparing a place for all those who believe in him in the future? Why does Jesus use wording indicating only all of the Twelve?
Being homeless I have been taken in by a Christian man where I earn my keep being his housekeeper. Tonight he rebuked me for some bad manners of mine from yesterday (cussing) and while he was on the subject mentioned that I'm not saved, don't know what God wants, and belong to a pagan cult (he means the Catholic Church).
Well, he said his piece and I said mine and I hope he feels better, since I sure do not.
However, I'm good at making lemonade out of lemons, and wine out of vinegar (much harder than the lemonade trick) so this lesson or, rather, this quiz for my readers popped into mind. (I'm logged on using my battery power on the laptop to save electricity, it sure costs a lot around here...)
I have a question for any Christian reading this blog. Why did Jesus say the following using the words he used and not the alternative I suggest below?
What he said:
"Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions. Were it not so, I should have told you, because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be. And where I go you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where thou art going, and how can we know the way?" (Matthew 14:1-5)
Now, before I point out the specific question I have, I need to put this in context. This statement by Jesus is the beginning of a long passage where he is comforting the Apostles at the Last Supper. Jesus knows he is going to be betrayed and in fact the whole episode of Jesus announcing that someone will betray him and the betrayer thereupon leaving (Judas Iscariot) the Last Supper has just taken place (Matthew 13:21-30). For those of you who do not have the scripture in front of you, even though Jesus identified Judas as the betrayer and Judas did leave the table, the Apostles did not make the connection that Judas was the betrayer and leaving the table in order to do so: "But none of those understood why he said this to him. For some thought that because Judas held the purse, Jesus had said to him, "Buy the things we need for the feast"or that he should give something to the poor (Matthew 13:28-29).
OK, here is my question to you. And yes, I know the answer. Do you?
Why didn't Jesus say either or both of the following:
1. "I go to prepare a place for you, except for the betrayer Judas Iscariot."
2. "I go to prepare a place for you, except for the betrayer Judas Iscariot, and I also go to prepare a place for the disciples not present here at this Supper, and also for every person who believes in me in the future."
Since the Apostles understood that Jesus was speaking to them (that's why I included up above that Thomas' being the first to reply makes that clear), but they did not know that Judas had left not on routine business but to betray Jesus... why would Jesus during some of the last words he ever spoke to them make clear that Judas was not having a place prepared for him in heaven? Why would Jesus have allowed the Apostles to assume that Jesus, who never lied or was disingenuous, meant all Twelve, including Judas? And to be perfectly clear, why is Jesus only referring to preparing a place for the Twelve, but not the other seventy disciples, not at the Last Supper, or, better yet, state that he, as the Son of God, is preparing a place for all those who believe in him in the future? Why does Jesus use wording indicating only all of the Twelve?
Saturday, December 27, 2008
marymajor's Diary: December 31
When I'm lonely I turn to the writings of the Popes of the last century, both their personal writing and their doctrinal writing. When I read what they write I feel like I am in their company and am not so lonely.
From Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical: Spe Salvi, "Saved by Hope"
Introduction
1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given.
Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.
Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here?
Faith is Hope
2. Before turning our attention to these timely questions, we must listen a little more closely to the Bible's testimony on hope. “Hope”, in fact, is a key word in Biblical faith—so much so that in several passages the words “faith” and “hope” seem interchangeable.
Thus the Letter to the Hebrews closely links the “fullness of faith” (10:22) to “the confession of our hope without wavering” (10:23). Likewise, when the First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be always ready to give an answer concerning the logos—the meaning and the reason—of their hope (cf. 3:15), “hope” is equivalent to “faith”.
We see how decisively the self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare the Christian life with life prior to faith, or with the situation of the followers of other religions.
Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future.
In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing): so says an epitaph of that period. In this phrase we see in no uncertain terms the point Paul was making.
In the same vein he says to the Thessalonians: you must not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Th 4:13). Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.
Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good news”—the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only “informative” but “performative”. That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.
From Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical: Spe Salvi, "Saved by Hope"
Introduction
1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given.
Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey.
Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here?
Faith is Hope
2. Before turning our attention to these timely questions, we must listen a little more closely to the Bible's testimony on hope. “Hope”, in fact, is a key word in Biblical faith—so much so that in several passages the words “faith” and “hope” seem interchangeable.
Thus the Letter to the Hebrews closely links the “fullness of faith” (10:22) to “the confession of our hope without wavering” (10:23). Likewise, when the First Letter of Peter exhorts Christians to be always ready to give an answer concerning the logos—the meaning and the reason—of their hope (cf. 3:15), “hope” is equivalent to “faith”.
We see how decisively the self-understanding of the early Christians was shaped by their having received the gift of a trustworthy hope, when we compare the Christian life with life prior to faith, or with the situation of the followers of other religions.
Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future.
In nihil ab nihilo quam cito recidimus (How quickly we fall back from nothing to nothing): so says an epitaph of that period. In this phrase we see in no uncertain terms the point Paul was making.
In the same vein he says to the Thessalonians: you must not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Th 4:13). Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.
Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well. So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good news”—the communication of a hitherto unknown content. In our language we would say: the Christian message was not only “informative” but “performative”. That means: the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing. The dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open. The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.
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