What now is the relation between grace and the law? St. (continued)
HOPE
1. CHRISTIAN HOPE Cities hope is to be distinguished from all other, for it issues from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet 7. 3). For this we bless God. All our blessings are owing to God's mercy. He hath begotten us again, and this deserves our thanksgiving to God, especially if we consider the fruit it produces in us, which is that excellent grace of hope. And that not such a vain, dead, perishing hope, as that of worldlings and hypocrites, but a lively hope, a living, strong, quickening, and durable hope, as that hope must needs be which has such a solid foundation as the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
(a) A good Christian's condition is never so bad but he has good reason still to bless God. As a sinner has always reason to mourn, notwithstanding his present prosperity, so good people, in the midst of their manifold difficulties, have reason still to rejoice and bless God.
(5) Regeneration produces a lively hope of eternal life. Every unconverted person is a hopeless creature. Whatever he pretends to of that kind is all confidence and presumption: The right Christian hope is what a man is begotten again unto by the Spirit of God. It is not from nature, but free grace. They who are begotten to a new and spiritual life are begotten to a new and spiritual hope.
(c) The hope of a Christian has this excellency: it is a living hope. The hope of eternal life in a true Christian is a hope that keeps him alive, quickens him, supports him, and conducts him to heaven. Hope invigorates and inspires the soul to action, to patience, to fortitude, and perseverance to the end. The delusive hopes of the unregenerate are vain and perishing. The hypocrite and his hope expire and die both together (Job xxvii. 8).
(a) The resurrection of Fesus Christ from the dead is the ground or foundation of a Christian's hope. The resurrection of Christ is the act of the Father as a Judge, of the Son as a Conqueror.
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His resurrection demonstrates that the Father accepts His death in full discharge for our ransom; that He is victorious over death, the grave and all our spiritual enemies. And it is also an assurance of our own resurrection, there being an inseparable union between Christ and His flock. They rise by nature of His resurrection, as a Head, rather than by nature of His power as a Judge. "We are risen with Christ" (Col. iii.
1). From all this taken together Christians have two fast, solid foundations whereon to build their hope of eternal life.
2. 'THE OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE
The apostle continues his thanksgiving to God. Having congratulated these people on their new birth, and their hope of everlasting life, he goes on to describe that life under the notion of an inheritance. Because this inheritance is the object of Christian hope we will do well to follow him. First, we observe that they were a poor and persecuted people, perhaps turned out of the earthly inheritance to which they were born. To allay this grievance he tells them they were new-born to a new inheritance infinitely better than the ones they had lost. Secondly, they were Jews, most of them, and so had a mighty affection for the land of Canaan, as the land of their inheritance settled upon them by God Himself. To be driven out from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord was looked upon as a sore judgment (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). To comfort them under this, they are put in mind of a noble inheritance reserved in heaven for them, by comparison with which Canaan was a mere shadow.
Heaven is the undoubted inheritance of all the children of God. All that are born again are born to an inheritance, as a man makes his child his heir. The apostle argues, "If children, then heirs"" (Rom. viii. 17).
(a) This inheritance is incorruptible. In this it is like its Maker, who is called the "incorruptible God" (Rom. i. 23). All corruption is change from better to worse. Heaven is without change and without end.
(b) This inheritance is undefiled. Sin and misery, the two great defilements that spoil this world and mar its beauty, have no place there.
(c) This inheritance fadeth not away. It always retains its vigour and beauty, and remains immarcescible, ever entertaining