19. The Connections of Hope
Hope is vital in producing active faith and love …
Earlier in this book we looked at a somewhat surprising scripture in Paul's letter to the Colossians which tells us of: "… the faith and love that spring from the hope…" (Colossians 1:5). What Paul says here is surprising because we might expect hope to be the result of one of its presumably more "important" siblings – faith or love – rather than the other way around. Why is this?
The answer lies in the fuller context of what Paul wrote. Notice that his whole thought is: "the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you" (Colossians 1:5-6). The point here is that the Colossians' hope was something that they first understood in the message of the gospel they heard. That message, of course, was one of the hope we are given as a result of God's forgiveness and the promise of eternal life.
But that message also ties in to the broader picture of the situation among the Colossian believers. In the first half of his letter, Paul strives to correct a false doctrine that was gaining ground among these early Christians – that of Gnosticism. When applied to Christianity this false teaching twisted many aspects of the gospel; but its central stress was on spiritual illumination – "light" – through secret or superior knowledge (Greek gnosis).
Keeping this little bit of history in mind, notice what Paul tells the Colossians:
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light" (Colossians 1:9-12, emphases added).
First, we should not miss the fact that Paul mentions knowledge twice in these verses (vss. 9-10) – stressing that true knowledge should be focused on God (and, by implication, not on the philosophical knowledge of Gnosticism) and that that knowledge should lead to God's kingdom of light (not the "light" of philosophical illumination.)
But, far more important than Paul's verbal attack on gnostic beliefs is what he shows about the way of God in contrast to Gnosticism. If we look closely, we can see that Paul uses a slight variant of his triad of faith, hope and love to summarize the things that are the most important results of God's way. He includes "wisdom and understanding" (which we saw are related to faith); "fruit in every good work" (which we have seen is used in the New Testament for the results of love); "endurance and patience" (which we have seen are often synonymous with biblical hope).
Now we can see the practical application of what Paul is saying here. Paul contrasts the empty, fruitless results of Gnosticism with the clear results of belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those results are active faith and active love that are both based on the hope we gain through the message of the gospel (Colossians 1:6).
Interestingly, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul deals with a different problem, but one with similar results. There, he speaks of believers whose faith and love were being undermined because they were losing hope – both because of persecution, and because they were thinking that those who died in the faith before the return of Christ could not fully participate in the plan of God.
That is why Paul assures the Thessalonians such is not the case, and that Christ "… died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him" (1 Thessalonians 5:10), and why he encourages them to have the hope they need (1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11). He then stresses the need to develop a more active faith (1 Thessalonians 3:2-3; 4:14) and a more active love (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13; 4:9-10) out of the hope they have that enables them to face persecution and even death.
Paul knew that Christian hope is vital in producing the active faith and love we need to exhibit in our lives rather than a selfish concentration on our own "enlightenment" and spiritual condition – as he wrote to the Colossians. He also knew that it is vital that we do not lose hope so that our faith and love can continue to grow – as he wrote to the Thessalonians. Without hope we either do not develop faith and love or we begin to lose them. Truly, our hope strengthens and supports these other qualities. In this sense faith and love do spring from hope and connect with hope constantly!