Overflowing with Hope – Part 1    05.2009

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope… May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rom 15:4,13

God is the God of hope. The purpose of the Scriptures that he has inspired is to give us hope. God wants us who know him to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hope can be defined as "a good expectation of the future". Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines hope as "a confident feeling about what will happen in the future."

Hebrews 11:1 explains that we can not have faith without hope. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Since God wants us to pray with faith, we must first have hope. When we overflow with hope, we can also pray with faith and see answers to our prayers.

The whole world today is desperately looking for hope. This week we saw a huge poster hanging outside of a souvenir store here in Israel, with the word HOPE written under a picture of President Obama. Man can not live without hope. Hope is the last thing to die.

Much of traditional Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic teaching about the end times has unfortunately tended to produce a lot of fear and uncertainty in people, rather than "a good expectation of the future". Since God is a God of hope and he wants us to overflow with hope, we need to take a serious look at what the Scriptures really teach.

Whereas the Scriptures view the return of the Messiah as a judgment of all evil and a takeover for the kingdom of heaven, the main feature of popular teachings like the best selling "Left Behind series" is, just as the title itself indicates, one of escape. There is no future for this world and you do not want to be left behind in it. But the hope of the believer is not that we one day will leave, but that the Messiah will come! It is foremost not an air lift to safety, but a transformation into immortality. The rapture is about us being caught up in the air to meet the Messiah when he comes to Jerusalem, so that we will be with him forever. It is about us being changed to be like him. Nowhere does the Bible say that we will be transported to heaven as our final destination in the rapture.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed… we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Rom 8:18-19,23-24

The Hope of the First Believers

In Justin Martyr's book Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, written in the second century, the Jewish rabbi Trypho asks Justin Martyr,

"…do you acknowledge for a truth that this place Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and expect that your people will be gathered together and rejoice with Christ, together with the patriarchs and the prophets, and the saints of our race, or even of them who became proselytes, before your Christ came…?"

Justin replies,

"I have acknowledged to you earlier that I and many others do hold this opinion, even as you also know well that this is to take place… I, and all other entirely orthodox Christians, know that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and also a thousand years in Jerusalem built up and adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah, and all the rest, acknowledge.

"And, further, a man among us named John, one of the apostles of Christ, prophesied in a Revelation made to him that they who have believed our Christ will spend a thousand years in Jerusalem, and that afterwards the universal, and, in one word, eternal resurrection of all at once, will take place, and also the judgment." End quote

We see here that one hundred years after the resurrection, according to Justin Martyr, all "entirely orthodox Christians" shared the exact same hope as the Jewish people! It is a hope centered on Jerusalem and the millennial reign of the Messiah over the nations. It is a message of resurrection and the transformation of this world, not of escape from this world. Unfortunately traditional evangelical/Pentecostal eschatology has managed to turn the biblical message about our future hope upside down. What a tragedy this is!

Papias, who was a disciple of the Apostle John, preached the same message as Justin Martyr. So did Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and others. Irenaeus taught the Jewish apocalyptic view that the world will last seven thousand years, or "seven days", and that the seventh will be the Sabbath before the eternal state begins. At the end of the sixth millennium, evil will reach a climax through the antichrist, who will be destroyed when Yeshua returns to set up the kingdom.

It was mainly Origen who first introduced a Greek mindset into the interpretation of the Scriptures, including the prophetic word. St Augustine developed this thinking further and laid the foundation for the theology that has dominated both Catholic and traditional Protestant eschatology up to our day. It is an eschatology of church triumphalism through compromise with the world rather than faithfulness, suffering and a longing for the return of Yeshua.

In the 19th century Darbyism and dispensational theology became the dominant view among Bible believing Evangelicals and Pentecostals. This is the eschatology behind the popular "Left Behind" series. I (Lars) grew up steeped in this theology from my earliest childhood. It is still deeply ingrained in the thinking of many Bible believing Christians. Whereas St Augustine built his eschatology on replacement theology, the idea that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people; dispensational theology is built on "separation theology," which means that the church and Israel have two different destinies.

As we wrote earlier, this was not the dominant view during the first centuries among the Christians, when Christians and Jews looked forward to the same hope. Neither is it what the apostles taught. Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, was very clear concerning his calling to the Gentiles,

This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Messiah Yeshua. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Messiah [that also the Gentiles have a share in the promises in him given to Israel]. Eph 3:6-8

In these last days it is extremely important that we return to the apostolic gospel and the original hope found in the Messiah! Biblical hope is centered on the coming of the Messiah and the restoration of Jerusalem. This must once again become the focus of our hope and prayers in faith in these last days. Zechariah 12:9-10 gives us a direction for our prayers at this time,

On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

We are called to be watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem until it becomes the praise of the earth. Isaiah 52:8 says,

Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the LORD returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.

And in Luke 12:37 Yeshua promises,

It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.

God as Creator

Biblical hope is based on the fact that God is the Creator of everything. When God had finished his work of creating, it says, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." (Gen 1:31) It does not say that what God created was bad, but that it was good. Like we wrote earlier we are looking forward to the transformation of this world, not an escape from it! Our glorious hope is not that we will leave, but that the Messiah will return in power! It is a hope of restoration and victory for God and the total defeat of Satan and all evil.

The Greek mindset, where there is an opposition between the material and the spiritual worlds, and that only the unseen spiritual realm is good, which is at the foundation of both St Augustine's and Darby's eschatology, is unscriptural. Yeshua taught us to pray for the Kingdom to come and for God's will to be done on earth, just as it is in heaven. He never taught us to pray that God would take us from the earth to his kingdom.

Habackuk 2:14 says, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." And Revelation 11:15 describes the glorious hope that we are to look forward to, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever." This glorious expectation is somehow removed from the focus among the "Left behind" proponents, or it is at best viewed as of secondary importance. The main focus is that we disappear and go to heaven. Nowhere is this ever taught in the Bible!! The Bible rather talks about "entering the kingdom of God," "inheriting the kingdom of God," "seeing the kingdom of God," "receiving the kingdom of God," "waiting for the kingdom of God," "having an inheritance in the kingdom of God," "being worthy of the kingdom of God," "receiving a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord," etc, etc.

That God is the Creator of everything is the basis of our faith, and that he will also one day transform everything "at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne." (Matt 19:28) "Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new.' And He said to me, 'Write, for these words are true and faithful.'" (Rev 21:5)

Faith in God as Creator and the fear and worship due Him because of this, is part of the eternal gospel that will be emphasized in the end times before Yeshua returns,

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth — to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water." Rev 14:6-7

We see the same "good news," emphasized by Barnabas and Paul when they preached to the Gentiles in Lystra, "We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them." (Acts 14:15) Barnabas and Paul then continued by making an important observation of the fact that God is the creator of everything,

In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." Acts 14:16-17

The food that we eat is an obvious testimony of God's power and loving care for all human beings! In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul explains,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Rom 1:18-20

God has not left himself without testimony. His kindness as well as his power can be seen in creation, especially by the food that he provides. Here comes the serious part. Paul continues in the next verse,

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened… Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts… God gave them over to shameful lusts… he gave them over to a depraved mind… They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. Rom 1:21-29

Notice here that the moral degeneration of man into becoming an object of God's wrath, begins with a refusal to glorify God and give him thanks for what he has created! The opposite is also true. When we are careful to give God the glory due him as the Creator of all things and we give thanks to him for what he has made, our minds become enlightened rather than darkened. This is a crucial part of restoring an overflowing hope in us in the midst of difficult and turbulent times. We will discuss this further next week.

Continue to: "Overflowing With Hope – Part 2"

"Prepare the Way for the LORD"