Good hope through grace-2 Thess. 2:16.
In 1 Peter 1:13 we are exhorted to "hope to the end for the grace that is to
be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." It is to be "brought
unto you."
Now, the margins of your Bibles give you a truer notion of the Apostle's
meaning. He did not write "that is to be brought," as if the gift was all a
future one, but "that is being borne towards you"; or, as one of the old
commentators on Peter says, in his archaic and forcible English, "the grace
that is a bring to you."
The word is the same which is used to describe the audible approach of that
mighty wind on the Day of Pentecost-"rushing" [Acts 2:2]. The notion
suggested is that this great gift has, as it were, already started on its
passage towards us, across the fields of space and the ages of the world. It
is in motion towards us, as if some choir of angels were winging their way
to this small island in the deep across the abysses, bearing in their hands
this holy bestowment. It is bearing down upon us, like a ship at sea, or
like some star traveling towards us, first a point of light, then a disc of
brightness, then a world of glory which envelops us.
That representation is true, because every tick of the pendulum brings "the
grace" nearer. Though centuries pass before the light from the far-off
shining reaches us, it is traveling, traveling, traveling towards us at
every moment. So we should hope.
Peter further suggests to us that this swiftly moving and approximating
grace is all wrapped up in "the appearing of Jesus Christ" [1 Pet. 1:7].
When He comes, it comes; for it is but the impartation of Him, and we know
that "when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he
is" [1 John 3:2].
Such, then, is the object of Christian hope stated in its most general
terms-a grace which includes resurrection, salvation, righteousness, eternal
life, the glory of God, and that grace ever tending towards us, and that
ever tending grace to be ours in its fullness, when Christ is manifested and
"we shall be manifested with him in glory" [Col. 3:4].
How different in its dignity, in its certainty, in its remoteness, which is
a blessing-how different from the paltry, shortsighted anticipations of a
near future which delude us along the path of earthly effort? Surely,
surely, this great and strange prerogative of humanity, the large discourse
which looks before and after, was given to us for other purposes than that
we should lavish and waste it upon fleeting things! But the most of us
behave with that great faculty of anticipating and imagining the future as
an astronomer might do, who, having in his possession a telescope fit to
pierce the secrets of the skies, should prefer to turn it only upon the
trivialities of earth.
"Wherefore . . . hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto
you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" [1 Pet. 1:13].
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr.Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
