The Foundation of Christian Hope

The Foundation of Christian Hope THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN HOPE
J. P. Sanders

Throughout the long history of the human race, as mankind has struggled to gain mastery over both himself and his environment, he has placed his hopes of a better world in many things. Some have been so foolish as to place it in their own strength, only to find themselves defeated by some superior power. Others have sought it in philosophy, believing that knowledge holds the key to the problem of the universe. Yet the philosopher finds himself in the face of profound mysteries of life that no honest philosopher could deny. Facing such mysteries many have become skeptical and others have taken the road of the materialist. Perhaps most of our modern philosophers are instrumentalists and their sole interest is in mechanism and efficiency. They are interested in a philosophy of doing, a philosophy of action rather than a philosophy of values. The result, however, is just what we are getting—catastrophe, war, ruin. Perhaps it is not too much to say that Hitlerism is the essence of this theory of action developed and carried out to its nth conclusion. And after all, what is it but the old philosophy of the jungle. While according philosophy a higher place than force we still must list it as a failure in remaking the world.

Other men have turned to science. The rapid de-velopments of the last century and of this led many to feel that the hope of the world lay in the developments of scientific interests and scientific mechanisms. Science has done so many wonderful things that men have been wont to think that there was nothing that it could not do. To many of its savants therefore it has become a god. But science too has failed us in dealing with the ultimate. Its sphere, while useful, is too limited. It is only a tool of life and never an end. It has given us good light with which to extend our days, but has not been concerned with what we did with the extra time. It has enabled us to travel from one place to another much more quickly. It has not interested itself with the worthwhileness of the trip. It has prolonged our life by showing us how to conquer disease, but it has not dealt with the problem of what makes life worth prolonging. Because it has not conquered the human will, because it has not shown us a worthwhile program of real living, it has lent itself just as well to the forces of destruction as to the forces of righteousness. A flying ship not only overcomes the inconveniences of travel, but makes the perils of war thousands of times more horrible. In the last analysis, science, we should say, is neither good nor bad, it is neither moral nor immoral, it is simply a tool in the hand of moral or immoral men. The state of man’s morality must be determined by something that lies beyond and outside the realm of science.

Others have turned from these things to education. But education, like science, is found to be only a tool, and the results depend on the type of men who guide it. Since it has been primarily concerned with the development of the material and the intellectual, to the neglect of the spiritual, we must also list it among the forces that have failed, to bring about the fulfillment of man’s highest hopes and deepest yearnings. But Christianity is different. It places its hopes not in the force of nature or of human beings, not in the results of human knowledge and philosophy, nor of science or education, but in a divine-human being, in Christ, the word of God. The foundations of our Christian hope rest squarely on Jesus, the crucified but risen Saviour. Jesus of Nazareth is pictured in the New Testament as the Christ, the king of prophecy, the fulfiller of Israel’s highest hope and brightest ideals, the august person in whom the history of the chosen nation culminated, and in whom the divine purpose in her election found its consummation and interpretation. The very heart of the gospel message is the death of Christ for human sins. Without it all the rest of Christianity is in vain. It is at once the most profound of all the truth of the world, and still the most creative. It determines for us our conception of God, of man and of history. It de-termines them for we must bring them all into accord with it. In the last resort, it holds the "key to all suffering. The cross is a reality of such sort that it can make no compromise. The man who fights it knows that he is fighting for his life, puts all his strength into the battle. To surrender is to give hirnself up, to cease to be the man he is and to become another. In the present century, therefore, as in the first century, the attraction and repulsion of the Christian message are centered on the same point. The cross of Christ is man’s only glory, or it is his final stumbling block. Paul said to the Corinthians, “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom, of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). Since our entire salvation rests on the reconciliation that Jesus has made for our sins on the cross, let us give some attention to the means by which Gocl brought it to pass. A natural beginning place is to be found in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” While Paul admits that in enduring the shameful death on the cross, Jesus became a curse, yet Paul maintains that he became such not because of what he was but on our account. Jesus was subject to this shameful death not justly, but vicariously. He bore this shame for us. His death proves nothing against him, but on the contrary shows to what a depth of shame he was willing to de-scend in order that men might know the blessings of his redeeming blood. The cross then is not something in which the Christian is ashamed, but something in which he finds his highest hope. It is the symbol of divine condescension and pity in order to save men. Paul was so thoroughly rooted and grounded in its message, that he said, “Far be it for me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 4:14). “The word of the cross is the power of God unto Salvation” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Paul had determined within himself to have but one subject of knowledge and interest, Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Jesus was a pure and holy being absolutely without sin himself, who willingly submitted to be treated as a sinner for our sake. “Him who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Certainly this passage means that the sinless Christ endured a cross that he did not personally deserve, bore an experience of suffering such as belonged only to the nature of sinful man rather than to him, and he did all of this to secure the salvation of mankind. The scriptures are literally filled with passages which show Christ as a sin bearing redeemer, “Who died for us, whether he wake or sleep, we should live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10). “Who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us out of this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4). “Who was delivered up on account of our transgressions” (Romans 4:25). “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sins condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). “He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also freely give us all things? Who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ who died” (Romans 8:32). “One died for all, therefore all died” (2 Corinthians 5:15). “For to this end Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9). “Christ has blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). Many other passages express the idea of redemption or deliverance as by purchase. For example, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). “God sent forth his Son that he might redeem those under the law” (Galatians 4:4). “In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins” (Colossians 1:14). “You were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). “Being justified freely by his grace through, the redemption that is v/ithin Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith by his blood, to show his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime through the forbearance of God, for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season, that he might himself be just and the justified of him that hath faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:24-26). Other passages in the New Testament speak of the reconciliation between God and man by the death of Christ. “For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). “But all things are of God who reconciled us to himself through Christ who gave to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:18). The word that we ordinarily use to refer to this process by which God reconciles sinful man unto himself through Christ is the word “atonement.” This word is found but once in the New Testament, Romans 5:11, and that in the King James Version. The American Standard Version uses the word “reconciliation.” “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” The atonement or reconcilation is the result of God’s love for a sinful world. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “Herein is love, not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). After man’s creation a state of alienation and enmity came between God and man as a result of man’s sins. The justice of God demanded that sin should be punished, while on the other hand the love of God sought a means by which man might be saved. Were our God a God of justice only and not a God of justice and mercy, we would be without hope. The wisdom of God provided the death of Jesus on the cross that justice might be fully satisfied and that the love and mercy of the Father might be freely bestowed. We have all sinned. Everyone of us has alienated himself from God as the result of transgression of the law. “There is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “There is none righteous, no not one.” “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way.” And the Bible further informs us that the wages of sin is death. But while the justice of God demanded a penalty for sin, the mercy of God provided that penalty in Jesus Christ. So that we, while sinners, might be reconciled unto himself by the death on the cross. “That Christ hath suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18)

One of the oldest examples used to illustrate the com-bination of justice and love, is that of Zaleucus, the Locrean law-giver and ruler. He found it necessary to make a law that those who committed a certain crime should have both eyes put out. The very first violator of that law was one very near and dear to him, his own son. Naturally all eyes were turned to the king to see whether justice or love would triumph. The exercise of justice of law would have resulted in the cruel punishment of the offender, in the loss of both eyes by his son. The exercise of mercy alone would have resulted in setting the law aside and sparing the offender. The king’s wisdom devised a scheme which satisfied both justice and mercy. He had one of the offender’s eyes put out and one of his own. Thus he took part of the suffering upon himself, gave a nobler expression of the importance that a rightous ruler attached to law than if in cold blood he had executed the full penalty on the offender. And at the same time he gave a grander proof of his love for the offender than if he had ignored the law and unconditionally pardoned him. God saw mankind as the offender against his perfect, holy and righteous law. He further realized that man had nothing with which he could atone for his sins. God then in Christ, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, suffered for us, the just for the unjust, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. In that way he presented to us the noblest proof of his infinite wisdom, devised a just punishment for all sins, and showed an infinite love that could save all sinners. At the cross, therefore, “mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” In Christ’s death on the cross, we see God pursuing a method which illustrates alike his goodness and severity, that is, reveals, vindicates, and satisfies his whole moral nature. Since Christ has died for our sins to redeem us from the curse of the law it is apparent at once that Christianity is a religion of redemption. Jesus becomes our redeemer, a Saviour who died in our stead, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God This is the glorious good, news of Christianity. We have a sin bearing Saviour, a vica rious redeemer, whose death atones for our sins. This truth, namely that Jesus suffered and died for man’s redemption on the cross of Calvary, is opposed by all the forces of hell. It is made light of by many human philosophers. It is attacked by atheism and infidelity, umtarianism, humanism, and most modernists. But it must be upheld by all those who are truly God’s children. And we believe that there is so much power here in God’s plan that it cannot possibly be defeated by all the forces of the universe that oppose it.

Someone has said, to create man God had only to speak, to reedeem him he had to suffer. He made man by his breath, he saved him by his blood. And there is no other power under heaven whereby man can be saved except by the blood of Jesus. The sin-stained conscience of mankind can be washed white now’here except in the blood of the lamb.

"‘My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righeeousness;
[ dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.”
“His oath, his covenant, his blood, Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.” The human conscience is powerless to free it from the guilt of sin except by the blood of Jesus. Other men may have set great examples, other leaders may have held up before their countrymen high ideals, but no one, no one but Jesus has provided, a means whereby the guilty conscience can be cleansed of its sins. In vain does Lady Macbeth seek to wash the blood spots from her hands. The only thing that can remove them is the blood of Jesus. In the seventh chapter of the book of Romans, in that mite of autobiography of the apostle Paul, Paul found it impossible even to satisfy his own conscience as he sought to live up to the law cf God. When he would do good he found that evil was present. Although within his mind he served the law of God he found the law of death working in his members. This caused him to reach the awful conclusion, “Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” Without Jesus there was no hope. Paul found himself powerless to overcome the inclination of evil within himself. His condition was one of misery and of wretchedness until his conscience with his sins were washed in the blood of Jesus.
George Elliot, in one of the most realistic of all her books, tells the story of a young woman, who strayed from the path of right. In order to hide her shame and crime she put to death her tiny baby and hid its. little body in the hedge. She soon, however, was overtaken by justice and judgement. She was arrested and brought to trial. Many kindly women gathered around her and compassioned her. Yet for all their compassion, George Elliot tells us that when they ceased to talk for half a minute she would come back with the wild refrain, “Yes, yes, I have heard all you have said, I have heard it all. But tell me, will I always hear the cry of the little child I put to death in the hedge?”

George Elliot is simply saying that there is no way that the conscience which must be reckoned with can be kept quiet. But Jesus is the door of hope in the valley of Achor. He hath suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. His blood cleanses the conscience and takes away the guilt of sin that we may stand justified and free in the presence of our father. Without Jesus’ atonement for our sins there would be no gospel to preach and there would be no hope for the lost. And someone has reminded us that sin has no history apart from redemption. If it had not been said, the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head, the woman would have had no seed and the race, no history. In our preaching of the gospel we must always place emphasis on three truths in reference to the atonement. First, is necessity. There is no salvation except through the blood of Christ. Second, its extent. It avails for all sinners and for all sins. The blood of Jestrs cleanses us from all sins. Third, it is conditional in its application. Only those who have accepted it by faith and have obeyed the gospel of our Lord have benefited thereby. It is thus limited by the will of man and not by the will of God. God provides it for all but we must accept it as the result of our own choice. Neither is there salvation in any other, nor is there any other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe. Only those will be saved who believe in him and obey his gospel. These great truths have been well expressed in one of the great hymns:

“Lord, I believe thy precious blood, Which at the mercy seat of God,
Forever doth for sinners plead, For me, e’en for my soul was shed.
Lord, I believe were sinners more Than sands upon the ocean shore,
Thou hast for all a ransom paid, For all a full atone-ment made.” His death atones for the sins of Saul of Tarsus, who represented himself as being the chief of sinners because he had been a persecutor of the church of our Loid. His death atones for the sins of the many-hus- banded woman at the well. His death atones for the 3,000 who accepted the gospel on the day of Pentecost, among whom were the murderers of the Lord himself. Yes, his death atones for the soldiers who drove the nails through his hands, for Pontius Pilate who turned him over to the Jews to be crucified, for the Jews who cried, “His blood be upon us and upon our children forever.” His blood atones for you and me, for all who will come humbly to the cross.

“0 can it be upon a tree The Saviour died for me,
My soul is thrilled, my heart is filled,
To think he died for me.” But that Jesus who died for us was also raised for our justification. Herein lies our hope for the world beyond the grave, our faith and immortality. Job asked the question in the long ago, If a man die shall he live again? This question waited for its completed answer until Jesus arose from the grave. The Christian view of immortality maintains the continuation of personal consciousness, the existence on the other side of death, of the same person who lived in this world. Our personalized conscious life will continue beyond the grave in such a way as to make us know that we are we, the same creatures who one time lived and suffered on the earth. There was little in pagan knowledge that could fill man with joy and hope as they looked toward the open tomb. There was always wonder and doubt and little of assurance. Socrates, the greatest in the pagan world, in the moments of his departure spoke words of consolation to his weeping friends. But at the same time he declared that whether the change could better his condition he could not tell. Death was a leaving of the known for the unknown—a leaving for the unexplored abyss with its awful silence and mystery. It was reserved for him who is the resurrection and the life to shed about death the radiance of an eternal hope. The Psalmist has said, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” But only those who know Christ can shout in triumphant exultation, 0 death,where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory? Jesus hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Old fears pass away and new hope fills the heart as a result. In the midst of great persecution, harried on every side, the greatest of the apostles, in his weariness and painfulness, one time explained, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a more exceeding and a more eternal weight of glory. For we know that if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 4:17 to 2 Corinthians 5:1).

Later on, in his Roman dungeon, thinking of his beloved son in the gospel, he could look beyond the mist that hung over the valley of the shadow and see the crown of righteousness in his redeemer’s hands ready to be placed upon his immortal brow. The explanation of this hope was his confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ. No other teacher has ever inspired the hope and confidence that Jesus has. Buddha, Confucious, Tao, and others have very little to offer by way of hope concerning the future. Most of them have longed for a kind of nothingness, an extinction of desire, with no continuation of personal consciousness at all.

Consequently it was the beginning of a new era in man’s hope when Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Jesus said, “The hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man and shall come forth. They that have done good, to the resurrection of life; they that have done evil to the res-urrection of damnation. He that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live. He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Surely Jesus speaks as one who had authority and not as the scribes. Never did man speak like this man. In him was no darkness at all. One of the unique features of Jesus and his message on which our hope rests, and which sets him apart from all other teachers, is this: No other founder of any other religion, while still living, staked his religion upon his triumph over death. Yet Jesus, before he faced the cross, staked the hope of all his future aspirations on his own triumph over .death and the grave.

“Judaism left Moses sleeping in the lonely sepulchre of Mount Nebo. No Chinese or Buddhist Bible tells how the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre of Confuscius or Buddha, and how they rose again to cheer their despairing disciples by their presence and by the promise of light and victory over the grave. As far as the dim legends of Zorroaster are concerned, when he died he went to the towers of silence as all his followers. The Mohammedan, borrowing a hope from Christianity, believes that his prophet is in Paradise, but has never dared to affirm that he has been seen by mortal vision since his body was placed in the tomb at Mecca. In contrast with all these other religions, Christianity bounded into existence big with the hope of immortality, and pointing to a crucified but risen Lord, as the foundation of this hope. In the first sermon, Peter said, “Him whom ye have taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain, God hath raised up, whereof we are witnesses.” The faith of Christianity rests in Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, and who rose from the tomb as the first fruits of them that slept. Here is the full explanation of the new hope, joy, and inspiration which came into human life with the earthly church of our Lord. The greatest enemy of man and the last that ever shall be conquered is death. In Christ and his resurrection we find our victory over this enemy. “O death, where is thy victory ? 0 death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).