BELIEF IN HOPE NECESSARY TO JUSTIFICATION.

We are glad to find that however shy the Bethanian echoes of this country are of the Hope of Israel, this politic coyness does not extend to the “Gospel Banner” published in Nottingham, England. The impartiality of that paper has procured for it both friends and subscribers in the United States; and we trust that in Britain it will be patronised as it deserves. The Hope of Israel, or the Kingdom of God, is the leading topic of the several numbers on the desk before us; as indeed it ought to be in a periodical styled “the Gospel Banner,” for where this is not discussed “the gospel” is a word and nought beside.

One of the writers argues that the knowledge of the Hope of the Gospel is not indispensable to justification and future salvation; but that the apprehension of it, like faith and love, is a gradual work, it not being attained fully at first. This notion he deduces from Paul’s prayer contained in the first of Ephesians from the seventeenth verse. In that place the apostle prays, that the Ephesian saints and faithful in Christ Jesus “might know what is the Hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and power, and might, and lordship, and above every name that is named, not only in this age (en to aioni) but also in the future (en to mellonti).” He argues that if Paul prayed that saints already in Christ Jesus “might know the hope of God’s calling,” they must have been ignorant of it at the time of the prayer, and consequently when they were immersed into Christ. He does not forget that these saints were “called with one hope of the calling,” (en mia elpidi tes kleseos,) which thus became their calling (hymon of you;) for he quotes it. But he strangely forgets, that if a man be called with a certain calling he must intellectually know what the calling is to which he is called, at the time of the call, or he could not answer to it, and accept it. If a man be called to a feast he knows where it is, and what it is, though he does not experimentally know either, until he has been to the place and eaten of the things provided. So with the saints in Ephesus. They had been called to “a feast of fat things,” which became their hope. They knew where the things of their earnest expectation were provided, and what they consisted in. For the apostle says to them, “God has made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself.” And this is his secret will which he has purposed, and made known to them, namely, “That in the Economy (oikonomia) of the fullness of the times he would reduce under one head (anakephalaiosasthai) all things under Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, under him.”—Ephesians 1: 9-10. Now the plain English of this is, that God’s purpose is, in the Economy to be introduced when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, to reduce all things under Jesus Christ, both the things which are in the heavens, such as the principalities, powers, lordships, and thrones of the world, and the things which are upon the earth, or the peoples, nations, and languages at present subject to their dominion, even to reduce them all under him. —Daniel 7: 13-14, 18, 21-22, 25, 27. This is the purpose of God in regard to the nations and governments of the world; and as mankind must still be governed in the age or dispensation to come, and as one single man is not sufficient to answer the demands of so extensive and magnificent a dominion, God has called or invited in the publication of this good news, both Jews and Gentiles without distinction of birth or race, to become on certain clearly defined conditions, associate kings and priests, co-rulers and joint inheritors, with his royal and divine Son whom he hath appointed to rule the world in righteousness, whereof he has given assurance to all in raising him from the dead for this very purpose. The Ephesians understood these matters well; for the eyes of their understanding were enlightened when they heard these things as set forth in “the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation,” which Paul spake boldly in the synagogue for three months, and in the school of Tyrannus daily for two years, when “he disputed and persuaded the things concerning the kingdom of God”—Acts 19: 8; so that all they who dwelt in (the province of) Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. When he sent for the Ephesian elders to come to him at Miletus, he reminded them how he had “gone among them preaching the kingdom of God;” and that in doing so he had not shunned to declare unto them “all the counsel of God.” Now, the gospel was preached to unbelievers, not to those who were already the subjects of “repentance toward God, and faith toward their Lord Jesus Christ.”—Acts 20: 17, 20-21, and 24-27. This repentance and faith was the result of believing “all the counsel of God,” which “he made known” in Paul’s preaching—a result, so little to be observed in these times, for the very reason that “the counsel, or purpose of God” (boule tou theou) is preached neither in whole nor in part by those who pretend to preach the gospel. The kingdom of God is the Hope of the gospel—the will which he has predetermined (proetheto) to carry into effect, let who will oppose or disbelieve it. This kingdom is that which is to be restored again to Israel—Acts 1: 6—at the restitution of all things—Acts 3: 21—spoken of by Moses—Deuteronomy 30: 1-10—and all the prophets; and is therefore the Hope of Israel. Now the Christ is also the Hope of Israel—Jeremiah 14: 8; and he is such because he will save Israel from their present dispersion, raising up the tribes, and restoring the desolations of their land and commonwealth; for He is “The Repairer of the breach, The Restorer of the paths to dwell in.”—Isaiah 49: 5-6, 8; 57: 12. The idea of the Christ and the kingdom are inseparable. The Christ, or the Anointed, is Israel’s Hope, because through him “the Hope of the promise made of God to their fathers,” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will be an accomplished fact. Jesus, whom we believe to be that Christ, is our hope, and formed in us the hope of glory, the hope of honor, the hope of the kingdom, the hope of life and incorruptibility, because without his appearing in his kingdom, we can have none of these things which constitute our salvation. The kingdom was Israel’s Hope as well as the gospel hope; for without the kingdom there would be, they well knew, neither king, saviour, nor redemption. They are inseparable.

The kingdom, the Christ, and Jesus were the burden of the gospel, or good news, wherever preached to Jew or Gentile. To omit one of these is to mutilate the gospel, and to make it of none effect. No man can be saved by the belief of a mutilated or perverted gospel. —Galatians 1: 6-9; 2 Corinthians 11: 4. Paul preached the gospel in its faith, hope, and love, and kept nothing back from the Ephesians that was profitable; and surely “the hope” was profitable seeing it is the subject of the “exceeding great and precious promises by faith of which we become partakers of the divine nature.” No man “believes on God” in the scripture sense who is ignorant and consequently faithless of his promises. Abraham, who is the model of them who are justified by faith, knew what God had promised, and did not stagger at what he knew. He knew that he was to possess the world as the federal father of the nations, when they should all be blessed in his Seed. He believed this when he was an old man and childless, and to all human probability would remain so. But “against hope he believed in hope.” He had no doubts or misgivings in his faith; but was “fully persuaded, that what God had promised, he was able also to perform. And THEREFORE it was imputed to him for righteousness.” The Ephesians attained to righteousness on precisely the same principles. They “believed in hope.” Hope was an ingredient of their faith; for “we are saved by the hope.” A faith that embraces merely the belief of a few facts in the life of Jesus, and an isolated doctrine predicated on those facts, has not within him the Abrahamic faith that justifies. “It was not written for Abraham’s sake alone, that his faith was imputed to him for righteousness; but for our sake’s also, to whom faith shall be imputed if we believe on God, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead:”—Romans 4—If we know and believe what God has promised, as Abraham did; if we do not, we may believe that God exists, but we do not “believe on him;” that is, we believe not the mystery of his will which he has made known.

But, in the apostle’s prayer for the saints at Ephesus he prayed that they might know the hope experimentally which they already knew intellectually. This is manifest from the wording of the prayer both in English and Greek. He first prays that they might have bestowed upon them “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.” This was the gift of the spirit, from the possession of which he argued in his letter to the saints at Rome, that God who raised up Christ from the dead would also make alive their mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelt in them. —Romans 8: 11. He prayed that the same result from the indwelling of the spirit might happen to them at Ephesus. For having reminded them of their enlightenment, he goes on to pray, “that they might know (eis to eidenai) what is the Hope of God’s calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints.” But how were they to attain to this knowledge? By knowing “what is the exceeding greatness of His power (tes dynameous autou) according to the energy of the force of his might (kata ten energeian tou kratous tes ischyos autou) which he wrought in the Christ, awaking him from among the dead.” And how were the saints at Ephesus to know the greatness of this power in such energy? The only answer that can be given is, by themselves awaking from the dead.

Eis to eidenai hymas and eis to gnonai hymas are both rendered into English by the phrase that ye may know. “Eidenai” is used in the prayer before quoted; gnonai, in another contained in Ephesians 3: 19. These two words do not signify exactly the same thing. The former from eideo signifies to see, that is, to discern with the eyes; to experience, and to know in the sense of being the subject of; the latter from ginosko, to perceive mentally, to have a knowledge of, &c. “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” Faith takes mental cognisance of the hope, and riches of the glory; but sight, sensual appreciation of them. Paul prayed that they who walked by faith might attain to sight; or that eidos or vision might supersede their gnosis, or doctrine they had received.

We conclude then, that the said writer’s proposition derives no support from the prayer in question. Gospel is good news; but what is the news about? About the things contained in the Hope. It is these things that constitute the good news, the glad tidings of great joy to all people, that all nations shall be blessed in Abraham and the Christ. In what does this blessedness consist? In their all being aggregated into one dominion under a righteous government; when peace and prosperity, justice and equity, wisdom and knowledge, security and happiness, virtue, temperance, and good-will, shall pervade the earth from the rising to the setting sun. But this righteous government, who shall be its chief and who the princes of his house? Here the hope becomes a personal affair. They shall constitute this government who believe the things of the hope and the things concerning Jesus Christ; and are the subjects of repentance and remission of sins in his name, provided they walk henceforth worthy of the hope and be not moved away from it—Colossians 1: 22-23. No hope, no gospel. Search and see if any where it can be found that a man is recognised as a saint in Christ Jesus, and therefore justified, whose faith was deficient of the hope when he was united by baptism to his name. Since the Day of Pentecost such a case cannot be produced from the sacred scriptures; for the faith which justifies is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”—Hebrews 11: 1. The “Banner” will perhaps reproduce this article in its sheet.