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HOPE
one of the three main elements of Christian character (1-Cor 13:13). It is joined to faith and love, and is opposed to seeing or possessing (Rom. 8:24; 1-John 3:2). "Hope is an essential and fundamental element of Christian life, so essential indeed, that, like faith and love, it can itself designate the essence of Christianity (1-Pet 3:15; Heb. 10:23). In it the whole glory of the Christian vocation is centred (Eph. 1:18;4:4)." Unbelievers are without this hope (Eph. 2:12; 1-Thess 4:13). Christ is the actual object of the believer's hope, because it is in his second coming that the hope of glory will be fulfilled (1-Tim 1:1; Col. 1:27; Titus 2:13). It is spoken of as "lively", i.e., a living, hope, a hope not frail and perishable, but having a perennial life (1-Pet 1:3). In Rom. 5:2 the "hope" spoken of is probably objective, i.e., "the hope set before us," namely, eternal life (12:12). In 1-John 3:3 the expression "hope in him" ought rather to be, as in the Revised Version, "hope on him," i.e., a hope based on God.
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