1. “The Biblical Doctrine of Hope”
Dr. Gwen Ebner

2. What is Hope?
“Hope is not wishful thinking or mere
blind optimism. It is a mode of
knowing, a mode within which new
things are possible, options are not
shut down, new creation can happen.”
(N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope. New York, NY:
HarperCollins Publishers, 10022, 72.)

3. Definition of Hope
“Hope is expectation expressed in
faith, confidence, patience, endura
nce, and eagerness.”
(Emory Stevens Bucke, ed., The Interpreter’s
Dictionary of the Bible. Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 641.)

4. Waiting, trusting, and hoping are
intricately connected: like golden
strands interwoven to form a strong
chain. Trusting is the central strand,
because it is the response from us that
God desires the most.
(Sarah Young, Dear Jesus. Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 2007.)

5. Theological Contexts
• There is a wide range of meanings for
the word “hope” in English usage: to
trust, to endure, to expect and to await.
• But the predominant usage in
theological contexts relates to hope
springing from the covenants made by
God with his people, linking together
the two parties of the covenant.

6. Picture of Hopelessness

7. Three Ways of Describing Hope
1. The anticipation of good (Titus
1:2)
2. The ground upon which our
hope is based (Col. 1:27)
3. The object upon which our hope
is fixed (I Tim. 1:1)

8. “He who has a why to live can
bear with almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th-century, German
philosopher, poet, composer, and classical
philologist.

9. Posture of Godly Hope

10. Scriptural Teachings about Hope
1. God is the author of hope, not just the
subject or object! (Rom. 15:13)
2. Hope is a factor in salvation (Rom. 8:24)
3. Hope is connected to our calling (Eph. 4:4)
4. Hope finds its expression in endurance
under trial, in suffering, and in times of
trouble (I Thess. 1:3, Rom. 5:3, Psa. 42:5,
62:5, 130:7)
5. We have the hope of eternal life (Titus 1:2,
3:7, Eph. 2:13)

11. The Bigger Picture
• How does the whole picture -
Jesus birth, death, resurrection,
and ascension change the way we
look at our future hope?
• How do we live now as people of
hope?

12. Jesus Death, Resurrection, Ascension and
Second Coming
• Death: Through the death of Jesus Christ our Savior, we
have been justified by his grace, so that we might
become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:7)
• Resurrection: We have a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead! (I Pet. 1:3)
– No other religious leader has broken the power of
death and conquered sin.
– Christ’s resurrection revealed Christ power over
death and secured our victory over death as well
(Eph. 2:6)
– The resurrection defeated Christ’s enemy, Satan.

13. Jesus Death, Resurrection, Ascension and
Second Coming
• Resurrection cont.: In the 1st centuries of the
Christian era, we find people who risked their life
and were willing to die for what they believed.
They didn’t talk about heaven; they talked about
the resurrection of Jesus.” (Acts 23:6)
• Ascension: “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to
them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at
the right hand of God.”
– The ascension of Christ was the final act in the
drama of redemption. His mission completed, Jesus
Christ was exalted to His former glory.

14. Jesus Death, Resurrection, Ascension and
Second Coming
• Second Coming: Jesus promised His disciples He
would come again. “I will come back and take
you to be with me” (Jn. 14:3)
– Christ’s coming is unexpected and no man knows
the exact time (II Pet. 3:10, Matt. 24:36)
– “The whole world is waiting, on tiptoe with
expectation, for the moment when that
resurrection life and power sweeps through it,
filling it with the glory of God.” (Wright, 108)
– Until then, we are to live as people of hope and to
share with others the hope we have in Christ!

15. Wright Challenges the Way
we Look at Heaven
“God’s kingdom” in the preaching of Jesus
refers…not to our escape from this world into
another one, but to God’s sovereign rule
coming “on earth as it is in heaven”.
Christians often believe they are to devalue
this present world and body and look only to
the hope that they have in heaven (18)

16. Wright indicates heaven is a “picture of
present reality, the heavenly dimension of
our present life…the other, hidden,
dimension of our ordinary life – God’s
dimension, if you like….It is simply
assumed that the word heaven is the
appropriate term for the ultimate
destination, the final home, and that the
language of resurrection, and of the new
earth as well as the new heavens, must
somehow be fitted into that. (19)

17. Part of Final Quote (Wright, 214-215):
…People who believe that God will turn the
world upside down…are not going to be
backward in getting on with some world-
changing activities in the present…People
who believe in the resurrection, in God
making a whole new world in which
everything will be set right at last, are
unstoppably motivated to work for that
new world in the present…

18. (Continuing)…The world has already been
turned upside down; that’s what Easter is all
about. It isn’t a matter of waiting until God
eventually does something different at the
end of time. God has brought his future, his
putting-the-world-to-rights future, into the
present in Jesus of Nazareth, and he wants
that future to be implicated more and more
in the present. That’s what we pray for
every time we say the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.

19. Romans 15:13
“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.”

20. Questions
1. Share about a time when your Hope in Christ was
shaken because of a loss, a situation, or your hope
being located in the wrong place.
– How are we to understand our hope in light of
heartbreaking situations that God allows to happen?
2. George Whitefield said, “Ask yourselves again and
again whether you would preach for Christ if you
were sure to lay down your life for doing so? If you
fear the displeasure of a man …assure yourselves
you are not yet thus minded?
– Is your hope in your calling that important to you?
– Are you willing to lay down your life for your calling?

21. 3. Wright says, “People who believe that God will
turn the world upside down…are not going to be
backward in getting on with some world-changing
activities in the present…People who believe in the
resurrection, in God making a whole new world in
which everything will be set right at last, are
unstoppably motivated to work for that new world
in the present”. (Wright, 214)
– What would that look like for God to involve you
in some world-changing activities?
– How does God want to use your gifts, your
witness, and your love to touch the world?
– What keeps you from allowing God to use you in
world-changing activities?