Who Needs Hope?

Now that I understand what hope is, I must decide “Do I need to have hope?” To a person who lives in a nation where there is an abundance, this an especially important question. In an “instant gratification” society where we have our needs met and our wants fulfilled so easily, it is easy to forget that this world is not all there is. It is easy to forget that we have a need (and should have a want) for hope.

In Titus chapters 2 and 3, Paul instructs Titus to encourage Christians to live righteously before God. Why?

• Because they had been “redeemed from every lawless deed” and purified by Jesus Christ so that they might be “His own special people” (Titus 2:11-14)
• Because before they had known Christ, they had been “foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” (Titus 3:1-3)
• Because those who engage in such things (i.e. SIN) cannot be “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7)

So Paul reveals that those who have not been saved through “the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5) cannot be partakers in this hope.

Who are these outcasts Paul is talking about? He is talking about those who are lost in sin. Who is included in this? Paul said that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This means that every single individual from Adam to me has sinned . . . except One, Jesus Christ. Paul also tells us that through sin, man lost all hope of eternal life: “Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

This does not mean that every person after Adam “inherited” Adam’s sin. To say so is to contradict the teachings of the Scriptures. For example, consider what God says in Ezekiel 18. Ezekiel, speaking for God, says that if a man commits all manner of sin and yet has a son who walks in the statutes and commandments of God, the son shall not be held accountable for the sins of his father. Note especially verse 20 (emphasis mone): “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” I am no more responsible for or guilty of the sin of Adam than my son is for the sins that I commit.

No, Paul says death spread to all men because all sinned. I lost my hope and was separated from God when I committed my first sin. We do not inherit the sin of Adam, but we do suffer the same consequences of sin that Adam suffered . . . spiritual death, which is the opposite of “the hope of eternal life.”

Paul goes on to reveal in Romans 5:17-19 how the hope of eternal life was restored (emphasis mine):

For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

So, who needs hope? Each and every individual on this earth . . . past, present, and future. We have all sinned, so we have all lost the hope of eternal life. Yet how wonderful it is that God Almighty has provided a Way that our hope might be restored: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).