THE PRINCE OF PEACE 323
inasmuch as we are still environed by an unrenewed creation, which, on account of man s sin, was subjected to vanity ; so long as we still carry about " the body of this death " and know the motions of sin and death within us ; so long as we are still in this present evil age, and not actually in our glorious promised land, and our Father s own house we are " prisoners of hope," for not only do we still form part of that creation which groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For by hope are we saved ; but hope that is seen is not hope : for who hopeth for that which he seeth ? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." l
We are therefore longing and looking for the realisation of " the Blessed Hope," namely, " the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ," who also shall bring rest and deliverance to a groaning creation and fashion anew the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself. 2
1 Rom. viii. 22-25.
2 Zech. ix. 12 is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the word for hope has the article. It is therefore, as has been observed, not any hope, or general hope, that the prophet speaks about, but THE SPECIAL hope of Israel, " the hope which sustained him through all the years of patient expectation." The centre and essence of it is the Messiah, and the great promised national and spiritual redemption which He was to accomplish, and which will not be fully realised till He shall appear a second time apart from sin unto salvation, and to establish His righteous rule on the earth.
The hope is carried over therefore from the Old Testament into the New. Paul speaks of it as " the hope of Israel," for which the Jews of Rome saw him bound as a prisoner in a chain (Acts xxviii. 20), or, as he said in his defence before Agrippa : " I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes earnestly serving God night and day hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O King" (Acts xxvi. 6, 7).
It was doubtless in his mind when he spoke of "the blessed hope and the appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. ii. 13), for then the hope as regards the Church, and Israel, and the world, will be fully realised.
