897
298 THE POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE
2, So when in this chapter St. John has for an instant opened for us the door leading into the future home of the redeemed, he shuts it again, brings us back to earth once more, and says to us, as stated in the text, that the matter immediately before us is not what we are going to be there, but what we are going to be and do here, and that the only legitimate effect of the glimpse he has just given us into the celestial world will be to steady and encourage the steps that are to be taken by us in this world, " And every man that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." That preserves the continuity between the life there and the life here, but the use to which he puts that continuity is to enhance our interest in this world rather than to diminish that interest.
^ This is the only time in John's Epistle that he speaks about hope. The good man, living so near Christ, finds that the present, with its " abiding in him," is enough for his heart. And though he was the Seer of the Apocalypse, he has scarcely a word to say about the future in this letter of his ; and when he does, it is for a simple and intensely practical purpose, in order that he may enforce on us the teaching of labouring earnestly in purifying ourselves.^
I.
The Character of Christian Hope.
1. The Christian has a hope peculiar to himself. — It is the hope of being like Jesus Christ. " We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." Now some would not put it in that way : they would say that their hope as Christians is to tread the golden streets, pass within the pearly gates, listen to the harpers harping with their harps, and, standing upon the sea of glass, be for ever free from toil and pain. But those are only the lower joys of heaven, except so far as they indicate spiritual bliss. The real truth, the truth that is contained in these metaphors and figures, and underlies them all, is that heaven is being like our Lord. While it will consist in our sharing in the Eedeemer's power, the Redeemer's joy and the Redeemer's honour, yet, it will consist mainly in our being spiritually and morally like Him — being
^ A. Maclaren.
I JOHN III. 3 299
purified as He is pure. And if we may become like Jesus Christ as to His character — pure and perfect — how can any other joy be denied us ? If we shall have that, surely we shall have every- thing. This, then, is our hope — that we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.
^ One of the greatest fallacies under which men live is hoping for heaven when they themselves are out of sympathy with heaven. Heaven is not infrequently regarded as a place to which admission is gained by some lenient act of Divine amnesty, or by some special pleading of a mediator — human or Divine — or by some clever piece of juggling at the last moment. Instead of this the Bible tells us — if it tells us anything at all about that other life — that heaven is not a place into which we are admitted, but a life into which we must grow. Heaven is not location, or circum- stantial environment: Heaven is character. What we are here determines whether we shall have heaven or hell in the life to come.
Life, like a dome of many coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity.^
2. This hope goes heyond the present life. — It is far above man : it is set on God. In climbing towards it, he must leave all meaner things behind and beneath him. The hope of the Christian is the one worthy, enduring hope that is capable of lifting man above the earth and leading him to heaven. For all earthly and human ideals are too near the man to last him more than a little while. No sooner does he propose one such to himself, and begin to mount towards it, than it ^begins to lose its excellence as he draws nigh to it, and soon it has no power to hold his affections. There is no imaginable state that he cannot so disenchant except heaven, and no model that he cannot unidealize except the Son of God. Therefore every mere earthly hope is unworthy to rule a man and, if he have no higher, will at last degrade him ; because man is greater than any earthly honour he can aspire to, and greater than the world that he lives in, and greater than all its achievements and glories — yes, greater than anything except God. Sic itur ad astra : This is the way to the stars. And Jesus, our elder brother, has gone before, and opened the way for aspiring man to follow. Behold they go to Him, out of every nation and
1 W. J. Hockiug.
300 THE POWER OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE
every land, the leal, the loving, the true-hearted, even those who believe on His name. One by one they shake off all meaner desires, and lay all meaner purposes down, and as they climb towards Him along the various paths of suffering and of duty, their hearts are filled with a common hope — to be like Him, and see Him as He is.