Christ Our Hope

"CHRIST OUR HOPE." Pastor F. E. Marsh (Of Sunderland) (At the Nottingham Conference, May, 1894)

As a key-text, will you turn to the first epistle of Paul to Timothy, 1st chapter, 1st verse: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our Hope" now, wherever we have hope in the objective in the word of God, it always refers to the Lord Jesus Christ coming for His people.

Christ is coming in power to put down every opposing force before He can set up his kingdom on earth. He must take away every thing that offends. Before the Lord Jesus Christ comes in judgment He is coming in grace for His people. Before He comes with His people in judgment He is coming for us, and therefore when it speaks of Christ as the Hope, we are reminded not of Christ coming with His people, but of His coming for His people. When Christ is spoken of as coming for His people, it has reference to Him coming to gather His own to Himself. This is what some people call "the secret rapture." The world will wake up one day to find that every Christian is taken out of it.

If I read my Bible rightly there is not a single thing to take place before Christ comes for His people. There are many things to happen before He comes with His people. The Lord Jesus Christ is the One we want to keep before us. We want to make this subject of prophecy a special study, but don't lose sight of Christ. Don't let it be a mere doctrine that you hold, but let us keep our minds fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

The whole subject of prophecy resolves itself around the characters in which the Lord appears in the Word, and if you will only notice the characters, the names by which Christ is referred to, it will greatly help you to understand this subject of prophecy. I will throw out that suggestion in passing. One thing that has greatly helped me is to see the name or title in which Christ speaks when He comes, and its relation.

We should never think of Him coming for us is His redeemed ones as the King of Israel; because as King of Israel he comes to bless Israel. We should likewise never think of Him coming as a Man of War to bless His church; because as a Man of War he comes to put down His enemies. We think of Him as our Hope, as the Bright and Morning Star, Who is coming for us before the morning of His millennial glory bursts upon the world.

Tell me what you know of Christ, and I will tell you where you are in your Christian experience.

You can sum up the whole of God's Word under three heads. God has three heads, or three sections, to His Book. You know three in Scripture is the number of completeness. Three persons in the Godhead; this book deals with three sections of the people. (1) The Church; (2) the Jew; (3) the Gentile. I also find this book is summed up under three things in relation to Christ (1) What Christ has done; (2) What He is doing; (3) What He is yet going to do.

The Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross shields us from what we deserved as sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ is the One in Whom we are accepted: so that we are privileged to thank God that He has made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. The Lord Jesus Christ is not only our Holiness before God, but if we would be holy before men Christ must dwell within us. If you want to see what God has done for you look at the Cross. "I am crucified with Christ," and the secret of holiness is oneness with Christ in his death, "I have died with Christ."

It is a very practical thing if you reckon you are dead. If you are inclined to let that temper of yours manifest itself, if you reckon you have died with Christ, you will lead one to see that dead people don't get into a temper. You will have no eyes for the lust of the flesh; you will not desire anything that the world possesses. Your eyes will be upward, and you will find your satisfaction in Christ. It is only as Christ Himself lives within you, and acts through you, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that you can possibly be holy.

The great thing is for Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith. Christ is not only my perfect Copy, but the One Who is to copy His own divine copy. He is not only our Harbour, the refuge from the wrath of God; He is not only our Holiness, but our Hope and as our Hope we are looking for Him, and expecting He will come and receive us unto himself.

When we speak of the Lord coming for His people do not think we are referring to death. There are a great many people who pray that they may watch, that when the Son of Man cometh they may be ready. They mean that when death comes they may be ready to go into the Lord's presence. When the Lord refers to His coming He does not refer to death that all. He clearly distinguishes between death and his coming. At death we go to Christ; Christ is not come to us. I cannot call death "the blessed hope." It is the consequence of sin. If there had not been sin there would have been no death.

In the last chapter of the Gospel according to John you'll see a little incident related there which clearly brings the whole matter before us, and plainly distinguishes between death and Christ’s coming. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to Peter, and says to him (in the 18th verse), "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkest whether thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hand, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake He, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when He had said this He saith unto him: Follow me." Then Peter wanted to know what John would do. He had been his companion all along, and Jesus replied, "If I will that he should tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me." Christ there clearly distinguished between death and His coming. What was the conclusion the disciples came to? In the 23rd verse we read, "Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die; but, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to the?"

Then, says someone else, "You must know that the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is a spiritual coming." I remember one brother in the Queen’s Rooms, Glasgow, praying to this effect: "Lord, Thou didst promise to come again. I thank thee that Thou hast come and taken Thy abode in my heart." That is the way a good many "spiritualized" the promises relating to the coming of the Lord. If His first coming was a literal one—that the Lord Jesus Christ literally appeared on the earth and did actually die upon the cross, and not in some spiritual presence—then it is not the coming of the Holy Spirit we must look for when he He says, "I will come again." Christ said to his disciples, "I will send you another comforter." I do not see the use of the word another if he simply meant His own spiritual presence. When the Lord is speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit He is not speaking of His return for His people.

Don't be taken up with signs. Some say that there are certain things taking place, and we must consequently look for others, and when these other have taken place we may expect the Lord. After the tribulation some say: I believe, however, that there is not a single thing that must necessarily take place before the Lord comes for His people.

When He says, with reference to His first coming, "Low, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me," we know how He literally fulfilled that word, and how He came here on earth and gave Himself an offering for our sins, and when He says, "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself," I know He is going to keep that word as literally as He kept His first word, so that I am looking for Himself, not for certain things to take place—not looking for certain signs, not looking for death. I am looking for the Person of my Lord and Savior to receive me to Himself. We find this hope spoken of in different ways.

There are certain characteristics of this hope. Will you turn to Colossians 1:23—"if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard." Therefore, the gospel brings before us a hope. It seems to me we have yet failed to understand the Gospel if we simply refer to it in the sense of referring to Christ’s death upon the Cross in making provision for our salvation. The Gospel takes in far more than that. You remember that remarkable chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, where the apostle says, "I have declared unto you the gospel by which by which ye [are] saved." And then he goes on to explain what is the Gospel—how Christ died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. Then he goes on to show how Christ will return, and what will happen then.

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."

I believe it is unscriptural to speak of man in his unfallen or fallen state as "immortal.” It is said that Adam was "immortal" in Eden, but that he lost his immortality by sin. Is not this a contradiction of terms? If man was immortal how could he fall? What is immortality? It is a state of holiness and bliss from which it is impossible for man to fall. Christ is the only One who has immortality. "Who only hath immortality" (1 Timothy 6:16); but His immortality is a guarantee of the believers, for when He comes "This mortal shall put on immortality, then" (Mark the "then") "shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Corinthians 15:54) But, on the other hand, while the natural man is not immortal, he is indestructible, for God made man in His own image. What is God? God is a Spirit. Remember that it is said of fallen as well as unfallen man that he retains that image. (Genesis 1:27; 9:6), and that is, that he is an indestructible spirit.

This is the hope which the Gospel presents to us. It seems to me that this hope is only presented in the Gospel. I cannot see anything in the Old Testament which speaks of Christ's coming for His people. I can see that He is coming with them. In the book of Zechariah we read of the Lord coming with His saints.

The apostle says, "But I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep; that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord." This seems to me to be one of the special things which were revealed to the apostle Paul, and which is specially brought out in the New Testament, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again for his people, to receive us to Himself, when the sleeping ones and the living ones are caught up together to meet him in the air. This hope of Christ's coming is the hope of the Christian.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:8 we have another characteristic of our hope. It is called "The hope of salvation." "But let us, who were of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet the hope of salvation."

Some good people talk of having received a full salvation. I know what they mean. They have apprehended a full Savior. I have not got a full salvation yet. I have not got my glorified body yet. I remember being at Mr. Spurgeon's funeral, and they were speaking of him as "our glorified brother." I do not think we have any warrant for saying that those who have left the body are in their glorified state. They are with Christ, which is far better, but they are not in their glorified state yet. In Philippians 3:20 we read, "for our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look—or wait—for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." We wait for the Lord to come and complete our salvation. He has saved us from the consequences of our sin; blessed be His name! We know him as a living Savior, who is able to save us and keep us from the control of sin, but he has not completed our salvation yet, because we wait for him to come and change these bodies, and fashion them after His own body. We expect the Lord to come and complete our salvation, hence this is called the hope of our salvation.

In Galatians 5:5 we read of another characteristic of our hope, "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." The Lord Jesus Christ says, in speaking of the Holy Spirit, "That when He was come He would convict of righteousness, because I go to my Father." The Lord Jesus Christ was cast out as an unrighteous One, and we are told in Timothy that He was "justified in the Spirit." The Lord Jesus Christ was cast out as an unrighteous One, but God has raised Him from the dead as the righteous One, and now the Spirit of God has come to convict the world of this one thing; that the Man they crucified as unrighteous, God has called the righteous One. We are privileged to be hated with Christ. The world knoweth us not, and we do not want them to know us. We do not want to have fellowship with them. There is a time coming, thank God, when Christ will put every thing right; when he will take up your cause; and when we see Him face-to-face we know that every thing will be well. This hope is also spoken of as "the Blessed Hope." I will close with one more verse. We are told in the epistle of John "That every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." If I am expecting the Lord Jesus Christ at any moment I must live a holy life, so that at His coming I may not be ashamed before Him.

A lady once told me that she hoped the Lord Jesus Christ would not come yet. I asked her if she was not a Christian; did she not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? She said, "Oh, yes, I do!" I replied, "Surely, if you are a believer you will love His appearing, and be glad to see Him." "Yes, in one sense I would, but—— " was her answer. "But what?" I asked. She said, "There are many things I should have to put right if I thought the Lord Jesus Christ was coming tomorrow." That is the way with many of us, but He may be here before tomorrow morning, and if any of you have to make restitution to anybody, I would advise you to do it at once. If you have a grudge against anyone have it made up at once. You say, "Oh! But he is in the wrong; he ought to come to me." Never mind that, you go and do the right thing. You say, "There are many things about my home I would not like the Lord to see." Have them put right at once. "I would not like the Lord to see my big banking account," some others may say. My dear friends, put that right. You had been sending your £1 to the China Inland Mission when you might have sent £50, or even £100.

People say this truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is not a practical one, but I know that nearly all the missionaries of the China Inland Mission believe it. They look for the Lord's speedy return, and they are making their lives practical by doing noble and Christ-like work. Oh! Let us live so that when He comes we shall be right glad to see Him. Amen.

Main point (Christ will return) is solid. “Secret rapture” before His glorious return is a fabrication of dispensationalists. Scripture tells is Christ comes back once, the timing will be unknown until the whole hears and sees - His return will be known to all. He will take His and judge the world.

Historic Reformed view on this topic:

The Coming of the Lord
http://www.pbministries.org/Eschatology/brown/brown_01.htm

The Secret Rapture?
http://www.pbministries.org/Eschatology/miscellaneous/fletcher_01.htm

The Rapture of the Saints
http://www.pbministries.org/Newsletter/2000/Jan/butt01_01.htm

Thanks for the ping. Will try and read it tomorrow.

Here’s an impressive set of testimonies from 7 youth about Heaven:

http://www.spiritlessons.com/Documents/7_Jovenes/English_7_Jovenes_Heaven.htm

They also had a visit to hell.

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