Quotes about Hope

The resurrection isn't just a surprise happy ending for one person; it is instead the turning point for everything else. It is the point at which all the old promises come true at last: the promises of David's unshakable kingdom; the promises of Israel's return from the greatest exile of them all; and behind that again, quite explicit in Matthew, Luke, and John, the promise that all the nations will now be blessed through the seed of Abraham. If

The resurrection of Jesus is the launching of God's new world.

The beauty of creation, to which art responds and which it tries to express, imitate, and highlight, is not simply the beauty it possesses in itself but the beauty it possesses in view of what is promised to

First, Jesus was going to take us to be with him in heaven. There are different ways people have imagined this happening, but the message is still the same. Somehow, the good news in the past (what Jesus did two thousand years ago) points forward to one particular piece of good news about the future (he will take us to heaven). This completes the new relationship with God that is for many the sole focus of the good news. And this is seriously misleading.

Israel's hopes were not for the demise of the space-time universe, but for the earth to be full of God's glory. It

We expect to suffer, but we know already that we are victorious.

I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of "going to heaven," of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated.

we should be in no doubt that, for the gospel writers themselves, there was never a kingdom message without a cross

God's faithfulness to the covenant with Israel, even granted the large-scale failure of Israel as a whole, will result in the rescue of the whole sinful world.

The risen Jesus is both the model for the Christian's future body and the means by which it comes about. Similarly

The heritage mattered, but the hope was all-important—hope for a new world, for the One God to become king at last.

When Paul says, "We are citizens of heaven," he goes on at once to say that Jesus will come from heaven not to take us back there, but to transform the present world and us with it.) And this hope for "resurrection," for new bodies within a newly reconstituted creation, doesn't just mean rethinking the ultimate "destination," the eventual future hope. It changes everything on the way as well.