New Birth Into A Living Hope
The bible says of God, “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3). The analogy of birth is significant. When a person is born, they move out of one world and into another. They move out of the confined space and darkness of the womb and into the vastness of the world that we see around us, at which point all sorts of possibilities open up. Our Christian hope is similar. We believe that one day we will move out of our cramped and constricted lives in this world, and into the new, vast freedom of God’s presence. Like birth, it is a movement into a world full of new possibilities, previously unknown or experienced, to be all that God created us to be.
The other thing about being born is that our physical birth is regarded as the starting point of our lives in this world. We start counting a person’s age from the date of their birth. Our “new birth into a living hope” is also the starting point of our eternal lives in God’s presence. Where the analogy breaks down is that, as Christians, we start the new life before we are finished with the old one. We live, for a while, with one foot in each camp, half in and half out. What are the implications for our lives?
The bible verse above was part of a letter written to a group of Christians who were threatened by persecution and facing a very uncertain future. The forces aligned against them were more powerful than they were. At some point, their human strength would fail. If their hope was for someone in this world to rescue them, they were going to be disappointed. But by placing their hope in something that this world cannot touch, they were filled with renewed confidence.
This present life should not be the limit of our expectation. Instead, by grounding our hope in Jesus, we can have “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade... kept in heaven for [those] who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4-5). This future cannot fail because it is protected by God’s power. And if God is keeping this future safe for us, he is keeping us safe for it. That fills us with confidence, and confidence expresses itself in joy. “In all this you greatly rejoice” (1 Peter 1:6).
Neil Percival
The other thing about being born is that our physical birth is regarded as the starting point of our lives in this world. We start counting a person’s age from the date of their birth. Our “new birth into a living hope” is also the starting point of our eternal lives in God’s presence. Where the analogy breaks down is that, as Christians, we start the new life before we are finished with the old one. We live, for a while, with one foot in each camp, half in and half out. What are the implications for our lives?
The bible verse above was part of a letter written to a group of Christians who were threatened by persecution and facing a very uncertain future. The forces aligned against them were more powerful than they were. At some point, their human strength would fail. If their hope was for someone in this world to rescue them, they were going to be disappointed. But by placing their hope in something that this world cannot touch, they were filled with renewed confidence.
This present life should not be the limit of our expectation. Instead, by grounding our hope in Jesus, we can have “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade... kept in heaven for [those] who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4-5). This future cannot fail because it is protected by God’s power. And if God is keeping this future safe for us, he is keeping us safe for it. That fills us with confidence, and confidence expresses itself in joy. “In all this you greatly rejoice” (1 Peter 1:6).
Neil Percival