Salvation in Hope

It is a part of (yet partially written) book Salvation by Victor Porton.

This text section is written... (Eph. 1:17-18) ... that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him, the eyes of your mind having been enlightened, for you to know what is the hope of His calling...

The main verse of this study:

(Ro. 8:24) We are saved in hope.

The traditional interpretation of Ro. 8:24 is not hopeful but discouraging. Some theologists say that this means We are only hoping that we will be saved (be ensured that will not go to hell) in the future, not yet received the salvation.

But Ro. 8:24 should be understood in a different way: We are saved in hope can be said in other words Our hope is saved, our hope is the thing which is saved.

To better explain it, replace the word hope with which the Greek word ELPIS was translated with an other word with which it could also be translated, the word dream. Now this verse becomes much more clear: We are saved in dream.

That means that our dreams is the thing which is saved. What means to be saved? It means to receive eternal life. So this verse means: Our dreams will live forever. That is dreams which we have will not die but they will continue to live! Dreams can be living:

(1Pe. 1:3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He according to His great mercy having regenerated us to a living hope...

(1Cor. 13:3) faith, hope, and love continue to exist, these three.

Well, faith and love also continue to exist, but faith exists on the basis of hope ((Heb. 11:1) Now faith is the substantiation of things having been hoped...) and I deem that love is also based on hope.

Yes, now Ro. 8:24 became encouraging! The word Gospel means good news. Every passage of Gospel is a good news not something discouraging. If it is discouraging, we just have been misunderstanding it! Ro. 8:24 is an excellent example of a seemingly bad but really good news in Gospel.

Problems of the World are not important for the eternity, in eternal life will be accomplished all our hope by simple reason that eternal life is itself hope (dream). That is a dream here is reality there.

However I feel that some people may indeed dislike it: From us will remain only dreams and all other of us will die or disappear! Do you dream for something more in salvation, would I ask such a man? The thing you dream for is in salvation.

How discouraging it have been sounded previously, nothing except of dreams will be left of us, and how encouraging it is now for us hoping for Christ's salvation!

Note that by dreams I here understand not only when somebody dreams in deep meditation or in strong feelings but just any hope. OK, we returned to the word hope, it is a good translation of the Greek word ELPIS. Our hope is what is saved. The good news of New Testament is that our hope will live forever.

Now we know what means to be saved and have eternal life already now: We have not died but our dream already lives in Christ.

And may you believe, our dream is already at heaven? (Col. 1:5) ... the hope being laid up for you in Heaven, which you heard before in the Word of the truth of the gospel., (Col. 1:23) ... hope of the gospel which you heard proclaimed in all the creation under Heaven...

And now we know how being sinners in man's nature we are not sinners in salvation. In salvation, that is in dream or in hope we are sinless! We dream to be sinless and that's it. Before we thought that this would be good but does not matter: it is just a dream to be sinless. But now we know, how important it is: our dream is sinless and the dream is so important as it is our eternal life, our future.

Well, how about people dreaming/hoping for a bad thing, e.g. somebody dreaming to accomplish a theft? No one really hopes for a bad thing! If somebody considers something as bad, he cannot hope for it as by definition of hope we may hope only for something good. (And if he would not understand that this is a theft, he would be not a thief but instead of a madman.) He may only conditionally hope for it as a lesser evil than an other variant. Conditional hope is not true hope and it will die.

(Prov. 10:28) ... But hope of wicked will perish. says Bible, now we know how tremendous it is to be wicked that is to dream for bad things! Such a dream is irreal (not a true dream) and will perish, perish his future life. And the same about our bad thoughts: they will disappear not will be got to the heaven. Think about what will be left from you (1Cor. 3:15) If any man's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire. It is as some thing which was almost fully destroyed by fire and only a little left. But what will be left is perfect and lives forever. But we hope not for being saved as from fire but to stand before God whole. We have a good hope of salvation!

(Gal. 5:5) For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.

But when we will die, whose dream will live? The true answer is surprising: the dream will live itself, dreaming itself. Saved in salvation is hope of the hope, that is hope which hopes. So teaches Bible: the spirit detaches from human's body after the death and lives by itself. But true hope is spiritual.

(2Cor. 1:9-10) ... we should not trust on ourselves, but on God, the One raising the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver; in whom we have hope that He will still deliver us.

However the man's saved hope is not hope on itself (hope which would hope on itself) but it hopes on God. And God is the best we may hope for. But we hope for the best and we hope only for the best. So, every hope is a hope on God. That which seems being a hope not on God is a false hope, that is not a real hope at all but such a broken dream will disappear.

We hope for accomplishment of one best variant, so we have also proved that there are only one God.

(1Tim. 1:1) ... God our Savior, even the Lord Jesus Christ, our Hope.

Here Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ is a dream. That is He is the sum of all the dreams of everyone in the Universe. Our dream may be greater than ourselves and Christ is greater than we. The energy of a dream of one man by himself is little, but the summary energy of the dreams of all not only on the Earth but also in Heavens is very great. We know that Christ that is our summary dream is very great, more powerful and more real than anything other in the Universe.

A thing we hope for is that some man will come and save us, one who is chosen to be the leader being the best of all and which will unite all on Earth and on Heaven.

And He may be only one as there may be only one common leader. And this one man is the Lord Jesus Christ which is God (that is the best we may dream for) who came to us in human form to save us. (Lord means leader of all, Jesus means chosen as the best of all, Christ means one who unites all.)

(Eph. 4:4-6) There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, He above all and through all and in you all.

There may be only one common hope. The salvation is only in Jesus Christ, not in somebody other.

In the light of all this, the sureness of salvation raises onto a new level: now we know that if somebody hopes that Lord Jesus Christ will come and save him, then he is really saved. (One may hope on this only when he believes that Jesus Christ is the Lord.)

Have the dream that Jesus Christ will come to you and save you from any sin. And you will be at heaven not in hell. Ask God to give you this dream now if you don't yet have it.

Notes

The following Bible versions were used in preparation of this article: World English Bible, Revised Webster version, Green's Literal Translation (and also my own translations).