The True and Proper Hope of the Church
As we have already remarked, these Christians were converted to the blessed hope of the Lord’s return. They were taught to look for Him day by day. It was not merely the doctrine of the advent received and held in the mind, but a divine Person constantly expected by hearts that had learnt to love Him and long for His coming.
This, and naught else, is the true and proper hope of the Church of God. “I will give him the morning star” (Rev. 2:28). “Behold the bridegroom cometh” (Matt. 25). When, we may ask, does the morning star appear in the natural world? Just before the dawning of the day. Who sees it? The one who has been watching during the dark and dreary hours of the night. How plain, how practical, how telling the application? The Church is supposed to be watching—to be lovingly wakeful—to be looking out—to be putting forth that inquiry of the intensely longing heart, “Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?” Alas! the Church has failed in this. But that is no reason why the individual believer should not be in the full present power of the blessed hope. “Let him that heareth say, Come.” This is deeply personal. Oh! that the writer and the reader of these lines may realize habitually the purifying, sanctifying, elevating power of this heavenly hope! May we understand and exhibit the practical power of those words of the apostle John, “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”
Taken from Papers on the Lord’s Coming by C. H. Mackintosh. Originally published in 1898. Public Domain.
