Why ‘Pitiable?’

Why ‘Pitiable?’

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

I Corinthians 5:19

As we have considered the text for the past two days we have avoided dealing with the hardest element of it. Paul makes a strong statement, ‘If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.’  This is an ‘if-then’ remark. We spoke, two days ago, of the fact that we do indeed have hope in Christ in this life. That hope is substantial. We have forgiveness of sins, acceptance in the beloved, justification, adoption, and on-going sanctification, to name but a few. Why are we then ‘pitiable’ as our text puts it, if this is all we have? Let us consider this, please. All those current benefits of hope in Christ are wonderful, but all of them are predicated on the idea that there is more to come. If they only carry us to the end of this earthly existence, then what is the point of the exercise? If there is no resurrection, no hope of eternal life, no expectation of the completion of all these things which God has done in us and to us, then we would be better off just living for the immediate moment. We are then deluded, and therefore ‘pitiable.’ The truth is, that because Christ has risen from the dead; because He has, by His Own resurrection guaranteed our resurrection, because we have hope, not just for this life, but also for the life to come, that therefore, we live in the reality that the best is yet to be. We have hope now and greater hope to come.

Gracious, Wise and Loving Savior,
we praise You that You are the God in Whom we have great hope.
We rejoice that this hope is not merely temporal,
but in every way eternal.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning