When I first read in the book of Hebrews that “The law made nothing perfect, and a better hope is introduced.” (Hebrews 7:19), I wondered how “Hope” could in any way be “better. Does “hope” come in “good,” “ better,” and “best”? Is “hope” even measurable at all? But when I read on about the contrast that the writer was drawing between the faith of the Hebrews under the direction and discipline of Moses, and the relationship of believers to their God in the light of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, I saw that there were indeed two kinds of “Hope,” and that the distinguishing difference is the difference between time and eternity.

Almost everyone on earth experiences hope for happy outcomes of events and experiences and relationships; and almost everyone ignores the promise in the Bible that there is an entire life, without ending, of grace that fills our hopes with joy. We believe in short term peace and happiness, but “eternity” is dismissed as somehow irrelevant, in spite of the evidence in scripture of another life that happens not to have an end: As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the son and in the Father. And this is what He promised us—eternal life. ( John 2:24)

Is it because eternity seems incomprehensible, that we turn away and say we have too much to do with the here and now to contemplate eternity. Yet, God Himself, and Jesus our friend and brother, are both eternal. Their lives were extended to us at Jesus’ resurrection. This is what he talked about , when he said, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life. ( John 6:40) It’s God’s eternal life he is offering to those who believe in His son.

The Greeks and Romans valued eternal life so much that they made up stories that allowed them to believe that people could become constellations, thereby receiving a form of eternity; but God, who was and is and will be eternal, gave Himself in giving His son, that we might receive true eternity, not as another “thing,” but as our selves: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known, but we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

We shall be like the eternal son of God. It is indeed a better hope.

Love in Him,

Prue