In this volume we continue our project of summarizing the Christian faith in the concepts of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13). Following the Enchiridion of St. Augustine, we are expounding faith using the Apostles’ Creed, hope using the Lord’s Prayer, and love using the Ten Commandments. So the present volume is about hope and will explain it by expounding the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4).

In Scripture, hope is not a temperamental optimism, nor is it a scientific process of analyzing our circumstances, weighing the chance of positive against the chance of negative ones. Rather, it is a sure and certain trust that all will be well, grounded in God’s own sure revelation.

Such a hope leads us to pray, not because we fear that God will not keep his word, but because we are sure that he will. That confidence authorizes us to pray, knowing that our prayer will be effective, knowing that God fully intends to answer us favorably.

So our hope is based on a conviction from Scripture that our future is governed by a loving heavenly Father who will certainly provide for us his family, forgive our iniquities, and heal all our infirmities. The Lord’s Prayer identifies God as precisely that kind of Father, glorious in his heavenly being and in his holy name. In prayer, we trust that his kingdom will certainly come and bring to our world universal obedience to his will.

The power and love of this great father will meet all of our needs, most amazingly the need we have for forgiveness of our sins against him. And he not only forgives us; he gives us new hearts, that we may forgive others as he has forgiven us.

To be sure, there is evil in the world until the final judgment, but our Father gives us victory over it, and one day that victory will be visible: all will see the triumph of God’s kingdom in power and glory, forever.

That is the biblical theology of hope. Over the past fifty years or so, theologians have discussed a different “theology of hope,” in which hope is linked to uncertainty rather than certainty. But like so many modern theological ideas, this view turns everything upside down.

The biblical theology of hope is based on certainty—not the certainty of temperamental optimism or of scientific rationalism, but the comforting words of our Father in Heaven, found in his sure word to us.

Dr. John M. Frame

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy

Reformed Theological Seminary