House Church Talk - Hope our effort or concept? or a Person?

[David Miller]

Mike wrote:
> Now, if we look up the Strong's definition for the word 
> ranslated "that" in verse 25, we will see the word can 
> be translated "Whom" or "Who".  It is translated "Whom" 
> 262 times, see the Strong's definition below.  

But the pronoun used here takes different forms in that actual Greek
text.  In this case, it is "ho." The three forms are "hos," "he," and
"ho" which would be in the masculine, feminine, and neuter respectively.


Mike wrote:
> But, hopefully what we can see from all of this, is 
> that Paul is not using the word "hope" as a concept, 
> but an actual, person, the Lord, our Hope whom through 
> patience (the fruit produced by the Spirit) we await, 
> patience also being again the fruit of the Spirit.  
> So that is why when I talk of our hope, I would 
> capitalize the word "Hope", to point help the deity 
> of our Hope.  There are hundreds of examples in the 
> Bible of this, and we don't even have to know Greek 
> or have a Strong's Concordance to see it.  

This is an example of where a little bit of knowledge of Greek tools can
get you into trouble.  Because the Greek relative pronoun is written as
neuter instead of male or female gender, it should be translated as
"that" instead of "who" or "whom."

If you just look at the context of the verse, we can see that the object
of our hope is our bodily resurrection, not Christ himself.  Of course,
Christ is the source of that hope, but the specific hope Paul is talking
about in this passage is our hope of being bodily resurrected.  The
object of our hope in this passage is not a person, but an event, the
resurrection, which results in the redemption of our bodies.

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope:
but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet
hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience
wait for it. (Romans 8:23-25 KJV)

Peace be with you.
David Miller, Beverly Hills, Florida.