Purification by Hope

The Christian is a man whose main possessions lie in reversion.

Most men have a hope, but his is a peculiar one; and its effect is special, for it causes him to purify himself.

I. THE BELIEVER’S HOPE. “Everyone that has this hope in him.”

1. It is the hope of being like Jesus.

   • Perfect, Glorious, Conqueror over sin, death and Hell.

2. It is based upon divine love. See verse 1.

3. It arises out of sonship. “Called the sons of God.”

4. It rests upon our union to Jesus. “When he shall appear.”

5. It is distinctly hope in Him. “We shall be like him,” etc.

6. It is the hope of his second Advent.

II. THE OPERATION OF THAT HOPE. “Purifies.”

It does not puff up, like the conceit of Pharisees.

It does not lead to loose living, like the presumption of Antinomians.

It shows us what course is grateful, is congruous to grace, is according to the new nature, and is preparatory to the perfect future.

1. The believer purifies himself from—

   • His grosser sins. From evil company, etc.
   • His secret sins, neglects, imaginings, desires, murmurings, etc.
   • His besetting sins of heart, temper, body, relationship, etc.
   • His relative sins in the family, the shop, the church, etc.
   • His sins arising out of his nationality, education, profession, etc.
   • His sins of word, thought, action, and omission.

2. He does this in a perfectly natural way.

   • By getting a clear notion of what purity really is.
   • By keeping a tender conscience, and bewailing his faults.
   • By having an eye to God and his continual presence.
   • By making others his beacons or examples.
   • By hearing rebukes for himself, and laying them to heart.
   • By asking the Lord to search him, and practicing self-examination.
   • By distinctly and vigorously fighting with every known sin.

3. He sets before him Jesus as his model. “He purifies himself, even as HE is pure.”

   • Hence he does not cultivate one grace only.
   • Hence he is never afraid of being too precise.
   • Hence he is simple, natural, and unconstrained.
   • Hence he is evermore aspiring after more and more holiness.

III. THE TEST OF THAT HOPE. “He purifies himself.”

Actively, personally, prayerfully, intensely, continually, he aims at the purification of himself, looking to God for aid.

Some defile themselves willfully.

Some take things as they are.

Some believe that they need do purifying.

Some talk about purity, but never strive after it.

Some glory in that which is a mere counterfeit of it.

The genuine Hoper does not belong to any of these classes: he really and successfully purifies himself.

What must it be to be without a good hope?

How can there be hope where there is no faith?

Grace adopts us; adoption gives us hope; hope purifies us, until we are like the Firstborn.

Animating Words

1. First, The Workman. “Every one that has this hope in him,” every one that looks to be like the Lord Jesus in the Kingdom of Glory is the man that must set about this task. 2. Secondly, The work is a work to be wrought by himself. He is a part of the Lord’s husbandry, and he must take pains as it were to plough his own ground, to weed his own corn, he must purify himself; this is his present and personal work. 3. Thirdly, the pattern by which he must be directed is the Lord Jesus: his purity. Take him for a pattern and instance; look unto him that is the author and finisher of our faith; as you have seen him do, so do you; as he is pure, so labor you to express in your lives the virtue of him who has redeemed you.—Richard Sibbes.
   • Then you comport with your hopes of salvation when you labor to be as holy in your conversation as you are high in your expectation This the apostle urges from the evident fitness of the thing, 2 Peter 3:11: “What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God?” Certainly, it becomes such to be holy, even to admiration, who look for such a blessed day: we hope then to be like the angels in glory, and therefore should, if possible, live now like angels in holiness. Every believing soul is Christ’s spouse. The day of conversion is the day of espousals, wherein she is betrothed by faith to Christ, and, as such, lives in hopes for the marriage-day, when he shall come and fetch her home to his father’s house, as Isaac did Rebekah to his mother’s tent, there to dwell with him, and live in his sweet embraces of love, world without end. Now, would the bride have the bridegroom find her in sluttery and vile clothing? No, surely: “Can a bride forget her attire?” Jeremiah 2:32. Was it ever known that a bride forgot to have her wedding clothes made against the marriage-day, or to put them on when she looks for her bridegroom’s coming? Holiness is the clothing of needlework in which, Christian, you are to be brought to your King and husband: Psalm 45:14. Wherefore is the wedding-day put off so long, but because this garment is so long a-making? When this is once wrought, and you are ready dressed, then that joyful day comes. Remember how the Holy Spirit words it in the Book of Revelation, “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready:” Rev. 19:7.—William Gurnall.
   • A good hope, through grace, animates and gives life to action, and purifies as it goes; like the Highland stream that dashes from the rock, and purifies itself as it pursues its course to the ocean.—H. G. Salter.
   • The Christian needs Christ in his redemption as the object of Faith, for salvation; Christ himself the object of Love, for devotion and service; and Christ in his coming glory, the object of Hope, for separation from the world.—W. Haslam.
   • The biographer of Hewitson says of him: “He not only believed in the speedy appearing, but loved it, waited for it, watched for it. So mighty a motive power did it become, that he ever used to speak of it afterwards as bringing with it a kind of second conversion.”
   • A. J. Gordon, D.D.