[Sidenote: Ver. 24.] =For it is as to our (τῇ) hope that we were saved.= When the Lord laid hold of us we were indeed saved,[136] but with a salvation which was only in part actual. Its total was not to be realized till the whole being was in actual salvation. Such salvation (see below, xiii. 11) was coincident in prospect with "the Hope," "that blessed Hope,"[137] the Lord's Return and the resurrection glory. So, to paraphrase this clause, "_It was in the sense of the Hope that we were saved_."[138] =But a hope in sight is not a hope; for, what a man sees, why does he hope for?= Hope, in that case, has, in its nature, expired in possession. And our full "salvation" _is_ a hope; it is bound up with a Promise not yet fulfilled; therefore, in its nature, it is still unseen, still unattained. But then, it is certain; it is infinitely valid; it is worth any waiting for. [Sidenote: Ver. 25.] =But if, for what we do not see, we do hope,= looking on good grounds for the sunrise in the dark east, =with patience we expect it.= "_With patience_," literally "_through patience_," δι' ὑπομονῆς. The "patience" is as it were the means, the secret, of the waiting; "patience," that noble word of the New Testament vocabulary, the saint's active submission, submissive action, beneath the will of God. It is no nerveless, motionless prostration; it is the going on and upward, step by step, as the man "waits upon the Lord, and walks, and does not faint." [130] 2 Kings xx. 12, 13. [131] Θανατοῦτε: observe the present tense, the process is a continuing one. [132] The Aramaic "_Abba_," used by our Lord in His hour of darkness, had probably become an almost personal Name to the believers. [133] With this verse on his lips, unfinished, Calvin died, 1564. [134] We cannot think that the κτίσις of this passage refers only, as some would have it, _to humanity_ (as Mark xvi. 15, Col. i. 23). The κτίσις is a something which was "subjected" _involuntarily_, and so, surely, not guiltily. This could not be said of humanity. [135] See Col. i. 15, 16. The Lord's Headship of Creation, explicitly revealed there, is seen as it were only just below the surface here. [136] See the _perfect_ participle, κτίσις, Eph. ii. 5, 8. [137] Is ἡ ἐλπὶς ever used in the N. T. in any other connexion than this? [138] Luther's rendering is good as a paraphrase, _Wir sind wohl selig, doch in der Hoffnung_. CHAPTER XIX _THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER IN THE SAINTS: THEIR PRESENT AND ETERNAL WELFARE IN THE LOVE OF GOD_ ROMANS viii. 26-39