Boasting in Our Hope

Christians have issues with boasting on several levels. On the one hand, we are meant to be people of humility. On the other, scripture frequently tells us we are to boast. As with many truths of scripture, it can be hard to detect exactly how these two things coincide. But they do and I hope to explain how.

First off, let’s identify what we are to actually boast in. The title of this post comes from Hebrews 3:6 – “And we are his [God’s] house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” The writer says we are to “boast in our hope”. What is our hope? Christ is our hope.

I think we do often boast in our hope, but that our hope is misplaced. For example, if our hope is in our faith, we will boast of our faith. If our hope is in God’s provision, we will boast about God’s provision. If our hope is our gifting, we will boast of our gifting. If our hope is in another man, we will boast of that man. Paul rebukes the Corinthian church for boasting about such things – “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7 ESV) In other words, the things about which they were boasting were unearned gifts for which they had no right to boast.

Part of our problem with boasting could be that we don’t realize that so much of the Christian life lies outside of ourselves. We boast of ‘our’ wisdom, righteousness, redemption and sanctification almost as if we are responsible for them. We tend to forget that God chose us not on the basis of any of these things, but especially because we were foolish, unrighteous, lost and sinful. Apart from Christ we are, in a very real sense, still all of these things. “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31 ESV) Christ himself is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption to us. Those are his attributes and remain his attributes alone. They are credited to us only by faith in him, which faith is likewise the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

As we begin to understand how much of what we consider to be ours actually belongs to Christ, it becomes apparent what it is we ought to boast in. It may seem subtle, but there is a world of difference between boasting that “Christ has made me righteous” and “Christ has become my righteousness”. Do you see that the one is a boast in yourself and the other boasting in Christ? If our boast is in Christ we will never need to exercise false humility. I do not need to feign humility with regard to the fact that Christ has become my wisdom, because the wisdom is not mine, it is his. He is my hope, and boasting in him comes naturally.

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Not in what the Lord has done, not in what the Lord can do, but in who the Lord is. Boast in him as salvation. Boast in him as the fulfillment of the law. Boast in him as righteousness. But boast in him. Only make sure that he (not what he has done or can do) is your hope, and it becomes easy to boast in him.

That is the gospel truth.

God Bless