Romans 8:25Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he still hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

That is, if you seek everything here, then what need is there for hope?

What, then, is hope? It is firm assurance in the future.

Does God require more of you after He Himself has given you all His blessings?

He requires from you only hope, so that you yourself may contribute something to your salvation.

The Apostle hints precisely at this when he says: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

God crowns the one who hopes just as He crowns the one who labors, suffers hardship, and endures countless afflictions.

The word “patience” indicates effort in labors and great steadfastness.

Yet God has also given this to the one who hopes, in order to comfort the weary soul.

Therefore one must not seek everything here. We await the future in patience. When you hear of patience, understand the thought of contests and strenuous labors. For the Christian must endure, awaiting what is unseen but hoped for by faith.

We believe that our bodies will become stronger than corruption and death.

But this lies for us in hope, not as something already present, but as something that will surely come to pass.

We believe that our bodies also must become stronger than death and corruption.

Yet this is laid up for us in hopes, not as something already possessed, but as something that will certainly and in every way be.

We await it, enduring sufferings in patience, so that we may obtain so sacred a gift.

Patience itself exercises desire. Wait, because He waits. Walk firmly, so that you may arrive. He will not leave the place toward which you are making your way.

This waiting is patience, which earns much before God. Day by day a man awaits the coming of the Kingdom of God and does not doubt it because it delays.

Do not grieve, says the Apostle, when you see painful things. We have not given you false promises. We said, “Wait for the enjoyment of good things,” but the expected good things are not visible to bodily eyes. If they were visible, they would no longer be awaited. But if they are awaited, then one must await them with patience and not let go of the anchor of hope. Besides this, he points us to another help that has been given.

One must have hope and patience, so as fully to become what we have only begun to be, and to obtain, when we stand before God, what we hope for and believe.

The certainty of our hope may be represented in the image of an egg. In the egg, the embryo of the future bird is not yet distinguishable, but it is already expected. So also all believers do not yet see in the present the glory of that heavenly homeland in which they believe, but they await it in the future.

Verses 24-25. Hope bears witness to the firmness of faith, because one can hope only for what does not yet exist and what a man does not see. Such hope also teaches patience. Patience strengthens our soul and thereby saves it (Lk 21:19), making it capable of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Having said this, he adds the observation that the very character of Christian hope, as a state of the soul, requires its object to be removed for a time from those who possess it. “Hope that sees is not hope” (Rom 8:24). Saint Paul then speaks of the firm support this hope finds in the grace of the Holy Spirit, who strengthens human weaknesses.

The farther he proceeds, the more the Apostle enters into the most hidden relations, defining their differing sense and significance in paganism and in Christianity.

Such, for example, is the relation to nature, both inanimate and animate. To this the Apostle also joins all men, as those who groaned more consciously from the abnormality of their condition.

The groans of Christians are also included here, though they are wholly different from other groans, for they are joined to clear hope.

Our hope of future glory has its foundation in the fact that we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This gift forgives our sins, gives strength for the struggle against sin, grants peace of conscience, and gives filial boldness.

Here the explanation of why we also groan is brought to its conclusion.

He said that we have received the firstfruits, but have not yet received the perfect and whole reality. We await it, hope for it, and do not yet see it or hold it in our hands.

Such expectation is necessarily joined with waiting, and waiting with patience.

Thus it is natural that we wait with patience for what is awaited, hoped for, and not yet seen.

And patience, though the certainty of hope lightens it, is still something burdensome.

This is why we groan, although we have the firstfruits and although we have no slight doubt about receiving it.

But in explaining our present condition in this way, Saint Paul did not have only this explanation in mind.