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Octavius Winslow, 1856 (edited for
today's reader by Larry E. Wilson, 2010)
Bible Verse
"For in this hope we were saved" (Rom. 8:24).
Devotional
The phrase the apostle employs does not imply the instrument through which you are saved, but rather the condition into which you are saved. Your condition as a renewed creature is one of hope.
Salvation by the atonement of Christ—faith (and not hope) being the instrument of its appropriation—is a complete and finished thing.
You cannot give this truth too much prominence. You cannot enforce it with too intense an earnestness. You cannot keep your eyes too exclusively or too intently fixed on Jesus. All salvation is in him! All salvation proceeds from him! All salvation leads to him!
And for the assurance and comfort of your salvation you are to rest believingly and entirely on Jesus. Christ must be all—Christ the beginning, Christ the center, and Christ the end!
Oh blessed truth to you who sigh over your poverty, vileness, and insufficiency. Oh sweet truth to you who mourn over the ten thousand flaws and failures which, perhaps, no one knows except God and your own soul! Oh, to turn and rest in Christ—a full Christ, a loving Christ, a tender Christ—whose heart's love never chills, whose eyes dart no reproof, whose lips breathe no condemnation!
But, in regard to the complete effects of this salvation in those who are saved, it is yet future. It is the "hope laid up for you in heaven" (Col. 1:5). It is utterly incompatible with God's present arrangement that the renewed creature should be in any other condition than one of hopeful expectation. The makeup towards which you tend, the holiness for which you look, the bliss for which you pant, and the dignity to which you aspire, could not for a moment exist in the atmosphere that envelops you here. Your state must necessarily be one of hope. And that hope must necessarily link you with the distant and mysterious future.
The effects of Christian hope illustrate the idea, "saved in hope." Hope is that divine emotion which buoys up your soul amid the conflicts, the trials, and the ups and downs of the present life. You are cheered and sustained, or "saved" from sinking amid the billows, by the hope of certain deliverance and a complete redemption, "in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began" (Tit. 1:2).
Though the angry surges roll
on my tempest-driven soul,
I am peaceful, for I know,
wildly though the winds may blow,
I've an anchor safe and sure,
that can evermore endure.
Refrain:
And it holds, my anchor holds;
blow your wildest then, O gale,
on my bark so small and frail:
by his grace I shall not fail,
for my anchor holds, my anchor holds.
Mighty tides about me sweep,
perils lurk within the deep,
angry clouds o'ershade the sky,
and the tempest rises high;
still I stand the tempest's shock,
for my anchor grips the Rock.
(Refrain)
I can feel the anchor fast
as I meet each sudden blast,
and the cable, though unseen,
bears the heavy strain between;
through the storm I safely ride,
till the turning of the tide.
(Refrain)
Troubles almost 'whelm the soul;
griefs like billows o'er me roll;
tempters seek to lure astray;
storms obscure the light of day:
but in Christ I can be bold,
I've an anchor that shall hold.
(Refrain)
(William C. Martin, 1902)
Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.
Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.
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