In John 14:6 the Lord Jesus also says that He is the reality. Apart from the Triune God, the entire universe is vanity, having no content, no reality. The Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-is the reality. As the way to the Father, Christ is the reality. If He were not the reality, He could not be our way. The way needs the reality. If we call on a name other than the name of the Lord Jesus, we shall not have a way into God, because all other names are void of reality. When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we are immediately on the way into God because Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God. Therefore, when we call on the name of Jesus, we receive something real into us.
The reality we receive by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus is the being and the doing of the Triune God. First, this reality is the incarnated God (John 1:1, 14). This reality is also the Son (John 8:32, 36) and the Spirit (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6). Hence, the reality is the Triune God-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Furthermore, this reality includes what the Triune God has done. This is the gospel (Eph. 1:13). The reality, therefore, is the very being of the Triune God and what He has done.
In the universe only what God is and what God does are real. This means that the reality in the universe is God’s being and God’s doing. God’s being is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and His doing is redemption. In the gospel He is everything and has done everything necessary for us to contact Him. Now when we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive this universal reality.
The reality is actually the way, and the way is the destination. When we get on the way, we arrive at the destination. This means that when we receive the Lord Jesus, we have the Father. When we receive the Son as the way, we have the Father as the destination. Because the Son is the embodiment of the Father, when we call on the name of the Lord we have both the Son and the Father. This is the reality becoming the way. This is the Son with what He has done becoming our way to the Father. We get on this way simply by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus. When we call on the Lord’s name, we have the reality, we are on the way, and we have the Father.
To the believers Christ is also the hope of glory. In Colossians 1:27 Paul speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ not only dwells within us; He dwells within us as our hope of glory. Christ can be our hope of glory because He dwells in our spirit to be our life and our person. According to Colossians 3:4, when Christ our life is manifested, we also shall be manifested with Him in glory. He will appear to be glorified in our redeemed and transfigured body (Rom. 8:23; Phil. 3:21; 2 Thes. 1:10). When Christ comes, we shall be glorified in Him, and He will be glorified in us. This indicates that the indwelling Christ will saturate our entire being, including our physical body. This will cause our body to be transfigured and to become like His glorious body. At that time Christ will be glorified in us. This is Christ in us as the hope of glory.
Paul’s word in Ephesians 1:18 about the hope of His calling is related to Christ’s being the hope of glory. Paul prayed that we would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know certain things, the first of which is the hope of God’s calling. Before we were saved, we had no hope. We were “apart from Christ...having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). But now that we are saved, we are no longer without hope; instead, we are full of hope. However, because many believers do not know what a hope is theirs, Paul prayed that we would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in order to know the hope of God’s calling.
As God’s called people we are full of hope, which is Christ Himself. First Timothy 1:1 speaks of “Christ Jesus our hope.” Christ is not only our Savior; He is also our hope to bring us into the full blessing and enjoyment of eternal life. Our hope is singly and uniquely Christ. Every aspect of our hope is related to Him. Other aspects of our hope include the rapturous transfer from the earthly and physical realm to the heavenly sphere and glorification (Rom. 8:23-25, 30; Phil. 3:21); the coming salvation of the soul (1 Pet. 1:5, 9), the Lord’s bringing of our soul into His enjoyment; the kingly enjoyment with Christ in the millennium (Rev. 5:10; 2 Tim. 4:18; Matt. 25:21, 23); and the consummate enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem with the universal and eternal blessings in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1-7; 22:1-5).
In Colossians 1:27 Paul specifically says that Christ is the hope of glory. Glory is the expression of God. God has ordained that we should be brought into this glory (1 Cor. 2:7), and, as believers, we have been called into this glory (1 Thes. 2:12; 1 Pet. 5:10). Furthermore, when we were regenerated, Christ as the life of glory came into us as a divine seed that eventually will blossom into the full expression of God. The Christ who was God’s expression, the effulgence of God’s glory (Heb. 1:3), now dwells within us to be our hope of glory. Glory is still a hope to us because it has not yet come out of us in a visible way. Just as we hope for the blossoming of a seed that has been sown, so we hope for the blossoming of the life of glory that is now within us. Our hope of such a glory is the indwelling Christ Himself.
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