The soul that believes has been thus shown us enjoying the results of justification as to past, present, and future. Admirable as a groundwork, it is not everything. God would bless the believer according to what is in His heart, yet with full consideration of passing circumstances. And this last is what the apostle can speak of, now that the course is clear from the starting-point to the goal of God's glory, the hope of which makes the heart exult.
Nevertheless we are in the place of trial still, we are in the wilderness, though sheltered by the blood of the Lamb and redeemed from Egypt and its prince. Indeed properly here above all are we put to the proof; here where no resources appear, God calls us to depend on and confide in Himself; here especially the enemy seeks to make us murmur in unbelief both as to the journey and as to the hope at the end of it. Egypt is the house of bondage; the wilderness is the scene of temptation; the land calls for conflict with the powers of darkness. The first two verses suppose us outside Egypt, and looking onward with joyful anticipation to the mountain of Jehovah's inheritance, the place He has made for Himself to dwell in.
Meanwhile there is nothing but desert around. Do we boast in hope notwithstanding? Assuredly, “and not only [so], but we boast in tribulation also.” This flesh can never do; it may affect stoical insensibility, but faith, while it increases our feeling, alone gives us to triumph.
Here, however, there is a process to which we need to take heed. In hoping for the glory of God, our boast is direct. It is not so with our tribulations. We should and do boast in them, but it is not immediate. It is the fruit of intelligent apprehension of God's gracious aim in these afflictions. Hence the apostle proceeds to set out how we are brought thus to traverse the judgment of nature. We boast in tribulations, says he; “knowing that tribulation worketh endurance; and endurance, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that was given to us.”
Such is the shining pathway of the Christian even here, because Christ is before the heart: otherwise, tribulation works out the impatience of the first man, not endurance through the Second. Then endurance sustained in faith works out experience, i.e., the proof of what is tested and stands; as this again, from what God is shown to be in gracious present care, strengthens hope; and this does not put to shame by failure and disappointment; because the Holy Ghost sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God, who loved us when there was nothing lovable in us, as we are shown after self is thus detected and judged, the world seen in its true colors, and God more than ever proved, and prized, and trusted.
This verse is remarkable as the first which speaks either of the Spirit given to us, or of the love of God which is thereby shed forth in us. We have His righteousness fully displayed and applied before there is any allusion to either. That God is wise in this, it is almost needless to remark. It is well that the soul should be shut up to that which is absolutely perfect outside ourselves on God's part and in virtue, not of the Spirit's work in us, but of Christ's for us. And so it is. Then in the path of subsequent Christian experience, he can touch on and in due time unfold the love of God shed abroad in us, and the Holy Ghost given to us. We can then bear it safely. Had it been brought in before this, the heart would have readily turned to its own workings and affections from Christ and God's righteousness revealed in the gospel.