Dear June,

This statement, from the Apostle Paul in I Colossians 1:27, is usually understood as the belief that the presence of Christ within a believer, through the Holy Spirit, will provide the foundation for a believer’s hope of eternal life.  It signifies a divine indwelling that guarantees salvation, or at least a sharing in Christ’s glory upon his return.

Like many of Paul’s statements, it can be understood literally or metaphorically, depending on your view of Paul’s theology, or what you believe to be the mission of Jesus.  If that mission is understood as a kind of down-payment guaranteeing post-mortem benefits for believing in the blood atonement, then it is straightforward and transactional.  Many Christians would interpret it this way.

But it is also possible to interpret it metaphorically, and to see it as Paul’s way of expressing the mystery of the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and his followers in this life, not just the next.  It all depends on your interpretation of the phrase, “the hope of glory.”  Perhaps it is not a distant promise at all, but a profound reality that is grounded in the spiritual consequences of being a disciple of the historical Jesus.  Is “glory” a future condition, or a present reality for those who have awakened to the idea that God is not a distant, separate reality, but a transcendent reality in the moment, where all things are connected to all things, everywhere, all the time—and love is our only hope.  That would be glorious, would it not?

~ Rev. Dr. Robin Meyers