The Architecture of Hope
Introduction: An Identity Bestowed, Not Built
We live in an age of frantic identity construction. Modern man believes that he is the product of his own imagination. He thinks he can define himself, declare himself, and demand that the rest of the world ratify his self-created reality. He is his own little god, and his pronouns are his liturgy. The result of this project is not the liberated, authentic man of his dreams, but rather a deeply anxious, fragile, and perpetually offended creature, terrified that one wrong word from another might shatter his carefully constructed glass house of self. He is building his identity on the shifting sands of his own feelings, and he is surprised when the tide comes in.
Into this chaotic workshop of self-obsession, the Apostle John speaks a word of objective, concrete, and liberating reality. The Christian's identity is not something he builds, but something he receives. It is not discovered deep within; it is declared from high above. It is not a project, but a gift. It is not an aspiration, but a legal fact. Our secular world is desperately trying to answer the question "Who am I?" by looking in a mirror. The Christian faith answers that question by looking to the Father.
This passage in 1 John is not a sentimental greeting card about how special we are. It is the architectural blueprint of our hope. It lays the foundation of our identity in the elective love of the Father, it erects the walls with the certain promise of our future glorification, and it furnishes the whole structure with the present and necessary duty of holiness. If you do not get this right, nothing else in your Christian life will be right. You will be building crooked.
The Text
See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we would be called children of God; and we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
(1 John 3:1-3 LSB)
The Foundation: A Status Declared (v. 1)
John begins with an exclamation, demanding that we stop and look at something astonishing.
"See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we would be called children of God; and we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." (1 John 3:1)
First, notice the source and nature of this love. It is from "the Father," and it is a love that is "given." This is not a reciprocal arrangement. This is not a love that we earned or elicited. This is a unilateral, sovereign, top-down act of sheer grace. The word for "great" here means something like "from another country." This is an alien love, a foreign kind of love that the world knows nothing about. It is not the fickle, sentimental, self-serving affection that our culture calls love. This is a covenantal, electing, adopting love.
And what does this love do? It results in a new name, a new legal status: "that we would be called children of God." In the Bible, to be "called" something by God is for that thing to become true. When God called light into being, it was. When Jesus called Lazarus from the tomb, he came forth. God's speech is performative; it creates reality. For God to call us His children is for us to become His children. This is the doctrine of adoption. We were children of wrath, orphans in our sin, and He reached down, signed the papers with the blood of His Son, and brought us into His family. Our identity is not based on our performance as children, but on His declaration as Father.
And just in case we were tempted to treat this as a mere platitude, John drives the point home with two of the most potent words in the epistle: "and we are." This is not a future hope, but a present fact. It is the bedrock of your reality right now. You are a child of God. Full stop. This is more real than your job, your failures, your fears, or your bank account.
The immediate consequence of this new, God-given identity is alienation from the world. "For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." The world system, in rebellion against God, cannot recognize the citizens of His kingdom. We operate on a different frequency. Our loves, our hopes, our moral compass, our entire reason for being is now oriented toward a Father they do not acknowledge. To be known by God means to be unknown by the world. If you find that you fit in perfectly with the world, that the world understands you completely and finds you entirely reasonable, you have every reason to check your spiritual birth certificate.
The Structure: A Future Guaranteed (v. 2)
Having established our present reality, John now turns to our future certainty.
"Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." (1 John 3:2)
He repeats the foundational fact: "now we are children of God." He wants this truth to be hammered into our thick skulls. But then he acknowledges a tension. We have the status, but the full glory of that status is not yet visible. "It has not been manifested as yet what we will be." We are princes, but we are living in a foreign land, dressed in the clothes of a servant. Our full inheritance, our glorification, is yet to come. The caterpillar is truly a butterfly in principle, but it does not yet have wings.
But this future is not a vague, fuzzy hope. It is a certainty. "We know..." This is not the language of speculation; it is the language of assurance. Christian hope is not crossing your fingers and wishing for the best. Christian hope is a confident expectation based on the unbreakable promise of God. And what is it that we know? "When He is manifested, we will be like Him." Our ultimate destiny is Christlikeness. The process of sanctification that is happening now will be brought to an instantaneous and glorious completion.
And what is the mechanism for this final transformation? It is sight. "...because we will see Him just as He is." This is the beatific vision. The direct, unfiltered sight of the glorified Christ will be the catalyst that makes us like Him. You become what you behold. The world beholds itself in an endless feedback loop of vanity and becomes ever more corrupt. We will behold Christ, and in that beholding, we will be glorified. All the remaining sin, all the weakness, all the sorrow will be burned away in the light of His face. This is our great hope: not just to be with Him, but to be like Him.
The Furnishing: A Present Duty (v. 3)
This certain future hope is not a license for present passivity. It is the engine of present holiness.
"And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." (1 John 3:3)
The hope John speaks of is not a fleeting thought. It is a hope "fixed on Him." It is an anchor cast into the future, secured to the person of Jesus Christ. It is a settled, constant, and orienting reality for the believer. Everyone who genuinely possesses this hope, everyone who truly believes they will one day be perfectly like Jesus, is given a present, unavoidable task.
That task is to "purify himself." This is the practical outworking of our hope. The future reality invades the present. Because I know I will be perfectly holy then, I must pursue holiness now. This is not a contradiction of grace. This is not earning our salvation. This is the logical and necessary fruit of it. A man who knows he is inheriting a kingdom does not continue to live in the gutter. He begins to live in a manner worthy of his calling. The imperative to purify ourselves flows directly from the indicative that we are already children of God destined for glory. God does not do the believing for us, and He does not do the repenting for us. Empowered by His Spirit, motivated by this hope, we are the ones who must mortify sin.
And what is the standard of this purification? It is not "better than I was last year" or "better than the guy in the next pew." The standard is absolute perfection: "just as He is pure." Jesus Christ is the measuring stick. Of course, we will fall short of that standard in this life. But it remains the standard. It is the direction we are headed. The fact that we will not arrive at sinless perfection until we see Him does not excuse us from aiming at it every single day. This glorious, impossible standard keeps us both striving and humble. It forces us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, while simultaneously driving us to our knees for the grace we need to do it.
Conclusion: Living From the Future
So, the Christian life is lived in a glorious tension. We are already children of God, and we are not yet what we will be. Our identity is a settled fact, declared by the Father. Our future is a guaranteed reality, secured by the Son. And our present is therefore a life of hopeful purification, empowered by the Spirit.
The world builds its identity from the mud of its own feelings and calls it freedom. We receive our identity from the mouth of the Father and call it grace. The world looks to a future of cosmic accidents and calls it realism. We look to a future of guaranteed glory and call it hope. The world, having no true identity and no certain future, lives for the lust of the moment. We, having a blood-bought identity and a rock-solid future, are called to live a life of joyful, hopeful, and rigorous holiness.
Do you know who you are? You are a child of God. Do you know where you are going? You are going to see Jesus, and you will be made like Him. Therefore, with that identity and that destiny, how are you to live right now? You are to fix your hope on Him and get about the business of becoming what you already are.