“For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Gal. 5:5).
Notice, it is not that we wait for righteousness by faith. This is the free gift of God, always open to every soul in the world, and does not have to be waited for a moment. Rather, it waits, in the longsuffering of God, for men to awake to receive it.
The word is, we “wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” That is, righteousness by faith is the foundation of a “hope” not yet realized, but which is certain to be realized.
What, then, is this hope? —It is the inheritance, which none can receive except they have eternal life. And none can have eternal life—the life of God—who have not eternal righteousness—the righteousness of God.
This hope was referred to by Paul in his answer before King Agrippa: “And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promises our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews” (Acts 26:6, 7). The promise made of God unto the fathers was the promise to Abraham, which embraces the world, even the world to come. As it is written: “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:9, 10).
Paul said that it was for this “hope’s sake” that he was accused of the Jews, when he made his answer before King Agrippa. But before Paul was brought before Agrippa, he had also stood before Festus the governor; and before that, he had made answer before Felix the governor. And in his word before Felix, he said, I “have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:15).
But even before this, Paul had been obliged to stand before the Sanhedrin and answer; and there “he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question” (Acts 23:6). Of the hope of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead; that is, even the dead have hope, if they be of the righteousness of faith; for it is written: “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death” (Prov.14:32). Therefore again it is written: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19). Not only in his life, but in his death, he who is in Christ has hope; and, being dead, his flesh rests in hope as did that of him in whom all the hope and promises of God are yea and amen.