A second condition, inseparable from the first, marks the hope proper to the Christian righteousness. It is sustained "by the Spirit." The connection of faith and hope respectively with the gift of the Holy Spirit is marked very clearly by Paul in Eph. i. 13, 14: "Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is _the earnest of our inheritance_." The Holy Spirit seals the sons of God--"sons, then heirs" (ch. iv. 6, 7; Rom. viii. 15-17). This stamps on Christian hope a _spiritual_ character. The conception which we form of it, the means by which it is pursued, the temper and attitude in which it is expected, are determined by the Holy Spirit who inspires it. This pure and celestial hope is therefore utterly removed from the selfish ambitions and the sensuous methods that distinguished the Judaistic movement (ch. iv. 3, 9; vi. 12-14). "Men of worldly, low design" like Paul's opponents in Galatia, had no right to entertain "the hope of righteousness." These matters are spiritually discerned; they are "the things of the Spirit, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" (1 Cor. ii. 9-14).
If faith and hope are in sight, _love_ cannot be far off. In the next verse it comes to claim its place beside the other two: "faith working through love." And so the blessed trio is complete, _Fides, amor, spes: summa Christianismi_ (Bengel). Faith waits, but it also _works_;[133] and love is its working energy. Love gives faith hands and feet; hope lends it wings. Love is the fire at its heart, the life-blood coursing in its veins; hope the light that gleams and dances in its eyes. Looking back to the Christ that hath been manifested, faith kindles into a boundless love; looking onward to the Christ that shall be revealed, it rises into an exultant hope.
[133] "_Working_ through love," not _wrought_ (R.V. _margin_). The latter rendering of the participle is found in some of the Fathers, and is preferred by Romanist interpreters in the interest of their doctrine of _fides formata_. Paul's theology and his verbal usage alike require the _middle_ sense of this verb, adopted by modern commentators with one consent. The middle voice implies that through love faith _gets into action_, _is operative_, _efficacious_, _shows what it can do_. Comp., for Pauline usage, Rom. vii. 5; 2 Cor. i. 6, iv. 12; Eph. iii. 20; Col. i. 29; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Thess. ii. 7; and see Moulton's Winer's _N. T. Grammar_, p. 318 (note on _dynamic middle_).