What may a christian hope for in this life? Part 7

This then begs the question of timing and legitimacy. If Jesus judges as legitimate those who hoped for his coming within their lifetime, even if it did not come, does christian hope need to bear any resemblance to the reality of the future? And what comfort is there in calling hope legitimate yet unfulfilled? Moltmann resolves the tension by speculating that the future resurrection will be a resurrection of the entire history of the believer. “To be raised to eternal life means that nothing has ever been lost for God- not the pains of this life, and not the moments of happiness. Men and women will find again with God not only the final moment, but their whole history- but as the reconciled, the rectified and healed and completed history of their whole lives. ”32 Even without this speculation, Christian hope for this life may avoid the charge of divinely approved fantasy. Two factors tie christian hope firmly to a real fulfilment. Firstly the possibility of the end before the death of the believer, and secondly the intrusion of God’s eschatological blessings prior to the end.
Though the christian faith highly commends those who die for their faith, death is always presented as the enemy of God and his people. Though Paul may long to be with the Lord , the New Testament never presents death as a normal and ongoing ‘gateway’ to hope. 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 and 1 Thessalonians 5:13-18 both speak of both living and dead believers meeting with the Lord at his coming. Paul is at pains in 1 Thessalonians to assure his readers that the dead are at no disadvantage in this respect, yet neither are they advantaged ‘ the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed’ .
“The syllogism: All men must die, Caius is a man, therefore Caius must die, is no doubt an illuminating statement of pagan wisdom. But it is not a statement of Christian wisdom, any more than the obvious moral of the mediaeval dance of death. It cannot be, because it overlooks the parousia of Jesus Christ, which in its last and as yet outstanding form carries with it an alternative so far as concerns the end of the man living in it, so that his end does not have to be his death... If the triumph of hope is to be clear and understandable in face of this most bitter of all limits, namely, the ineluctable end of human and therefore Christian existence, then it is not merely advisable but quite indispensable to realise that the end which is before all of us can come with death but may also come directly with the coming of Jesus Christ”
Karl Barth
Christian hope for the return of Jesus and the coming of his kingdom are grounded in the reality of the possibility of his return.