Explore "The Hope of the Gospel" by George MacDonald on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. -- _Romans_ viii. 19.
Let us try, through these words, to get at the idea in St Paul's mind for which they stand, and have so long stood. It can be no worthless idea they represent -- no mere platitude, which a man, failing to understand it at once, may without loss leave behind him. The words mean something which Paul believes vitally associated with the life and death of his Master. He had seen Jesus with his bodily eyes, I think, but he had not seen him with those alone; he had seen and saw him with the real eyes, the eyes that do not see except they understand; and the sight of him had uplifted his whole nature -- first his pure will for righteousness, and then his hoping imagination; and out of these, in the knowledge of Jesus, he spoke.