For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
For we are saved by hope, х tee (G3588) gar (G1063) elpidi (G1680) esootheemen (G4982)]. This sense of the words makes hope the instrument of salvation, which it can only be if we view hope as nothing else (to use the words of Alford) than faith in its prospective attitude. Still hope is not faith, but is that which begets it; and in the New Testament they are carefully distinguished. The true sense, as the great majority of good critics admit, is, 'For in hope we are saved;' that is, our salvation-in that sense of it which the preceding verses refer to-is in the present state rather in hope than in actual possession.
But hope that is seen is not hope - for the very meaning of hope is the expectation that some good now future will become present. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? - since the latter ends when the other comes.