No Substitute for Hope

Erik brought our series on Daniel to a conclusion. Daniel’s final vision contains one of the earliest, clearest statements of a hope for resurrection in the Bible. God’s promise of raising the dead transformed the meaning of hope for a people in exile:

Confidence, optimism, positivity all have their places. The problem is that they are no substitute for hope, certainly no substitute for the hope Daniel receives from an angel and passes on to us: Hope not just for the future, but the past; not just the living, but the dead. Hope for the hopeless. We can’t find that anywhere in ourselves or in our situation – only false hopes there. True hope can only come from God, the only one with the power to make right everything that has gone wrong.