(5) Hope maketh not ashamed.--This Christian hope does not disappoint or deceive. It is quite certain of its object. The issue will prove it to be well founded.

Because the love of God.--This hope derives its certainty from the consciousness of justifying love. The believer feeling the love of God (i.e., the love of God for him) shed abroad in his heart, has in this an assurance that God's promises will not be in vain.

By the Holy Ghost.--The communication of Himself on the part of God to man is generally regarded as taking place through the agency of the Spirit. (Comp. Romans 8:15-16; Galatians 4:6.)

Which is given.--Rather, which was given--i.e., when we first believed. (Comp. Acts 8:15; Acts 19:2; 2Corinthians 1:22; 2Corinthians 5:5; Galatians 4:6; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30.)

5:1-5 A blessed change takes place in the sinner's state, when he becomes a true believer, whatever he has been. Being justified by faith he has peace with God. The holy, righteous God, cannot be at peace with a sinner, while under the guilt of sin. Justification takes away the guilt, and so makes way for peace. This is through our Lord Jesus Christ; through him as the great Peace-maker, the Mediator between God and man. The saints' happy state is a state of grace. Into this grace we are brought, which teaches that we were not born in this state. We could not have got into it of ourselves, but we are led into it, as pardoned offenders. Therein we stand, a posture that denotes perseverance; we stand firm and safe, upheld by the power of the enemy. And those who have hope for the glory of God hereafter, have enough to rejoice in now. Tribulation worketh patience, not in and of itself, but the powerful grace of God working in and with the tribulation. Patient sufferers have most of the Divine consolations, which abound as afflictions abound. It works needful experience of ourselves. This hope will not disappoint, because it is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of love. It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in the hearts of all the saints. A right sense of God's love to us, will make us not ashamed, either of our hope, or of our sufferings for him.And hope maketh not ashamed,.... As a vain hope does, things not answering to expectation, it deceives, and is lost; but the grace of hope is of such a nature, as that it never fails deceives, or disappoints: it neither makes ashamed, nor have persons that have any reason to be ashamed of it; neither of the grace itself, which is a good one; nor of the ground and foundation of it, the person and righteousness of Christ; nor of the object of it, eternal glory:

because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. By "the love of God" is meant, not that love by which we love God, for hope does not depend upon, nor is it supported by our love and obedience to God; but the love of God to us, of which some instances are given in the following verses: us is said "to be shed abroad in our hearts"; which denotes the plenty and abundance of it, and the full and comfortable sensation which believers have of it: "by the Holy Spirit": who leads into, and makes application of it: "and is given to us": for that purpose, as the applier of all grace, the Comforter, and the earnest of heaven. Now the love which the Spirit sheds abroad in the heart, is the source and spring, both of justification itself, which is owing to the free grace of God, and of all the effects of it, as peace with God, access to the throne of grace, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, the usefulness of afflictions, and the stability of hope, and is here alleged as the reason of all.