In one sense, all of us are prisoners. We are locked into a death-dealing age of immorality, nonbelief, violence, and killing. We cannot escape our society, nor should we want to. The biblical faith never consists in an escape out of this world to some realm of peace and beauty, where the evils of the world are forgotten. Those evils are squarely faced.

Thus, we share a common prison life with every woman swollen with a problem pregnancy. No matter how she was impregnated—because of her own sinfulness or that of others and of our sex-saturated society—we are locked into the cage of our age with that woman. Her plight is ours, and we are fellow prisoners. We are, however, "prisoners of hope"—such is the term applied to the faithful in Zech. 9:12. Through the gloom of darkness that marks our society’s ways, we are those who can see a light that radiates from "the God of hope" (Rom. 15:13).

To be without hope means that nothing can be changed. The guilt of the past cannot be wiped out. The future will be the inevitable consequence of the present. And the present is an endless progression of futile attempts to find some help and relief by means of our own efforts and self-sufficiency.

The hope-filled Word
But there is a different Word from the God of hope, and we prisoners of hope who make up the pro-life forces in the church have heard it.

That Word says that the guilt of the past can be forgiven and done away. There can be a new beginning. "If anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation." Those who have aborted a child can find release from their guilt. Those who have engaged in sexual sins can find that old life of immorality put away forever. Those who have sanctioned abortion’s slaughter, for seemingly supportable reasons, can be granted a whole new understanding. A fresh start! Once more a beginning! Those are granted by the God of hope!

And so too does the God who meets us in Jesus Christ transform our present. Now we are not on our own anymore. There is a Wisdom beyond us who guides us, and who can bring right out of even our wrong. There are Everlasting Arms which can carry us when we think we cannot go on. There is a Love that will not let us go even when we are most unlovable. And yes, there is a Spirit that can bind us all together in community, so that no pregnant woman ever again need feel alone, without help and with no one to whom to turn. To every woman facing a crisis pregnancy, the God of hope extends his Word: "Fear not, for I am with you" (Isa. 43:5)—through my Spirit, through my church, through every pro-life group who values you and your child.

The God of hope is also the victorious God of the future. And so we prisoners of the love of that God and of his hope press on in certain joy.

• Elizabeth Achtemeier is a renowned Old Testament scholar, well known throughout the U.S. and Canada as a preacher, teacher, and writer. She is the author of 25 books, including one co-authored with Terry Schlossberg, titled Not My Own: Abortion and the Marks of the Church. She is an ordained minister in the PC(USA) and former adjunct professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, VA. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of PPL and is currently a member of the PPL Board of Reference. Due to Dr. Achtemeier's health, this is a reprint of her column from our Winter 1995 issue of PPL News. Not to be used without permission. Contact PPL.