Hope breeds patience, so hope therefore is immensely practical—this is not dry doctrine. While the impatient heart wants results now, propelling him to achieve what he desires, true hope brings a Spirit-enabled patience.

Notice our passage does not speak of hoping for righteousness, but a hope of righteousness. Being right before God is something a believer has already attained through faith (Galatians 2:16). Rather, Paul speaks of a hope that results from the knowledge that righteousness is already ours, it is the “hope of righteousness.”

Biblical hope encompasses expectancy with desire. Because of the knowledge of righteousness that comes through faith, energized by the Holy Spirit, we actually look forward with eagerness to the return of Christ. For those who live under Law, having spurned the truth of Christ, there is an inherent fear of judgment (Hebrews 10:26-27).

This hope is well grounded in the believer’s knowledge of the truth. We eagerly await our citizenship in heaven (Phil 3:20), our adoption and full redemption as sons (Rom 8:23-25), the return of Christ (Rev 9:28) and “the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:7a-8).

The key terms of this passage are significant. Paul chooses his words carefully. “We” refers to genuine believers, in contrast with “you” in vs. 4 which refers to legalists. “Faith” is used 44 times in this short letter. “Spirit” 18 times and “flesh” 16 times. These are the major themes of the book. In particular, faith as used here is contrasted with the flesh in 4:23. Living by the flesh does not produce the hope that righteousness by faith produces.

Finally, Paul now speaks of circumcision (referred to 13 times in Galatians) to clarify that the act itself is not significant one way or the other. He does not condemn the act itself, for in Acts 16:3 he had Timothy circumcised (shortly after this letter was penned). His censure had to do rather with circumcision used as a theology of sanctification because then it represents man-made efforts to attain righteousness, rather than depending on God’s grace. He asserts that ultimately what really matters is the operation of faith which works through love, not human effort through the Law.