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This title is not a fanciful one. To the Jew it had a triple significance.

1. He was under the yoke of a foreign despot, and longed to regain his freedom.

2. He was under the yoke of an unfulfilled promise of a coming Messiah, and yearned for the "day star to arise."

3. He was under the yoke of the unrealised prophecies concerning the glory of the Messiah's kingdom, and the eternal felicity of His followers. Rightly apprehended, the words of the text are the true designation of every real Christian. In two senses out of the three, however, they are not applicable to us. We are not under an alien yoke. The incarnation is not a hope, but a historic fact. In the third sense only are saints today "prisoners of hope."

I. WE ARE PRISONERS TO AN UNREDEEMED BODY. In St. Paul's sense, "Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23). Observe, then —

1. There is a sense in which the body is already redeemed. Christ by His contact with human flesh has sanctified it, and separated it from the service of sin; so that now we are exhorted to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God."

2. There is another sense in which our bodies are not redeemed.

(1) They are not yet free from manifold infirmities, — nervousness, drowsiness, debility, defects in the organs of sensation.

(2) They are not yet redeemed from sensuous appetites. How soon the sensuous becomes sensual!

3. Hope anticipates the possession of an immortal body —

(1)  From which every element of weakness and infirmity is excluded.

(2)  In which carnal appetites shall have no place.

(3)  Which shall be no more subject to death.

II. WE ARE PRISONERS TO A LIMITED AND SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE. "Now I know in part," — there is the bondage. "Then shall I know even as I am known," — there is the freedom.

1. Our knowledge touches not the essence, but only the phenomena of things. What they really are Omniscience only knows. Names are but disguises by which we hide our ignorance. The more we learn, the less we seem to know. "There are two sorts of ignorance. We philosophise to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philosophy is ignorance. We start from the one, we repose in the other."

2. Our knowledge reaches men, not as they are, only as they appear. All men are better or worse than they seem to be. The invisible part is the true man.

3. Even this knowledge is limited by the brevity of life and the conditions of its existence. The most profound thinker and the most extensive traveller must lay aside their work at the summons of death.

4. Since human knowledge is so limited, how irrational for human beings to impugn the Divine economy. As wise for the mole to criticise and condemn the landscape under which he burrows. Man's work is to trust and wait.

5. Hope anticipates the solution of the dark enigma of human life. "Then I shall know even as I am known." Things will appear as they really are.

6. Even this knowledge is progressive. The finite can never comprehend the infinite. Progress is heaven's law as well as earth's.

III. WE ARE PRISONERS TO A CIRCUMSCRIBED CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. The great family of our Father is sadly dismembered. Whilst one in spirit and faith, our fellowship is ruptured by —

1. Doctrinal divergence. The Jews of bigoted ritualism still have no dealings with the Samaritans of a broader faith

2. Suspicion, the offspring of imperfect knowledge, is another cause of circumscribed fellowship.

3. Social status is a barrier to universal Christian fellowship.

4. Distance and death contribute to the limited measure of fellowship enjoyed by Christians.

5. Hope anticipates the universal and perfect fellowship of saints.

(1)  This will include all ages;

(2)  and all climes;

(3)  and all classes and creeds.

IV. WE ARE PRISONERS TO AN IMPERFECT VISION OF CHRIST. "Now we see through a glass darkly." There is the bondage. "Then face to face." There is the substance of our hope. Yet note —

1. Christ is really apprehended by faith even here. This faith is a spiritual sense, akin to the eye of the body. It invests the invisible Saviour with a real personality.

2. This vision is at best a dim one. A reflected view, as when one beholds a face in a mirror.

3. Human nature in its present state is not capable of a more open vision.

(Homiletic Magazine.)

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KJV: Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee;

WEB: Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope! Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.