Hope is the justified anticipation of eternal life as promised to those who exercise faith in Jesus Christ. Bruce R. McConkie stated, “As used in the revelations, hope is the desire of faithful people to gain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God hereafter. It is not a flimsy, ethereal desire, one without assurance that the desired consummation will be received, but a desire coupled with full expectation of receiving the coveted reward.” (Mormon Doctrine, p. 365) Hence, the record states that the believers might with surety hope for a better world. (italics added)
The prophet Ether used more general terms because his people did not know Christ by name. Therefore, they were to exercise faith in God (the pre-mortal Christ) that they would be worthy of a better (or eternal and celestialized) world. The best definition of hope is given by Moroni who focuses our hope on the atonement, And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise. (Moroni 7:41).
“The concept of hope plays a vital role in Latter-day Saint thought. Firmly centered in Christ and his resurrection, it is the ‘hope of eternal life’ (Titus 1:2) repeatedly alluded to by Paul. It is the opposite of the despair found among those who are ’without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world’ (Eph. 2:12). As the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni writes, ’If ye have no hope, ye must needs be in despair’ (Moro. 10:22). For those, however, who accept Christ’s Atonement and resurrection, there comes a ‘brightness of hope’ (2 Ne. 31:20) through which all who believe in God ‘might with surety hope for a better world’ (Ether 12:4).” (James K. Lyon in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, p. 656)
Neal A. Maxwell
“Quite clearly, therefore, ultimate hope is tied to the verifiable expectation of a resurrection and the better world to follow. Paul observed that if our hope in Christ pertained to ’this life only,’ a resurrectionless view of Christ, we would be ’of all men most miserable.’ (1 Corinthians 15:19.) In other words, proximate hope, disengaged from the reality of the resurrection (what some inconsistently espouse as a Christian existentialism), is not Christian hope at all!” (Notwithstanding My Weakness, p. 43 – 44)