I was moved this week at the Southern Baptist Convention as I listened to messages, testimonies, and reports of what is happening around the globe among our brethren. One pastor told of visiting a country closed to gospel work and finding an exceptional hunger for the Word of God. During the visit, he met with a few believers that were interested in learning more of the Scripture, so he gave them an introductory study to Nehemiah. They had met for a couple of hours when he completed the study. They wanted more. So he worked through more Old Testament introductions. After it was well into the night, the leader said, “You will come back tomorrow and finish.” The pastor asked for how long they would meet, and he heard the reply, “Until you are finished.” By that, he meant “finish” with introductions to all 39 Old Testament books! They met for 16 hours! Then he returned the next day to do the New Testament books. Each meeting was in secret with the pastor wearing dark clothing and a hood to hide his identity as he slipped into an alley entrance to meet with these Christians who hungered deeply for Christ.
Other missionaries stood on a dark stage with their faces hidden from view as they told of work in their countries. Some were in Asia, others in Central Asia. They told of the gospel going forth amidst much opposition with its power transforming animists, false religionists, and opponents into faithful Christians. Those caught as Christians faced more than mild ridicule that we sometime encounter. They faced ostracizing by family, loss of jobs, imprisonment, and death. But they do so with confidence that this world is not the end or the ultimate existence. They serve Jesus Christ under great strain knowing that they have a better world ahead—a hope that is untarnished by dictators, terrorists, or poverty. They have learned to suffer with joy because of their hope in Christ.
As I listened to the Word opened, testimonies given, and joined in singing of the Christian’s hope in the midst of pain and sorrow, my mind ran back to Romans 8:18. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” I felt something of the power and beauty and strength of these words. And I worshiped! I worshiped because our Lord is so mighty, His work so certain, and His promises so secure, that I, along with multitudes of brothers and sisters across the globe, can persevere with eagerness in anticipation of the final day of redemption. That time of worship affirmed, Christians need to live with a view of future glory.
Remarkably, the creation lives with a view to future glory. That’s the Apostle Paul’s point of reference so that we can see our future in light of creation’s hope. We strengthen our hope when we realize that even creation rides on the back of the Christian’s hope. If the creation waits eagerly for our final redemption, should not we wait with even more expectation?
As we work through these verses, let us keep in mind their tie to assurance, especially the work of the Spirit in the believer’s assurance. The hope of future glory spurs perseverance, which in turn promotes assurance. So how can we live with a view of future glory? Let us consider first, the lessons from the creation, and then the certainties for the redeemed.
Now what of this strange talk of creation longing for the same glory which believers long for? “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Keep in mind that Paul moves from suffering to glory by speaking of the “now” and the “not yet.” A great crescendo builds while in this life until the final day when history ends and glory displays unhindered the infinite majesty, goodness, holiness, and wonder of our God. This is the treasure of the redeemed, secured by Christ, and promised in the gospel. This life still reels under the effects of the fall. Sin still mars every aspect of the animate and inanimate world. But a day is coming when sin will be no more; the massive effects of the fall will end and what God intended at creation will be restored in greater dimensions of glory. Here’s what I want you to see. If the creation anticipates the glory that belongs to the redeemed, should we not anticipate it even more?
Creation and humanity have something in common: they both fell when Adam sinned and consequently, the centuries that have passed have unfolded the impact of sin in the world. We considered this in detail in the previous study. Keep in mind the curse in the fall that affected more than the serpent, Adam, and Eve. Even the ground and the cattle and the beasts of the field were cursed due to Adam’s sin. Creation identifies with fallen humanity.
But more importantly, creation has something in common with the Redeemed: both will see and experience glory. Why else would the creation strain its neck with outstretched head in anticipation of this revelation spoken of in verse 18? That’s the picture given in verse 19 by the word “anxious longing,” indicating, “diversion from all other things and concentrating on a single object and indicates a patient waiting” [ELKGNT, 330]. It’s the idea of one standing on his tiptoes for a better view, craning his neck to get a better sight of what is just ahead. Creation has this kind of “anxious longing” for the glory that belongs to those adopted as sons and daughters of the living God through Christ. Creation patiently tolerates pollution, rust, erosion, nuclear tests, forest fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, mudslides, and every other destructive force and manmade disaster in anticipation of future glory that belongs to the redeemed. It is because in that moment of revelation “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom [the same freedom!] of the glory of the children of God.” Creation has its eyes on the saints! After speaking of Jesus as Creator and Sovereign, Paul explains that as Redeemer through His bloody death at the cross He reconciles “all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20). All things “whether things on earth or things in heaven.” That includes the whole of the created order. Here your whole cosmology, your view of the world, changes in light of future glory.
What did the fall do to the creation? “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it.” The Septuagint translation of Ecclesiastes uses the same word, “futility,” to translate the vanity and aimlessness described in that wisdom book. One writer said that Ecclesiastes was a commentary on this verse. As much as life is without God’s glory—whether creature or creation—it is living aimlessly, existing in futility.
“Futility” shows the power of sin’s presence. We are too accustomed to it. We think with it in view. Yet that is grossly inferior to what lies ahead when all trace and effects of sin will be swallowed up in the victory of Jesus Christ’s triumphant death at the cross.
In the beginning, the Creator had a nobler purpose for creation. In every way it was to display the glory of God. We still see vestiges of that glory every day even as we still see remnants of the image of God in man. Yet as wonderful as is the sunset, beautiful mountains, spectacular forests, tiny flowers, and blue skies, it is still affected by the fall. Creation is not what it will be in the consummation of the ages. Creation did not join in man’s rebellion. It was subjected to futility “not willingly” but as part of the curse that the Creator declared upon it. Creation had no say in this futility. And so the Old Testament prophets anticipated future glory for the creation when the futility left by the fall will be swept forever into the abyss. “The wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.” No wonder Isaiah follows with, “Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, ‘Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but He will save you’.” That points to the day of final redemption—“the revealing of the sons of God.” The prophet continues, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah. The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, its resting place, grass becomes reeds and rushes. A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness…” (Isa. 35:1-8). Creature and creation will be liberated from every effect of the fall.
If you have ever had trouble grasping (and who hasn’t!) something of the meaning of “a new heaven and a new earth,” then consider what Paul is teaching. It is no different than what the prophets taught hundreds of years before. As lovely as we think creation is at present, it pales in comparison to the glory that will be revealed when God reveals His glory in the redeemed! Creation’s future glory depends on the culmination of our redemption through Christ—this “revealing of the sons of God.”
With an eye on the redeemed, creation looks for the day that it “also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” The future passive verb implies that God will do the work of liberation, with the context declaring it as fruit of Jesus Christ’s redemptive work at the cross. It is a “freedom” won by the bloody death of Christ Jesus who conquered sin and reversed the effects of the fall.
“Corruption” refers to the deterioration and decline inherent since the fall. Contrary to some philosophies, the world is declining rather than improving. The philosophical optimism that followed World War I crashed on the Great Depression and the horrors of World War II. Thinking that political maneuvering and flowery talk would usher in a new day, proponents lost their hope in the face of global crises. Glory does not come on the wings of politics and rhetorical flourishes. It comes through the gospel via the road of suffering.
Creation understands this acutely. Seismic fault lines strain toward destruction. Volcanic pressure builds until it spews forth waves of devastating lava. Rivers flood their banks, eroding precious soil in its wake. All the while creation strains toward the day that it will be released from the corrupting effects of the fall and be liberated into the same glory assured to those redeemed by the bloody death of Christ.
What does creation hope for because of the gospel promise of “the revealing of the sons of God…into the freedom of the glory of the children of God”? Hear the words of Isaiah 11:6-9.
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Paul has no hesitation about the way that the creation hopes for the day of revelation. “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Both “groans and suffers” are prefixed with the word “together,” showing an act of unison by the whole of creation. The animate and inanimate world “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Yet the groaning will end when the “now” is over and the not yet begins.
Paul’s point is not just to explain how creation looks for the day of Christ’s return when the work of redemption through the death of Christ ushers in eternal glory. He tells us, “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the fruit fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” We groan together with the whole created order in anticipation of the glory that will deliver us from these bodies of death and this slavery to corruption. A cosmic concert daily groans with anticipation of future glory. If creation has its head and neck strained waiting for future glory, should not we do so even more?
Is this talk of future glory merely ramblings of a demented preacher? Is it fairy tale language akin to Cinderella and Snow White? It is interesting that the world of make believe and fairy tales most often focus on some type of future glory. Have you thought of the pattern they take? Though certainly not paralleling biblical thought at every turn, they do offer something of a theological framework for glory. Evil is always present as the spoiler from which the prime characters must be delivered. Suffering and ruin always follow in the wake of evil until a redeemer figure delivers them so that they might live in glory—or to put it in their language, “And so they lived happily ever after.” The writers got their clues from the biblical story of future glory. The man who understood more about human vanity and aimlessness than any other, explained the reason for this longing: “He [God] set eternity in their heart” (Eccl. 3:11). Mankind searches for satisfaction—this illusive glory—but he does not find it until “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” shines in his heart “to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4, 6).
How can we live with a view of future glory? That’s what Paul explains by identifying five certainties for the saints [I was especially helped in this section by John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 242-243 and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 8:17-39—the Final Perseverance of the Saints, 68-119].
I love the way that Paul moves from the groaning in creation to that of those waiting for “adoption as sons.” He could not be more emphatic! “And not only this [i.e., the groaning by creation], but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” What is the meaning of “the first fruits of the Spirit”? If we think back to the Feast of Weeks during harvest days, the children of Israel brought the first fruits of their crops in thanksgiving to God and as an expression that there was more to follow. Or to use another image, this one from the commercial world, the Spirit is given as a “down payment” or earnest of our future inheritance (Eph. 1:14; 2 Cor. 1:22). When someone gives earnest money in a real estate transaction it is the guarantee that the balance of the full price promised will be paid. So what is the Spirit guaranteeing to us? The present work of the Spirit in the life of the believer is the evidence of future glory. The small work now will give way to eternal glory. His conviction of sin, His filling with power, His illumining us in the Word, His working in us the character of Christ, all give evidence of more to come. Or to put it differently, the Spirit assures us of the certainty of future glory by letting us taste the sweetness and richness of the future in the present. Never minimize “the first fruits of the Spirit.” They are given as tokens of future glory.
While “the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now,” Paul indicates that creation is not alone: “even we ourselves groan within ourselves.” The present tense implies that it is ongoing groaning or sighing in anticipation of future glory. Our groaning is in concert with the work of the Holy Spirit (8:26). We groan in two directions. We groan when we suffer as we consider the pressure, pain, and stress we find ourselves under. It reminds us that as long as we live in this fallen world we will face that kind of groaning. Here we wrestle with ourselves in making sure our groans do not give way to complaints, whining, or worse. But we also groan with anticipation; we sigh as we think of the not yet that we so much look forward to experiencing. If you’ve not had a vacation in a year but you have one planned in a few weeks, it is normal to sigh in anticipation of entering the freedom of that time. You groan with delight! Stott remarks, “Our groans express both present pain and future longing. Some Christians, however, grin too much (they seem to have no place in their theology for pain) and groan too little” [p. 242]. Lloyd-Jones adds, “We groan not only because we see what we are now, but also because we know what is coming. The extent to which you know what is coming is the extent to which you will be groaning at the present time.” [p. 92].
The intent of the Christian’s inward groaning is for final redemption: “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” One of the great evidences of salvation is a holy hatred for sin in one’s own life (1 John 3:4-10). It is one thing to despise sin in others yet another to despise it in our own lives. “The redemption of our body” is another way of declaring that the effects of the fall are over. We will no longer live in mortal bodies that have the propensity and tendency to sin. Rather we will live in glorified bodies—thus “our adoption as sons”—sharing the same glorified humanity as Jesus Christ and expressing the same inward and outward holiness and sinlessness as Him, too. Do you groan for this?
There seems to be both a subjective and objective sense of hope in these last two verses of our text. Subjectively, hope is a grace that follows faith in characterizing the Christian’s perseverance. Objectively, hope describes what is anticipated in the person of Christ and His return. “For in hope we have been saved.” It is not “by hope” that we have been saved but “in hope,” i.e., in the sphere and realm of hope. “We have been saved” translates an aorist tense verb showing that it is not expressing the wishful thinking of perhaps, maybe being saved but rather the certainty of something that has already transacted. Hope characterizes this salvation, so much so, that the believer lives with the confident expectation that all that Jesus Christ has accomplished and promised in the gospel will indeed be ours. That is our “hope” objectively—what we anticipate. But it is also the grace of hope subjectively to anticipate what is certainly ours in Christ.
It is an objective hope because, “hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?” It is still a “hope” while it remains unfulfilled.
The better the promise of the future hope the more we anticipate it. It is certainly true that a bride-to-be anticipates the hope of her wedding day much more than a lady looking with hope for her next day off. The substance of the hope inspires the measure of anticipation. The motivation spurred by hope’s substance affects the way we live in anticipation of its unveiling. So Paul writes, “But if we hope [here subjective use] for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” Hope spurs perseverance. What does perseverance do? It means that you bear up, and in this case, not reluctantly but with eagerness. Why can you do this? Future glory with Christ awaits us at the realization of our anticipated hope.
As I reflect on my life, I realize that it has been dotted with hope fulfilled along the way. I anticipated graduation from high school, marriage, college, seminary, the birth of our children, moving to a new pastorate, planting a church, welcoming grandchildren, publishing a book. Yet all these are temporal hopes—wonderful, fulfilling in time yet not ultimate. They are preparatory, in a sense, to help us live in the grace of hope. But they are not meant to be ultimate as though the absolute meaning of our existence. This hope is the future glory that belongs to the redeemed. And if you have this kind of hope, it motivates you to keep pressing on in dealing with sin, repenting, growing in grace, developing in character, trusting Christ, applying the gospel, reading the Word, praying, worshiping, serving Christ, remaining teachable, declaring the gospel, showing concern for the nations, serving those in need, working on relationships, loving one another, and a host of other practices we are called upon to do as Christians. None are for the purpose of securing future glory. That is already secured in Christ. Rather it is the hope of future glory that primes the pump of perseverance until the not yet of future glory becomes the now of a realized hope.
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