Or, Wait! There's More!
Scripture: Romans 8:18-25
Date: October 30, 2022
Speaker: Sean Higgins
The Lord renews our minds so that we can live according to true standards. We look around and we see things that need explaining. Those who live according to the flesh invent some explanations, though their thoughts are more like riddles and riddled with inconsistency. They have trouble putting all the pieces together, which is actually a piece that believers have an explanation for. Those who live according to the flesh can get some parts right, but they can’t get it all right. Whenever they shake their magic 8-ball, the answer comes up death.
A key reality in Romans 8 is that believers live according to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives faith and gives leading and gives a testimony that we are God’s children. The Spirit enables us to put to death the desires and deeds of the flesh, and the Spirit enables us to see and explain and endure with hope the suffering that happens before we are “with-gloried” with Christ.
Paul just said that those who are glorified with Christ are those who suffer with Christ (verse 17). This paragraph has more to say about both: groaning (as we suffer) and glory (as we wait eagerly in endurance and faith and hope).
In English when we say “there is no comparison,” we actually mean that we already did a comparison and the results weren’t close. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
The consider is the same as “reckon” back in Romans 6:11. It requires thought, but maybe even more the idea of calculation; “weighing the evidence” (Morris). Two objects are as on two sides of a balance: current sufferings and coming glory. The “sufferings of the now season” belong to the present age, in which we live and groan. But the sufferings are personal; as the losses and brokenness and hurts are personal, so will the glory be. (Think also 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
This glory is…to be bestowed upon us, so that we become the actual partakers; it is not a glory of which we are to be mere spectators. (Murray)
We’re not merely onlookers or bystanders of suffering or of glory.
The sufferings are not worthy (not “worth comparing” as the ESV). On the scale they don’t match “the about to be glory.” In the doctrine of salvation we refer to justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have fallen short of the glory of God, and by His grace He is preparing us to be restored to glory. This is a glory that is to be revealed to us, but that could make it sound like glory is like a great display for us to see. But we will be with-gloried (συνδοξασθῶμεν, verse 17), our bodies will be redeemed (verse 23).
The “for” at the front of verse 19 is explanatory, but not in a causal sense. Verses 19-21 are one sentence (in Greek) that the glory to be revealed to believers is something the whole universe knows about. The cosmos is just waiting to see it.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The waits with eager longing is one word in Greek, and it’s used again in verse 23 and again in verse 25. Here creation wants something, and it wants it badly.
What it wants are for the sons of God to be revealed, that is, to be revealed in all their glory. There’s a coming part of their adoption, which relates to the physical redemption (verse 23). The creation knows that that revelation is better than the present trials.
What part of creation are we talking about? That’s a good question. Let’s come back to that after verse 21.
for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
In futility, in a frustration of failed fulfillment of purpose, creation “was made to submit.” That wasn’t what creation wanted, but it was decided for creation by “the one having subjected.” The Creator subjected creation. This is Pauls explanation of Genesis 3. When the Lord punished Adam He cursed the ground, and the fields wouldn’t give up their fruit like before. The Lord Himself established the plan.
The creation Paul refers to doesn’t seem personal, though Paul is personifying it. It’s not angels and certainly not demons who would never want glory for God’s sons. God’s sons are learning from creation so it’s not them, and why would unbelievers wait eagerly for such revelation either? So this is the non-rational creation. This is the sun and moon, plants and planets, mountains and seas and trees and flowers, the rocks and hills, deserts and gardens. Something holds them back from their freedom; God has inflicted on nature a sort of slavery. God has also provoked creation to hope. (See also a different but related worship performed by creation in Psalm 96:11-12.)
The bondage will be broken and the corruption will be undone. Creation will be set free along with the children of God.
I would have taken verse 22 as the end of the point about creation and start a new point with verse 23. But all the Greek copies I looked at take our verses 22-23 together as one sentence. Obviously the content connects, but the “we know” and the “we groan” put the focus back on persons.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
This is Christian 101; we know, it’s understood. Unlike the ESV, there are two different verbs, both that have a “with” idea. All creation “with-groans” and “with-suffers pain” (συστενάζει καὶ συνωδίνει). The commentator Moffatt puts it: “the entire creation sighs and throbs with pain.” The image of childbirth isn’t in the original text, but it is probably the best picture. These aren’t death pangs but birth pangs, labor pains rather than last pains. But, it is pains, which gets us back to the “sufferings” that the paragraph opened with.
Creation cries out. We know He commands wind and rain, futility and pain.
There is a pile up of transition conjunctions at the start of verse 23: “not only but, but also.” Creation feels the pain, we even more.
We have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Paul referred to the Spirit as a sort of downpayment that guarantees future inheritance to the Ephesians (1:13-14). The firstfruits image isn’t only chronological but eschatological, in terms of there will be more where that comes from.
In the meantime we groan inwardly. It’s personal. There is a community of sufferers, which is different than the FOG, the Fellowship of Grievance. We can be the Fellowship of Groaners, but that’s not grumbling as much as waiting eagerly. We see what’s coming. We’ve gotten a little taste. We look forward to the redemption of our bodies. Jesus will deliver us from the corruption.
For in this hope we were saved. Salvation comes with hope; hope is part of the basic salvation package. Salvation looks back differently; our sins have been covered. Salvation looks around differently; we walk in newness of life, ready to serve righteousness. But saving faith has an end, the future of faith is when faith isn’t necessary. Faith is temporary because of its telos.
There’s some basics in the last part of verse 24 and verse 25. Paul gives a definition, almost a logical tautology. Hope that is seen is not hope. The nature of hope is a confidence about what’s coming. It can be comprehended but it’s currently concealed. For who hopes for what he sees? What square has rounded corners? A square with rounded corners isn’t a square. What man can give birth? If a man gives birth we can know it wasn’t a man. So hope means the anticipation part not the accomplished part. Hope can visualize what is not visible right now.
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. The “eagerly waiting” word finishes the paragraph, and while patience is a an acceptable translation, this is the typical NT word for endurance, for perseverance. It’s a remaining (ὑπομονῆς), continuing. ENDurance begins with the END of our hope.
We might have wet cheeks reading along as Caspian’s crew sail sunny, placid waters through bright and still flowers right before Reepicheep gets home to Aslan’s Country. Our joy in that part of the story is because we also long for final joy; we’re eager to be done. But we see that way more clearly because usually, we are in an ongoing battle, our supplies are sufficient but rusty, those we thought to be allies are apathetic, and we’re fighting to the last before we get in. But we will. It will be an end that is also a new beginning.
For now we groan and we hope. We groan in hope. We are not hopeless, we also don’t act surface-level upbeat just to please people. From a pastoral perspective, it would be easier if we self-policed, if we were honest with ourselves, rather than seeing how hopeless we can appear before a brother has to say something. “Hey, bro, you’re acting like your future glory just got a can of soup thrown on it.”
Likewise, we’re learning how to not poo-poo the present, which is also what God has given us His Holy Spirit to hope through. God likes the idea of hope. Lines are Christian; God invented waiting. But we can wait better or worse, with order and hope or not. We can waste our waiting or provoke others to ask us about the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15). We are not materialists or gnostics; we see what we see and we hope for what we do not see.
Creation cries out and my sufferings proclaim He is Lord and the Savior of hope.
Brothers, rejoice in your sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a shameless hope, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (see Romans 5:3-5).
Let us build in hope, battle in hope, rest in hope, wait in hope. Hope in God!
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13, ESV)