How the creation teaches us to hope (Rom. 8:18-25)

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We ended our last message on Romans 8 with a consideration of the words, “if so be that we suffer with him [with Christ] that we may be also glorified together [with him]” (17).  Paul has just expounded the pinnacle of Christian blessing and privilege in terms of our adoption into his family and the fact that that makes us heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.  But then Paul reminds us that along with the future glory is present sufferings and that the two inevitable go together.

And in these verses we are considering today, the apostle goes on to flesh this idea out.  I point you once again to the string of “fors” in these verses.  Verses 18,19,20, and 22 all begin with the word “for,” and indicate a logical sequence of thought.  The apostle is making an argument here, and it is incumbent upon us to work it out.

What is the argument he is making?  Verse 18 says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  The “for” in this verse is meant to show us why suffering is not incompatible with our position as the children of God.  You might at first blush think that verse 17 is wildly contradictory.  How can God’s children be exposed to suffering?  How can God let such a thing happen?  Well, verse 18 is the first step to helping us see how.  And the first thing the apostle Paul says is that whatever amount of suffering the Christian endures in the present is just incomparable with the glory to come – it is “not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  I think it means that the glory to come will be so infinitely greater and wonderful than the pain and suffering of the present time that we won’t give it a second thought in the age to come.  As the hymn puts it, “Earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal.”

Then verse 19 goes on to explain and unpack what this glory is.  It is a glory that all creation is waiting for: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”  How do we know it is a glory that is not even worthy to be compared with our present suffering?  Because it is a glory that all creation waits for with eager longing.  

There is a restaurant near us that I felt like I had to try because every time I passed by the parking lot it was completely packed.  It didn’t matter the day; it was always packed.  There were always a lot of people waiting to get in that restaurant and have a meal there.  Frankly, that was the best advertising, at least from my perspective, the place could have had.  It’s in the end what convinced me to try it.  So think of what Paul is saying in this way: if the glory to come were a restaurant, Paul is saying that the whole creation is outside waiting for it to open.  In fact, the apostle doesn’t stop there: he basically says elsewhere that even angelic beings are waiting for this to happen – in fact, that they are watching carefully every step of God’s redemptive plan.  As he puts it in Eph. 3: “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10).  The glory is so great that all creation is waiting for it to happen.

Now you may wonder why the creation is waiting for the glory of the people of God?  Verses 20-21 answer that question: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”  Paul mentions two reasons here.  First, it is longing for it because the creation itself is suffering, and second, because the deliverance of the created order will correspond with the final deliverance and redemption of God’s people in the glory of the age to come.  And because of the vanity and futility of the present order, the creation is suffering, and groaning and travailing in pain: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (22).  

So the logical sequence we find in these verses is this: the creation is groaning and travailing in pain to the present moment because it has been subjected to futility and vanity.  But it is not just groaning because of the vanity: it is groaning because it one day will be delivered, and its deliverance will happen along with and be a part of the glorification of the children of God.  The creation groans, but it groans in the knowledge of this great reality of future redemption, and that causes the creation not only to groan but to hope and that in turn leads to endurance and patient waiting for its deliverance.

Now of course the apostle is not a pantheist here.  He doesn’t think that the physical order is alive or that it is one with God.  Paul is using the literary device of personification in order to give vividness and richness to the idea of the coming glory.  Of course this is found all over Scripture, for example, when the prophet Isaiah writes, “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isa. 55:12).  Or when the psalmist writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.” (Ps. 19:1-5).  We could multiply such instances.  

I know that some have questioned whether the apostle is even referring to the physical creation, but he must be.  For one thing, in verse 23, the distinguishes God’s people from the “creature”: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”  So whatever the “creature” is, it is not those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit – which is just a reference to the people of God.  

So what else would be groaning and travailing in pain until now and waiting with eagerness of the manifestation of the sons of God?  Certainly, we can eliminate the demons.  They’re not looking forward to it; they hate the very thought of it, and it fills them with terror and painful foreboding.  Nor should we think Paul is talking about the angels here.  I doubt that they are groaning in pain together until now, seeing that they are perfect and without sin.  Certainly they cannot be described as being subject to vanity and futility.  So that really leaves us with the physical creation.  That is what Paul is referring to in verses 19-22.

But Paul is also using the physical creation to teach the people of God’s new creation in Christ how to hope in the midst of suffering.  And this is how he seems to apply it in verse 23: “even we ourselves groan . . . waiting.”  The creation groans and hopes and waits.  Even so, the Christian is to groan and hope and wait.

By the way, as we saw in our recent study of the book of Revelation and in our past studies on eschatology, that the physical world we presently inhabit will be a part of the new creation.  It will not be obliterated.  It will not disappear.  It will be burned up, yes, and purified, but not annihilated.  Why would the creation long for its own demise?  No, what it longs for is its renewal.  And we will in the age to come life forever in resurrected bodies to enjoy a new heaven and a new earth.  This is what Peter says: “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13).  And heaven, the dwelling place of God, according to the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation, will come to this new earth as the New Jerusalem (1-4) to be a part of it.

It has to be this way.  It has to be because if this world is not restored to its condition prior to the Fall of man into sin, then Satan has won.  The corruption of this world is a result of the Fall.  It is the result of sin.  Because man sinned the ground produces thorns and thistles.  “Change and decay in all around I see.”  Things changed and the world became subject to the bondage of corruption.  That was Satan’s doing.  But there is coming a day when all this will be undone.  Not only will God’s people be saved by the Seed of the woman, but the earth itself will “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:23).  This is the hope of both the physical creation and of the people of God.

Let’s look a bit more closely at that idea this morning.  There are four elements to the creation’s hope, and to the believer’s also.  They are lamenting, learning, longing, and lasting.  Let’s look at these things together.

Lamenting

When I say “lament,” I am referring to the experience of groaning and the travailing in pain that Paul refers to in the text.  The creation is groaning and so is the Christian.  This is a painful but important reality for us to grasp.  For one thing, it teaches us that the Christian faith does not teach us to deny the reality of the pain of suffering.  Paul doesn’t say that we groan as if he were embarrassed by it.  No, he expects us to, and the context makes it clear that it is entirely fitting and appropriate for us to do so.  It is right for the creation to groan because of what it is.  In the same way, it is right for us to groan and grieve because things are not the way they are supposed to be.  It would not be right for us to pretend that tragedy and trials and turmoil is the way things are meant to be.  They aren’t.  This world was not made by God in the way it is now.  When God made all things, he made them good.  Sin came into this world through the disobedience of man, and death and disorder has come into the world.  Now the creation groans and so do we.

So it is not a sign of faith to pretend as if your suffering does not exist.  It is not a sign of faith to act like the suffering isn’t real.  It is not a sign of faith to be unfeeling to the hurt in your life.  That’s not Christianity at all.  That’s paganism; it’s Stoicism.  Hinduism and Buddhism may teach you that pain is an illusion, but that is not what the Bible teaches.  The Bible teaches that pain is real and suffering is real because the world is real and sin is real.  We live in a fallen world.  And pain is part of that.  It’s not an illusion.  

And the appropriate response to that pain is groaning and lament.   And by the way, Paul was not just talking about groaning that is the direct response to suffering for our Christian faith.  That’s one aspect of it, and in Paul’s day and in Rome and other places in the first century Mediterranean world, that would have been a very real and common cause of suffering.  And it is today in many parts of the world and increasingly will be in ours unless something arrests the mad march of secularism in the West.  But the fact that the apostle links our suffering to the groaning of the physical creation – the very environment and world in which we live – indicates that the groaning here is linked to all suffering as the result of living in a fallen world, whether it be suffering from persecution for the faith or cancer or disability or wayward children or the death of a loved one or a million other things that bring the black shadows of grief and loss into our lives.  And when they come, it’s not only not wrong to grieve, it’s right to do so.

Take these passages from the Psalms, for example.  “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears” (Ps. 6:6).  “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were” (39:12).  “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” (42:3).  “Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” (56:8).  Listen, God is not embarrassed by your tears.  He is not put off by them.  He puts them into a bottle and writes them in his book – which I take to mean that he takes notice of them and remembers them as any loving Father would take notice of the tears of his children.

Now we do recognize that there is a wrong way to grieve and groan.  Grief which leads to paralysis and keeps us from taking the next step, is a grief that is not anchored in hope and faith.  So we don’t want to only grieve.  Grief and groaning are not healthy visitors in our hearts if they are the only ones staying there.  So that leads us to our next point.  Grief needs to be processed Biblically.  We need to learn some things, or know some things, from a Biblical point of view.

Learning

What do we need to learn?  I want to point you once again to these fantastic phrases: “For I reckon” in verse 18, and “For we know” in verse 22.  In order to move toward a Biblical hope you have to know some things, and you have to reckon, or consider, some things.  There is doctrinal content to the Biblical hope.  It is not just an empty longing.  There is substance to it.  There are edges to it, there is definiteness to it.  What are some of the things we need to know?

The first thing is that we should expect hard things in this life. We’ve already touched on this, but it bears repeating.  Paul describes the present time in terms of suffering (18), vanity (20), bondage of corruption (21), and characterized by groaning and travailing in pain (22-23).  Don’t be surprised when you suffer.  Our faith doesn’t take us out of this world and “in this world,” as our Lord has faithfully told us, “ye shall have tribulation.  But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33).

Second, we need to understand that promise that we shall be delivered.  In contrast to the current state of affairs, the age to come will be entirely different for the children of God.  It is described in terms of glory (18, 21).  This glory will not only be revealed to us but in us.  Paul is referring here to the resurrection of our bodies from the grave.  Here is how he puts it to the Corinthians: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (42-45).  He then goes on to write: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (51-57).

This is further described here in Romans 8 in terms of “the manifestation [or the revelation] of the children of God” (18-19).  We are the children of God now.  But the full measure of the privileges of our status as sons and daughters of the Most High is not yet fully revealed.  Interestingly, Paul has already said that we have the spirit of adoption, and we have this now (15). We are the children of God now; it’s not something we have to wait for (16).  But then Paul uses the same word (hyothesia) in verse 23, saying that we are waiting for the adoption, which he then describes as the redemption of our bodies, the resurrection.

The full glory of the children of God awaits the resurrection from the dead.  This is what Paul is talking about.  Though the intermediate state is glorious and certainly far to be desired to our present sinful state (better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord), yet the full glorification of the saint will only take place when Christ returns and raises us from the dead, and we spend eternity with him in renewed bodies and souls in a new heaven and new earth.  That is the ultimate hope of the believer.  It is the liberty of the glory of the children of God (21).

This is what the apostle John is getting at when he writes: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:1-3).  We are the children of God now, but it does not yet appear what we shall be.  For that we have to wait.

But we need to know this.  And know that over it all is a sovereign God.  God is the one who subjected the physical creation to futility because of sin, and God is the one who gives us hope (20).  We can get overwhelmed with the futility if we forget that God is in control even over that.  In fact, in some ways the rest of this chapter is a reminder of God’s sovereign provision and protection for his suffering saints.  The things that cause us to groan aren’t present in our lives because God can’t help it.  They are there because God is working them for our good (28).  And because no suffering comes to us that is apart from God’s loving purpose for us, we can be sure that the hope we have in him is sure: “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Tit. 1:2).

Longing

And so we come the third feature.  We not only groan and lament.  But from the truths that we are learning in God’s word, we go on to longing and eager expectation for the glory to come.  Even the travails are like the travails of a woman’s labor – they are pains that are expectant with hope (in fact, the Greek word “travails in pain” in verse 22 is a reference to a woman’s labor pains).  We groan in hope: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (23-25).

It’s not just enough to know the doctrine of the future.  It’s not enough to have correct thoughts about the resurrection and the Second Coming of our Lord and the future judgment.  We must long for it.  Do you?  How do you groan?  Is it groaning just because you don’t like the pain?  Or is it groaning because you long for the fulness of your salvation in Christ?  Do you live life now in light of eternity?

Are we like the saints the Bible describes?  “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13).  Does that describe you?  As someone who is hoping to the end for the coming grace of God in the coming of our Lord?  That is, are we those who set their hopes fully on the revelation of the grace of God that is to be revealed at the end of the world (see ESV)?  

Or consider Peter’s words in his second epistle: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (2 Pet. 3:11-12).  Are you like that: “looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God,” like a runner in a race who can’t wait to get to the end?  Are we that excited for it?  Do we long for it like that?

Do we long for it as those who value it above all things?  Are you invested in heaven?  Are you invested in the age to come?  Our Lord put it this way in his Sermon on the Mount: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt. 6:19-21).  Do we mind earthly things, or do we look for the Savior? (Phil. 3:19-20).

You know, we started by talking about lament.  But do you know that in the Psalms lament, though it starts out often very raw and even anxious at times, yet it almost always ends in praise.  Take Psalm 13 as an example:

“How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.”

When David wrote this, he was still in trouble.  Hence the first verses: “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”  But notice how he ends: “But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.”  He ends in praise because he ends in hope.  He ends in longing for the sure mercy of God.  

Our longing, in other words, is not unsure.  Biblical hope is a helmet, not a toboggan (cf. 1 Thess. 5:8).  It is not wish-fulfillment.  It is not pie-in-the-sky.  It is real.  It is substantial.  It is a sure and certain expectation that God will fulfill his promise.  That is the longing of the Christian.

Brothers and sisters, it’s like Paul puts it to the Corinthians.  Yes, the life we live for Christ is a struggle.  It’s a wrestling match.  It’s hard. It’s a marathon and sometimes you don’t know if you can make it.  But we are not shadow-boxing.  It is not for nothing. It is for a crown that no one can take away: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air.  But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (1 Cor. 9:24-27).  And that brings me to my last point (no pun intended).

Lasting

What I mean by “lasting” is what Paul is referring to here in Romans by the words “patience” and “waiting” (see verses 19, 23, 25).  The word “patience” is especially to the point here.  It is the Greek word hypomene, and it doesn’t refer, as the English word “patience” is likely to convey, to the idea of passivity.  Rather, it refers to ideas of endurance and perseverance.  It means lasting when others fall away.

And Paul connects the ability to last to our longing, to our hope.  He does this explicitly in verses 24-25: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”  He is saying that it is our hope that enables us to endure with patience.  

The fact of the matter is that for the Chrisitan, we cannot have our salvation in its fulness now.  There is a “not-yet” for the Christian this side of the resurrection.  That’s not to say we don’t have anything.  We are forgiven of all our sins and justified in Christ now (1).  We are adopted into his family (14-17).  We do have the first-fruits of the Spirit, the earnest of our inheritance (17-18, 23).  We can have fellowship with God.  He gives us daily grace and daily bears us up.  He provides for us and protects us.  His blessings now are numerous.  But with all these things are many sufferings.  As Newton put it, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come.”  As Jesus put it to Peter, “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life” (Mk. 10:29-30).  Did you pick up on that?  “With persecutions”?  All the roses we pick in this world will come with thorns.

What this means is that the great things we long for are yet future, and will remain future this side of the grave.  “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).  We hope for that we see not, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (4:18).  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

But carrying this hope with faith and conviction will carry you through the dangers and the toils and snares by the grace of God and will lead you home.  Do you want to last?  Do you want to endure to the end?  How necessary it is to do so!  For our Lord said, “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Mt. 24:13).  The way we do that is by keeping our eyes on the prize, by hoping to the end.  It is to be like Moses who chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward” (Heb. 11:25-26).  Brothers and sisters, let us have respect unto the recompense of the reward.  It is so worth it!  It is so sure, not because we deserve it, not because we merit it, but because we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet. 1:5).  We are kept by the grace of God in Christ.  He is able to keep us from falling and to present us before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy (Jude 24).

So let us lament, yes.  But let our lamenting be done in the light of what we are learning from the light of God words, so that it causes us to go on longing for our heavenly reward, so that we endure and go on lasting to the end for the cause of God and truth.

Come, brother and sister, and do not be weary!  We have a sure hope in Christ.  And for those of you who are still trying to pick the flowers of this world, know that they are only poison.  They taste good right now, but they will end in death.  The way of the world is broad but it leads to destruction.  But the way of Jesus Christ leads to life.  May the Spirit of God guide into the way of peace through faith in him.  Come join us in lamenting, learning, longing, and lasting.