Creation Longs for the Glory Revealed

There is nothing better than getting outside and enjoying the sunshine, blue skies, and cool breezes. Inasmuch as nature can be wonderful, she is also capricious. Devastation by earthquakes, lightning, hurricanes, floods, hail, tornados, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions are just some of the more fearful and ominous displays of nature people witness. New technology allows many of us to find out where these things happen virtually in real time. The sting of these natural evils is bitter, but is this the way things were supposed to be?

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul writes: “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (vv. 19-22). What is Paul’s understanding of “creation” in this passage? New Testament scholar Douglas Moo summarizes the two viewpoints on the creation in Romans 8:19-21: “Noting the naturally broad meaning of the word, and Paul’s addition of “the whole” in v. 22, some interpreters argue that Paul must mean the entire created universe—human beings, animals, plants, and so on. Others, however, insist that the distinctly personal activities Paul attributes to the creation (‘anticipating,’ ‘set free,’ ‘groaning’) show that he has only the human part of creation in view (cf. Col. 1:23)—either all humankind (Augustine) or unbelievers only” [1].

Paul teaches that those in Christ are not condemned, but they have the Spirit of life that sets them free from the law of sin and death (vv. 1-4). The world lives according to their own fleshly sinful impulses; however, the Christian is to be identified with Jesus Christ, who gives them the Spirit, which enables them to die to the sinful impulses of their old self and be raised up to a new life as “sons of God (vv. 5-17). Yet, Paul also understands the present life is to be understood with eternity in mind, and writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (v. 18).

Verse 19 actually extends the discussion beyond the personal inner struggle with sin each Christian experiences in their daily life to the entire creation. Hank Hanegraaff observes,

In Romans 8:22-23, Paul specifically connects the redemption of our physical bodies with the restoration of creation [2]

Again Douglas Moo points out,

With the majority of modern commentators, then, I think that creation here denotes the "subhuman" creation. Like the psalmists and prophets who pictured hills, meadows, and valleys, 'shouting and singing together for joy,' (Ps 65:12-13) and the earth "mourning" (Isa. 24:4; Jer. 4:28; 12:4), Paul personifies the subhuman creation in order to convey to his readers a sense of cosmic significance to both humanity’s fall into to sin and believers’ restoration to glory. [3]

F.F. Bruce also writes,

These words of Paul point not to the annihilation of the present material universe on the day of revelation, to be replaced by a universe entirely new, but to the transformation of the present universe so that it will fulfill the purpose for which God created it. Here again we hear the echo of an Old Testament hope—the creation of “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13, quoting Is. 65:17; 66:22; cf. Rev. 21:1). But the transformation of the universe depends on the completion of man’s transformation by the working o God’s grace" [4].

In spite of the beauty of nature that surrounds us, she is capricious, and those who suffered through some form of natural evil understand how bitter and cold she can be; however, things were never meant to be that way. Romans 8:19-22 speaks to the future resurrection and the restoration of the cosmos at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ there is the hope of a glorious world to come, which shall far surpass the beauty and grandeur of this present world with her dark underbelly.

Notes:

1. Douglas Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996)513-514.

2. Hank Hanegraaff, Resurrection (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000), 88.

3. Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, 514.

4. F.F. Bruce, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, ed. Leon Morris (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co,.2000), 161.