Introduction
This is now our fourth Sunday in Romans 8. And Romans 8 is a magnificent chapter. It began with the magnificent assurance that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And if you glance over to the end of the chapter, you’ll see that it ends with the magnificent assurance that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, it begins with ‘no condemnation’ and it ends with ‘no separation’. Believers will never be condemned by God and believers will never be separated from God’s love.
And between those two magnificent points at the beginning and the end of the chapter, Paul has been telling us that we’ve been set free from the law of sin and death, because God sent his Son to be a sin offering on our behalf and to be condemned in our place.
And he’s been telling us that, as believers, we no longer live according to the flesh, but we now live according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the flesh will die and be condemned, but those who live according to the Spirit will live and they will live for ever.
And he’s been telling us that believers are sons of God. We’ve been adopted into God’s family through faith and we’ve received the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Adoption, who bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children. And the Holy Spirit enables us to cry out to God the Father in our need. And since we’re children of God through faith in the Saviour, then we are heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ: we can look forward to inheriting eternal life in the presence of God with Christ our Saviour, who has gone before us.
Paul has been telling us all these magnificent things. And he continues to tell us magnificent things in today’s passage, because although today’s passage is partly about our present suffering, it’s also about our future glory. The Christian life is one of troubles and trials now. But we believe that there’s glory to come in the presence of God. And so, in the midst of our sorrow and suffering and pain, we have hope.
Verse 18
Paul begins in verse 18 by saying that he considers that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
And Paul knew a thing or two about suffering, didn’t he? Read through the book of Acts and you’ll read about times when he was stoned and beaten and imprisoned and people made false accusations against him and they plotted to take his life. And the book of Acts ends with Paul in chains and under house arrest in Rome. And, of course, on the way to Rome he was shipwrecked on Malta. The book of Acts records for us how he suffered. And then in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul lists for us the many ways he suffered and was in danger. This is what he wrote:
Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
So, Paul knew what it was like to suffer. And yet, in verse 18 he says that he considers that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Now, he’s not saying that our present sufferings don’t matter. He’s not minimising our present sufferings in any way. On the contrary, he’s acknowledging that we do suffer. He’s acknowledging our pain and sorrow and sadness. Paul knew what it was like to suffer and you know what it’s like to suffer. God did not make us blocks of wood that feel nothing. He made us capable of suffering pain and heartache.
And when Paul refers to our present suffering, he’s talking about all the ways we suffer: so all the normal sorrows and troubles we experience because we live in a fallen world which is full of illness and disappointments and frustrations and loss and death. So, all the things that make us weep and which we have in common with those who don’t believe. But then, added to those common, everyday trials, we can include all the ways believers suffer for the sake of Christ. So, think of all the ways believers around the world face persecution and discrimination because they believe in the Saviour.
Our present life is a life of sorrow and sadness and pain. There are lots of things which make us weep. But all those things that make us weep now are completely outweighed by the glory that will be revealed in us in the life to come, when we’re brought into the presence of God and we’ll be freed from all sin and misery and we’ll be filled with inconceivable joys and we’ll be made perfectly holy and happy in body and soul in the company of all of God’s people and his angels and as we gaze upon the glory of our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And God will pour out his overflowing love on us for ever and for ever and for ever and for ever. And it will be wonderful.
So, while our present suffering matters to us now and while it makes us weep, it will not matter to us in the life to come, because in the life to come all we will know and experience will be glory.
Verse 19
And according to Paul in verse 19, the creation around us is waiting for this to happen. He says the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
Paul is personifying creation. He’s treating the creation around us as if it were a person. We see the same kind of thing in the book of Isaiah, for instance, where it says the mountains and hills sing for joy and the trees of the field clap their hands. Mountains and hills can’t really sing and trees have no hands to clap. But it’s a figure of speech. And Paul is using the same kind of figure of speech when he treats creation like a person and he says it’s waiting for the children of God to be revealed.
And the word translated ‘waits with eager expectation’ is an interesting word, because it can be used for someone who is craning his or her neck to see something. So, imagine a crowd of people, who are all trying to see something. And the people at the back of the crowd are all craning their necks to try to see over the others. And perhaps they’re standing on their toes or they’re jumping up and down. They’re so anxious to see this thing, whatever it is, that they’re stretching themselves as high as they can in order to see. And that’s the image that Paul is using in this verse. The whole creation is craning its neck, as it were. It’s standing on its toes. It’s straining to see this thing that will one day take place. It’s waiting and longing and yearning for this event to happen, which is the revelation of the children of God.
Now we are already the children of God. The moment we believed in the Saviour, we became God’s children, because the moment we believed we were adopted into God’s family. But we need to be revealed, because our status as the children of God is not obvious to the people around us.
I daresay that everywhere Prince William, the king’s son, goes, it’s fairly obvious what he is. It’s fairly obvious that he is royalty, because there will be bodyguards around him and his staff will be there and the press will be there. And perhaps there’s a coat of arms on his car. And when his children go to school, it will be obvious to the rest of the class that there’s something different about these children, because of the special treatment they receive.
But there’s nothing that makes the children of God stand out. We don’t look any different from those who don’t believe. We don’t have halos over our heads. And we suffer just like everyone else: we’re not protected from illness or disappointments or bereavement or death. In many ways, we’re just like everyone else. Our status as the children of God is hidden.
But, says Paul, the whole creation is longing for the day when our true status as the children of God will be revealed, so that it becomes clear that God is our Father and Jesus Christ is our Elder Brother and we belong to the family of God. It’s not obvious now, but one day it will be made obvious. And so, before the sermon, we sang a paraphrase of 1 John 3 where John says how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are, says John. That is what we are. But then he goes on to say that the world does not know us. It doesn’t recognise us. But one day it will become obvious what we are. One day it will become obvious that we are God’s children. And the whole creation is longing for that day to come.
Verses 20 to 23
Why should the whole creation care whether our true status is revealed or not? That’s what verses 20 to 23 are about, where Paul says that the whole creation is longing for our true status to be revealed because the creation is currently subject to frustration.
Now, the creation didn’t choose to become this way, but it was made this way by the will of the one who subjected it. Do you see that in verse 20? And Paul is referring to what we read in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord’s clear commandment concerning the forbidden fruit. And afterwards, when they appeared before God to give an account of what they had done, the Lord said to Adam that from that time on the ground is cursed because of him. So, while Adam will still be able to grow food, nevertheless, because of God’s curse, the earth will produce thorns and thistles to make Adam’s work difficult. And work will be a struggle from that time on and it will be hard and back-breaking and frustrating. And God said to Eve that she’ll still be able to have a family, but it will be hard and difficult.
And so, God was saying to them that because of their disobedience, life in this world will be for all of us a life of troubles and trials and sorrow and sadness and weeping and hard work and frustration. There will be seasons for plenty, but there will also be droughts and famines. And there will be floods and storms and earthquakes. A farmer will tend his fields throughout the year, doing everything right. But in the end his crops will not grow because there was either too much sun or there was not enough sun; or there was too much rain or there was too little rain. Creation is subject to frustration and futility. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be and it’s not able to flourish the way God intended it to flourish.
But it will not always be like this, because there is hope for creation. Do you see the word ‘hope’ at the end of verse 20? And the hope is that one day the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay. So, we see decay everywhere. Just walk outside and you’ll see how weeds just grow everywhere. If we don’t do something about them, they will take over. Or think of the court house around the corner. It was once a wonderful building but you can see how it has decayed over the years. Everything decays. We ourselves decay.
But the hope is that one day the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into what? Brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Paul is saying that when God’s children are freed from our present sufferings, then the whole creation will be freed as well. Creation’s destiny is wrapped up in our destiny and when the children of God are revealed and set free from our present sufferings to enter the glory of the life to come, then the creation will also be freed from its decay.
And Paul goes on in verse 22 to liken the creation around us to a woman in labour. A woman in labour groans because of the pain she’s experiencing; and it’s as if the creation around us is groaning too. Every storm, every earthquake, every drought, every famine, every flood, every disaster is a kind of labour pain which the creation is going through as it waits. A woman in labour groans as she waits for her child to be born; and the creation around us is groaning as it waits for the day to arrive, when it will be set free from frustration and decay and futility and made perfect. It’s waiting for the time when the heavens and the earth will be renewed.
It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? We’re so used to hearing about natural disasters around the world and we wonder what the summer will be like: will it be too hot or will it be too wet? We wonder what the winter will be like: will it be OK or will it be freezing? Will there be disruptions because of snow and ice and rain? That’s what we’re used to and so it’s hard for us to imagine a world when there will be no more natural disasters and where everything will flourish and nothing will be subject to frustration and decay. It’s hard to imagine. But this is what will happen. God who created the world and who made it good has not abandoned his good creation. Instead he has revealed that he will restore his good creation.
Verses 24 and 25
And according to Paul in verses 24 and 25, not only will God restore the creation around us, but he’ll restore his people as well.
For the time being, we ourselves groan inwardly. So, we groan inwardly like a woman in labour. She’s groaning because of the pains she’s experiencing. And we groan because of the pains we experience as part of this troubled life. So, once again Paul is acknowledging that our present life is a life of suffering. It’s a life of sorrow and sadness and pain. God has not promised his people a pain-free life. He has not promised us a life without trouble. It’s the exact opposite: he has promised us a life of suffering.
But it’s also a life of looking forward. It’s a life of looking forward with hope. So, Paul describes believers in verse 23 as those who have the first-fruits of the Spirit. The first-fruits is an agricultural term. It refers to the first part of the harvest. Or it’s the first instalment of the harvest. And it guarantees the rest, so that if the first-fruits are good, then the farmer knows that the rest will be good as well. And Paul is saying to us that the Holy Spirit is the first instalment of what is to come for us and for everyone who believes in the Saviour. Because we have the Holy Spirit inside us, then that’s the guarantee we need of good things to come. And despite our present suffering and inward groaning, we can look forward with hope to what is to come, which is our adoption as sons and the redemption of our bodies.
Now, if you’re a believer, then you’ve already been adopted into God’s family. God is already your Father and he is already treating you as his children. And so, when Paul writes here about waiting eagerly for our adoption, he’s referring to the completion or the consummation of our adoption, when we’re brought into the presence of God in the life to come and we’re made perfect in holiness and happiness in body and in soul. So, right now, the Holy Spirit is at work inside us. He’s renewing us inwardly in the likeness of God. He’s at work in our souls. And it’s a work that he will continue to do in us throughout our present life bit by bit. But the day is coming, when we’re brought into God’s presence in the life to come. And on that day he will complete his work in us and he’ll make us perfect. And he’ll not only make us perfect inwardly, but outwardly too. He’s make us perfect in body and soul. And so, our bodies, which are now subject to frustration and decay in this life, will be made perfect. We’ll no longer suffer aches and pains. We’ll no longer need glasses to see and hearing aids to hear. We’ll no longer need a walking stick or zimmer to get around. We’ll no longer need doctors, because we’ll never get sick. And, of course, we won’t need ministers either because our knowledge of God and his will will be made perfect.
That’s our hope as believers. That’s what we’re waiting for. That’s what we’re longing for. But, of course, we don’t have it yet. We don’t have it yet. If we already had it, then we wouldn’t be longing for it. A child who is hoping to receive a present stops hoping the moment he receives it. He only hopes for the present while he doesn’t have it. And we’re hoping for what is to come because we haven’t yet received it or experienced it. Our present experience is of sorrow and suffering and pain and loss and frustration. That’s our daily experience. And we don’t yet have what we’re hoping for.
But we’re longing for it, aren’t we? We’re yearning for it. We’re waiting for it eagerly. Every time something happens to cause us pain, we groan, don’t we? We groan. And we wonder, ‘How long?’ How long will it be like this? How long do I have to endure this? How long before I receive what God has promised to give me? How long until I enter the glory to come, when I will see the God who loves me with an everlasting love? That’s what I want. That’s what I’m longing for.
Is that your experience? Sorrow and suffering now, but you’re longing for life in the presence of God?
And we only have this hope, because of the abundant goodness of our God, who sent his Son into the world to deliver us from the path of destruction we were on. Through faith in God’s Son, we receive forgiveness and peace with God and the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life in the presence of God. We weren’t able to save ourselves. We’re not able to make ourselves perfect. There was no hope for us. But because of his abundant goodness, God has given us hope through faith in his Son. And in this hope we rejoice.
