For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Paul has just said that those led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Now he says what that Spirit is not: not a spirit that drives a person back into dread, but the Spirit by which a guilty sinner comes to call God "Father."
One writer lines up three things Scripture says believers have not received:
We are told we have not received "the spirit of the world," which we know is taken up only with the things of earth, of time, and of the senses — things that death shuts in on every side (1 Cor. 2:12). Nor have we received "the spirit of fear," that spirit of dread and torment that always broods over painful doubts and gloomy fears about what is coming (2 Tim. 1:7). Nor have we received "the spirit of bondage again to fear," tied to keeping rules and religious ceremonies, which can never free anyone from the fear of death (Rom. 8:15).
The word "again" points back to a real condition that people once lived in. It marks off the position of those under law from the position of the believer now.
They were Gentiles, and they were never put into the spiritual condition of believers in Old Testament times — above all of those under law, who through fear of death were held in bondage their whole life long. The gospel brought the Jewish believers out of that bondage. It met the Gentile just as fully, though he had never known the discipline of the law... The one as much as the other received a spirit of adoption or sonship.
Being given new life and knowing God as Father are treated here as two different things, the second waiting on the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.
Believing souls could not take up and enjoy their relationship to the Father until the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. To be born again is one thing: a change God's power works through the word. To know that God is our Father is another thing, and we can enjoy it only through the gift of the indwelling Spirit.
"Abba" is not a formal title. It is the word of a household, and commentators note that it had never before been used of God by a worshipper in Israel.
Under the law we never find in Scripture that a Jew said "Abba" to God. Israel was connected with God as Father in a national way only. God had called Israel a son, but it was collective, it was national. No one then could ever say "Abba, Father" to God. But now, because Christ's work is finished, we have this liberty — a liberty that gives free access to the immediate presence of God... "Abba" simply means "Daddy." The Lord Himself said it only once, when He was in distress in the garden of Gethsemane.
Paul writes "we cry," yet elsewhere the Spirit is said to cry. Both are true at once, and the order matters: the Spirit is not sent to create the relationship but because the relationship already exists.
The Spirit of the Son of God is sent into the heart of the believer, not to make him a son, but because he is already such (Gal. 4:6)... The cry, Abba, Father, is our own; but the Spirit of the Son produces it. We cry Abba, because we know Him this way; but the power of that knowledge is the indwelling presence of the Son.
Human adoption can change a person's status and nothing more. One writer makes the point from the story of Moses:
You remember Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses — an Israelite adopted into the royal family of Egypt! She could not, however, put into Moses a spirit of adoption, so when he became a man he broke it all off. Now, in His rich grace, God has done more than adopt us as His sons, with all the rights, dignity, and glory that go with it, as the royal family of heaven. He gave us the very "spirit of adoption," so that we are truly joined to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ — not merely given a position.
If this verse rules fear out, then living in dread of God is not modesty.
There is no such thing recognised in Scripture as a Christian doubting he is saved. And it is a completely false claim to humility. If my Father forgives me, and I doubt His forgiveness, I am not trusting Him... There is no such thing in Scripture as a Christian without the Spirit of adoption, crying "Abba, Father."
- Not again. The believer's Spirit is not the spirit of the world, not a spirit of dread, and not the old bondage that left the fear of death in place.
- Not national. Israel's sonship was collective. No one under law called God "Abba" — the word a child uses at home.
- Not automatic. New birth is one thing. The settled knowledge that God is our Father comes through the indwelling Spirit.
- Not manufactured. The cry is truly ours, yet the Spirit produces it. He is sent because we are sons, not to make us sons.
- Not doubtful. Fear is ruled out, so doubting the Father's forgiveness is not humility. It is distrust.
The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.
This verse follows the cry "Abba! Father!" and answers a question every honest believer asks: how do I know the relationship is real? The answer sits in two phrases: the Spirit Himself, and with our spirit.
The subject of the sentence is a Person. One writer marks Him out plainly, and rules out a common way of chasing assurance.
We are sons, and by the Spirit we cry, "Abba, Father," conscious of being so. The Holy Spirit Himself (here we have Him clearly as a distinct Person) "bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." It is a clear, definite testimony of the Spirit who dwells in us that we are such. It is not a matter of proving it by the word through examining ourselves — that is a false, unscriptural and harmful procedure. It is the testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself dwelling in us, which He bears to us as living in us.
The small preposition decides how assurance works. It rules out waiting for a voice or a moment.
This rules out all self-deception. Someone might copy others in calling God Father, but the Spirit also produces the inward consciousness of the relationship. It is important to notice that it does not say, bears witness to our spirit. If that were the wording, we might be waiting for some distinct testimony at a given moment to assure us that we were now God's children. The apostle says, "with our spirit." The indwelling Spirit produces in us feelings and affections that suit the relationship God has brought us into, and He leads us into the enjoyment of it. The child of God now knows the Father. He does not doubt that he is a child, because he carries within himself the assured consciousness of his relationship.
"With" implies a second voice alongside the first. Separate the two and nothing is left to lean on.
This passage, which causes no difficulty in experience, causes one when it is a question of saying what it means. If I separate the witness of the Spirit of God from my spirit, I am left with no witness at all. If I receive the witness of the Spirit, then I have two: I have the certainty in my own spirit that I am a child of God, and I have besides the witness of that Spirit who works in us as the Spirit of adoption. It is the Spirit of God in us who gives our spirit the strength to say that we are children of God.
This witness is quiet and private, yet real.
How is this witness borne to our sonship? The very fact of His presence within us testifies to it. By His presence He also forms within us affections suited to our relationship. He gives us desires after the enjoyment of the Father's love. He enables us in the holy intimacy of our filial place to cry, Abba, Father. He confirms to our souls the word we have trusted... No, it is not an audible testimony. Our spirit alone discerns and grasps it. But that makes it no less real — it makes it all the more real, because it is a living secret between ourselves and God.
How clearly you hear it is not fixed. It depends on how you walk.
Remember that the strength and clearness of His testimony will depend on conditions... When we are led, walking in simple, loving obedience and dependence, our spirit will discern His testimony to our sonship most clearly. But if we walk in a way that grieves Him, we shall listen in vain for His testimony, because we shall have grieved Him into silence.
The word "with" means two voices, not one. That matters most when your own voice is weak.
He does not leave the child's feeble voice alone. We are often tempted to doubt the testimony of our own renewed hearts, because it is often very feeble. Sometimes it is only the cry of a child. But the Spirit joins His mighty testimony to the feebleness of ours. He bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, and gives His value to both testimonies. Can we then doubt?
The word in verse 16 is not the word used in verse 14.
To understand this well, remember that all saints from Adam onward have been children of God. Until the cross of Christ, they did not have the position of sons of God. The Greek words in verse 14 and verse 16 are clearly different. The word in verse 16 implies birth. The word in verse 14 refers to the dignity of the position of the adopted... But the gift of the Spirit is a witness to us — within us — bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Old Testament saints did not have this witness. We enjoy the relationship of children today in the same measure that we pay attention to the witness of the Spirit.
- Witness, not verdict. The Spirit does not hand down a ruling from outside. He testifies with your spirit from inside. Assurance is a shared voice, never a solo one.
- Witness, not audit. Certainty does not come from examining yourself for evidence. One writer calls that method harmful. It comes from the Person who lives in you.
- Witness, not noise. You will hear no voice. The Spirit forms the affections of a child, and that quiet awareness is the testimony. Grieve Him and you will listen in vain.
- Witness, not strength. Where your own sense of relationship is only a child's feeble cry, He adds His testimony to it and lends it His weight.
- Witness to birth. The Spirit confirms family: you are children, born of God. Old Testament saints held that relationship without this inward witness of it.
And if children, heirs also heirs of God, and Christ's joint heirs; if indeed we suffer with [him], that we may also be glorified with [him].
Because we are God's children, we are also His heirs — and heirs together with Christ Himself. The verse ties something else to that title: a shared path of suffering now, leading to shared glory.
The verse does not argue toward heirship in stages. The relationship itself already carries it.
A Christian is an heir, as well as a child, an "heir of God" and a "fellow heir with Christ," Rom. 8:17… The inheritance goes with our being children: "if children, then heirs." The moment a person is in the position of a child, there is an heir.
The verse says "heirs of God." How far does that reach?
His witness to our spirit is this — that we are children of God. But if children, we are His heirs. This accordingly leads, as connected with the deliverance of the body, to the inheritance we are to possess. The extent is what God Himself, so to speak, possesses — the universe of God, whatever will be under Christ: and what will not? As He has made all, so He is heir of all. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
"Fellow heirs" — older translations say "joint-heirs" — means the believer's future is bound to Christ's own. One writer finds the picture of it in Eve, the first woman, made as Adam's companion.
We shall see that God shows the church not only as enjoying the present blessing of communion, but also as joint-heir with Christ of His coming inheritance. When believers look at the glory of Christ, they are looking at their own glory, since they are "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ." We see a picture of this in Eve. Eve was not a part of the creation, nor was she lord of it as Adam was; but she shared with him everything he inherited.
The wording is exact: with Him, not for Him. That difference decides who the verse includes.
Note, though: this is suffering with Christ, not for Him. To suffer for Christ is a privilege, a special gift of God; Phil. 1:29. You cannot be a Christian without suffering with Christ. How could the Spirit of Christ give us a different mind from the mind that was in Christ as He passed through this sad world?
Public persecution is not the only thing in view. The grief comes from carrying Christ's life through a world set against Him.
This suffering comes from having life in Him while we pass through a world where everything is against Him… Divine life here is surrounded by all that works out its own misery, estrangement, and rebellion against Him. So if suffering is the necessary result of that, it is an immense privilege to suffer with Christ, cheered along the road by the prospect of sharing His glory.
Our reigning with Christ does not depend in any way on our present suffering. Instead, suffering here is the appointed path for those who will share Christ's kingdom with Him.
The last phrase looks past a new body. It points to a public moment, when the whole universe sees the children of God with Christ.
The glory comes in again. Tribulation is the present thing, but the bright glorious future is coming. To me it seems impossible for a Christian not to suffer with Him… This goes beyond having glorified bodies; that happens when the Lord comes, but this at His appearing. When He comes to be glorified in His saints, we shall be glorified together before the eyes of the whole universe. What a future opens up before us! Glory upon glory! It is a privilege to suffer with Him — all privilege.
- Child — it starts with relationship, not achievement. The moment someone is a child, there is an heir.
- Heir — the inheritance is as large as what God Himself has: everything that will come under Christ.
- Co-heir — like Eve with Adam, believers share everything that is Christ's. His glory is their glory.
- Co-sufferer — this is suffering with Christ. His Spirit in us cannot hold a different mind while we live in a world set against Him. Suffering for Him is a further gift.
- Co-glorified — the suffering does not buy the glory. It is the appointed road to it, and it ends in glory shown before the whole universe.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy [to be compared] with the coming glory to be revealed to us.
Paul, the writer of this letter, has just called God's children heirs. As heirs they will share everything with Christ — but the road to that inheritance runs through suffering (Romans 8:17). So here he puts both on the scales. How does present pain measure against coming glory?
"I reckon" is the language of careful accounting, not wishful thinking. Paul does not shut his eyes to pain. He weighs it.
Christian sufferings may be great. They often are. Yet see how he estimates them. He weighs them in the sober balances of divine truth against the glory to be revealed. He compares present sufferings with eternal glory. Weighed like this, the momentary trial of faith and patience proves to be as nothing. There is no doubt in his mind. It is a deliberate measurement of truth with truth. He sets real suffering against most real, most certain, eternal glory.
And no one was more qualified to do the sum. Paul suffered more than almost anyone for his faith.
Who was ever better able to reckon on this matter than Paul? Bonds and imprisonments awaited him in every city. His was a life of constant suffering with the One he so loved to serve. Yet he says the sufferings are nothing next to the glory. What a solution of the perplexing paradox of all creation! The groans of battlefields shall cease. The misery, poverty and degradation of the multitude shall come to an end. So shall the sufferings of creation.
The suffering in view is not punishment. It flows from belonging to Christ while living in a world that rejected Him.
Co-heirs, co-sufferers, co-glorified — this is the order of Christian life and hope. And notice: we have the whole inheritance of God. So this suffering flows from the glorious position God has brought us into. It flows from our sharing in the life of Christ Himself.
Notice the wording: the glory will not only appear to believers. They are part of the display itself.
The day of His glory will be a great day for us; we shall see Him glorified, and we shall be glorified as His companions. He says to His Father, "The glory that you have given me I have given to them" (John 17:22). And the world will see us displayed in that glory. By this the world is to know that the Father sent the Son, and has loved us as He has loved Him.
This verse also opens a new section. From here Paul widens the lens from the believer's pain to the pain of the whole created world.
From that point till we reach verse 27 we find ourselves in an atmosphere charged with groaning. That word occurs three times in these verses. No surprise: the present age lies in the "bondage of corruption," and the age to come will bring the "liberty of the glory."
Once the future filled Paul's vision, present trouble lost its power to stop him.
His mind is full of the future — absorbed with tomorrow. He is like a schoolboy waiting for a holiday, who can think of nothing else. The glory is so present that he calls the affliction momentary. The present sufferings had lost their hindering power, because he saw the power of God in them.
Knowing God as Father does not numb us to the world's sorrow — the opposite is true. But it puts that sorrow in its true proportion.
Knowing God as our Father only deepens our sense of the sorrows and miseries of the world we pass through. So does the blessedness of the glory ahead. But these sufferings cannot compare with the glories that are coming. The sufferings are passing, the glories are eternal.
Think of the verse as Paul's ledger — five entries, one result:
- Weighed. "I reckon" is a deliberate calculation. Paul measures real suffering against real, eternal glory. The scales refuse to balance.
- Qualified. The man doing the math faced chains in every city. His verdict comes from experience, not comfort.
- Included. Suffering is no detour from sonship. It is the appointed order: co-heirs, co-sufferers, co-glorified.
- Displayed. The glory shines out in us. The world will see believers with Christ as proof of the Father's love.
- Freed. When the eternal fills the vision, passing pain loses its power to hinder. The sufferings pass; the glories last forever.
For the anxious looking out of the creature expects the revelation of the sons of God
The whole created world is watching for a moment that has not yet come. Who is waiting, why does creation depend on God's sons, and when does the wait end?
The words "eager longing" translate one Greek word. It carries a picture of straining forward.
"Earnest expectation" is only one word in Greek. It means "watching for something you expect, with your head stretched out." This word appears only here and in Philippians 1:20... One writer says it means "to expect on and on, to the end."
Creation's ruin came through man, so its rescue hangs on man too.
Creation did not fall into emptiness by its own choice, of course. It happened because of the one who subjected it. Man was set by God as the head of the lower creation. When he fell, creation shared his ruin. When Christ appears and the sons of God are revealed, we shall have proof that God made creation depend on them, and that its hope of freedom is not empty. If it was right that creation fell into emptiness when its head fell, then see how fitting it is, and how worthy of God: He redeems His children and heirs, and creation's glorious recovery follows!
Another writer looks at the same fall from God's side.
The creation fell with its head Adam... But God had His eye on everything, and the fall of man did not take Him by surprise... If the creation fell under one head, He knew how to recover it under Another.
The verse does not say creation waits for the revealing of the Son of God.
Notice: creation does not wait for the revealing of the Son of God, but of the sons of God. He has already been revealed; they have not. When the sons of God appear in glory, the groaning creation will find relief. That will be the signal for its full deliverance. Its time of bondage runs on until then.
Right now nothing marks believers out to the eye. That is why the verse says "revealing": what is true but hidden will come into the open.
On the outside, His sons look no different from other people in body, power, or glory. They may be weak, they may suffer, and they fall asleep or die while the Lord waits on high. But at His coming, after the resurrection or the change, they will appear in glory with Christ when He appears too. Creation also awaits this happy moment. Its deliverance from its present misery depends on them and their revealing.
Creation is not offered what believers already have. Its need is different.
Creation lies in the misery and corruption that came from the fall. It will stay that way until the sons of God appear in bodies of glory. For creatures the question is not souls that need redeeming, but bodies that decay... Creation cannot receive grace, but it will share in the glory that brings outward blessing to this world of sorrow.
So when does the relief come? This verse rules out two answers.
Preaching, profession, or even the real faith of believers will not free creation from the emptiness it has lain under since the fall... How will this be brought about? If the deliverance of the creature depends on the manifestation of God's sons, the answer is certain. It is not in this age; for all through, our life is hidden with Christ in God. It cannot be in eternity; for that will not be until the heavens pass away with a great noise... It is between the two.
One writer sums up the two waits in a single line.
We wait to go in; the creation waits until we come out.
- Cause. Creation did not choose this. It fell with Adam, its appointed head, and shares his ruin.
- Word. "Eager longing" pictures a neck stretched out, watching — a waiting that keeps on to the very end.
- Waiting. Creation watches for the sons, not the Son. He has been revealed; they are still hidden, and they look like everyone else.
- Gift. Creation cannot receive grace as we do. It will share the glory, and with it freedom from corruption.
- Result. The groaning ends when the heirs appear. That release comes neither in this age nor in eternity, but between the two.
for the creature has been made subject to vanity, not of its will, but by reason of him who has subjected [the same], in hope
Paul turns from the believer's coming glory to the world outside the window. He explains why nature is not what God made it to be. Two questions sit at the centre: who put creation under futility, and why does the verse end in hope?
The word "futility" (older translations read "vanity") does not describe how God first made the world. One writer finds the proof in the way every living thing fights to stay alive:
Creation was not made (as it now is) in decay, degradation, suffering, death. It would be hard to accept that God first designed it to be in such confusion and misery. The Scriptures teach the opposite. Creation lies under its present disorder because of man's guilt and ruin. Yet it does not long in vain for deliverance. It waits in hope for His revelation in glory. The very struggle of everything for life and against sickness witnesses that it is fallen to rise.
The verse is not about the human race. The phrase "not willingly" is the clue. It fits creatures that never had a choice, and it never fits man, who did:
It is not "in relation to man generally" that the apostle tells us "he is a captive not by any choice of his own." Man is, sadly, a willing captive. It is still the lower creatures who have fallen with man, not of their own will, but as linked to him who was appointed the head of creation.
Another writer traces the cause back to man:
But the creation did not of its own accord — "not willingly" — become subject to vanity. It was not a moral question, as it was with man. All creation has suffered because of man's sin; the subjection is "by reason of" man, "who has subjected it."
Commentators read "him who subjected it" in two ways. One reading points to man, the appointed head, whose fall pulled everything under him down too:
Man was set by God as the head of the lower creation. When he fell, creation shared his ruin. If it was righteous for creation to fall under vanity with its head, how worthy of God that its glorious recovery should follow the redemption of His children and heirs!
Others answer the question directly with "God," and explain the act as a matter of keeping order between a head and what is under him:
It was God. Someone has said it would have been unthinkable for the head to fall and the creature to stand above him. So when Adam fell, God subjected the creature to the same vanity as its fallen head. Its freedom will be public when the sons of God are revealed in glory, and it must wait until that time.
"In hope" is the hinge of the verse. The fall was allowed with a second head already in view:
Its fall, because of the transgression and fall of its head, has not been beyond remedy or beyond hope. It has been allowed to fall under one head so that it may be recovered under another. It has been made subject to vanity in the hope of being delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Its freedom will not come the way ours does:
It was not by the will of the creature that it became subject to vanity, but through the folly of man. But the glory is coming, so if the creature is subject to vanity, it is so in hope of deliverance from the bondage of corruption. If it cannot share in the liberty of grace, which sets free from sin and judgment, it will share in the liberty of glory. That liberty lifts every pressure from these bodies.
What then of the work people do to relieve the world's suffering? One writer answers plainly:
People around us form themselves into associations for the benefit of the creature, seeking to improve its lot and lessen its woes. All this may be praiseworthy enough from a human standpoint. But I say the creature expects nothing from such means. It waits for the moment when the heavens will open and the sons of God will appear with Christ. Then its woes will end, but until that day its groans must continue.
- Not original. Decay, suffering and death are not how God designed the world; creation is fallen — and fallen to rise.
- Not guilty. Creation had no will in the matter. Man was the willing captive; the world under him simply went down with its head.
- Not settled. Was it Adam or God who subjected creation? Commentators differ. Both agree it followed the fall of creation's head.
- Not final. It fell under one head so it could be recovered under another — hope was written into the sentence itself.
- Not by us. Creation cannot share the liberty of grace; it waits for the liberty of glory, when the sons of God are revealed.
that the creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Paul has just spoken of a coming glory, and now he widens the view: the world itself is waiting. Two questions sit under this verse: how did creation fall into a bondage it never chose, and what will set it free?
The chain runs through man. God set man over the lower creation. When man fell, everything under him fell with him. That same link now works in reverse.
There is no reason to be surprised at such a link with men. Creation was made subject to vanity, not by its own will, of course, but because of him who made it subject. God set man as the head of the lower creation. When he fell, creation shared his ruin. The sons of God will be revealed when Christ appears. That will prove God made creation depend on them, and that its hope of freedom is not in vain. It was righteous that the fall of its head should bring creation under vanity. So how fitting and worthy of God that its glorious recovery should follow the redemption of His children and heirs!
Older translations read "the glorious liberty of the children of God." The ESV keeps the word order of the original: the freedom of the glory. That freedom belongs to a glory not yet displayed.
"The glorious liberty of the children of God!" People talk of glorious liberty now. And it is indeed wonderful, blessed liberty, into which grace has now brought us. But the passage before us is literally, "The liberty of the glory of the children of God." It is the liberty of grace in which we believers stand at present. The glory revealed in us will show that we are the sons of God. That happens when Christ appears, and we appear with Him in glory. It is into the liberty of this glory — the liberty which the glory of Christ and His saints will give to the world we will reign over — that the creation itself will be delivered.
Creation did not sin. Man's sin dragged it into corruption, so its rescue takes a different form.
So it is not grace that the creation needs, but the redemption of power... Then creation, which was forced into corruption by man's sin, will be identified with the glory of the children of God.
The order is fixed. Creation is the inheritance. Believers are the heirs. An inheritance is not handed over before the heirs arrive.
It is God's honour for Christ in this creation. As man's sin dragged it down with himself into ruin, so will the Second Man raise it out of its degradation and misery. But the inheritance cannot be delivered before the heirs.
Israel had a law for every fiftieth year. Liberty went out to everyone in the land, and forfeited property came back to its family. That law was a picture.
And when will its hopes be fulfilled? We answer: when the sons of God are revealed. When the children of God step into their glory, the whole creation will step with them into the liberty of that glory. Then a proclamation of liberty will go out through all the land to all its inhabitants. Then the forfeited land will be redeemed. Then men's toil and labour will cease and they will eat what the field produces (see Lev. 25:10-13). It will be the true and final year of Jubilee.
Believers are not spectators of this waiting. We are inside it, because our bodies still belong to the creation that groans. Two waits run side by side, and one day ends both.
Creation will also be delivered. Now it groans, and travails in pain. Now we groan also — we who have received the firstfruits of the Spirit, we groan within ourselves... Creation waits, and we wait. Creation waits to enter into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We wait for adoption, the redemption of our body... But God's purposes will not be fully accomplished until creation gets full deliverance. And that cannot happen until the new heavens and the new earth appear.
- Through us, in. Creation did not choose its ruin. God set it under man, and when man fell, creation fell with him.
- Through us, out. The same link that dragged it down will lift it up — its release is tied to the day the children of God are seen in glory.
- Not grace, but power. Man's sin forced creation into corruption, so what it needs is not grace but power — the liberty of glory.
- Heirs before inheritance. The world is not freed first and the saints later. Christ appears, His own appear with Him, and then the land is redeemed — the true Jubilee.
- Two groans, one hope. Creation groans; we groan with it, still in bodies of this creation — and the same day answers both.
For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now.
Paul turns from the believer's hope to the world outside, and calls its pain childbirth, not chaos. Three questions follow: how do we know this, how far does the groan reach, and when does it stop?
Paul does not say creation feels this; he says believers know it. That knowledge comes by the Spirit. It sets the Christian apart from every other account of the world's misery.
So the Christian is not in ignorance of the misery of the groaning creation. Led by the Spirit, believers have the mind of Christ and can say, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." Those who reject the fall blame all the misery of a groaning creation on natural causes. In their folly, they imagine they can remove the misery by their own efforts.
The word "whole" leaves nothing out. Man stood at the head of a system, so his fall dragged everything below him down.
First of all, "the whole creation" groans together in the pains of childbirth. The first reference here is to the lower creation, which the fall of man dragged down. God gave Adam dominion over all, and by his sin he ruined all. He was, so to speak, the top link, joined to the Creator with understanding, and every other link in the chain hung on him. When he fell, all creation fell with him; animals became wild and destructive. We may not have ears to hear the groan of the lamb as the leopard pounces on it, or of the fly caught in the web as it feels the spider's bite. But the groaning is there.
That groan is not lost. It has a hearer:
There rises up to God a moan from His suffering creatures on this earth, a chorus of sorrow from its four quarters, as day by day passes by.
The phrase runs from the fall to Paul's day — and past it. Nothing since has silenced the groan, not even the coming of Christ or the spread of the gospel.
As Christians we are not fooled by appearances, nor by the mind and will of man. Man would like to hide the evidence of his own guilt and ruin in the wretchedness of a creation dragged down by his fault. For we know that it is all in groans and pains until now. Neither Christ's coming in grace and humiliation, nor the gospel preached in the power of the Spirit sent down from heaven, set this aside. Instead they called believers to glory above it, and to virtue despite it.
The groan runs to this hour. That rules out any claim that the world's golden age has already come:
The passage states plainly that this universal groan will only cease at the time spoken of here. Then, and not until then, creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. … How, my friends, can the world enjoy a time of universal rest, and peace, and freedom from evil, while the whole creation groans in the pains of childbirth? Impossible!
The verse calls this pain childbirth. Birth pains point forward: something new is coming.
The Lord gives wars, famines and earthquakes a very significant character: they are the beginning of birth-pains. It is as if nature were pressing on toward the birth of a new and better time, and could not rest content with the present evil. … Everywhere there is an unrest that cries out for Him. He alone has said — He alone could dare to say — "Come to me, and I will give you rest." And the cry sounds in His ears, and will find its answer.
The next verse joins us to the sound, and the link is physical: our bodies still belong to the old order. Yet the Christian's groan has a different quality.
But our groaning is not a complaint, the fruit of discontent, but the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. The Spirit directs our eye to the glory, where we shall have no more reason to groan. He leads us to feel, according to the love of God, the suffering of a creation under bondage. At the same time we feel it ourselves, because by our bodies we still belong to it.
The same link that brought creation into ruin will bring it out.
What brought creation into the bondage of corruption? How did it get in? Through us. And how will it get out? Through us, when the glory comes! It is a beautiful thought! … We brought them into it, and shall bring them out of it.
- Cause. The fall explains the misery, not natural causes — which is why human effort can relieve symptoms but never remove the groan.
- Reach. "Whole" is exact: man was the top link of the chain, and every link below him fell when he did.
- Clock. "Until now" runs unbroken from the fall to this hour; neither Christ's first coming nor the gospel has yet ended it.
- Character. The pain is labour, not death — creation is straining toward the birth of a better world, and the cry reaches God's ear.
- Cure. Creation came into bondage through man. It will come out through man, when the children of God appear in glory.
And not only [that], but even *we* ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we also ourselves groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption, [that is] the redemption of our body.
Paul has just described a whole creation groaning under the weight of sin. Now he turns to those who have God's Spirit — and says that they groan too. So why do the people who have God's Spirit long the hardest? And what is still missing, if sins are already forgiven?
Writers point to Israel's harvest offerings to explain what the Spirit is to us now:
The firstfruits were offered up in Israel as the pledge and foretaste of the coming harvest (see Lev. 23:10, 17, 20), so in the Firstfruits of the Spirit we have the pledge and foretaste of the redeemed body and the glory that is ahead.
The groan does not come despite the Spirit. It comes because of Him. The very taste of what is coming sharpens our sense of what is not here yet:
The firstfruits of the Spirit suggest that what we have in this way is only a pledge of what is still to come. So we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan for that very reason. Our hope of a state so different from the present only makes us groan more over the present.
One thing still ties the believer to the world around him:
You see, the Christian is still linked to the old creation, and the link with it is his body.
This is not the groan of a soul unsure of God. It belongs to a soul already settled with Him:
It is the groaning of those who are justified by faith and have peace with God. It is the groaning of those who have the Holy Spirit living in them, bearing witness with their spirit that they are children of God. It is the groaning of adopted children who long deeply for the full results of adoption.
There is also a limit set on what this groaning may become:
This groaning is not a complaint that comes from discontent. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. God permits a groan, but never a grumble.
Some writers go further. They say the groan is not for ourselves at all, but for others:
Only the delivered soul groans, or can groan for others. We feel what is all around us, and we feel it as God feels it. That is why it says, "We groan inwardly" (not for ourselves — I do not groan for a dead thing I have been delivered from) "as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons."
The verse says we are waiting for adoption as sons. Yet believers are already sons. Commentators solve this by separating what is ours by faith from what everyone will one day see:
In one sense we have received the adoption (Gal. 4:5-7), becoming sons of God by faith. In this case we wait for the adoption, the redemption of the body. Our bodies will be delivered from this world of sin and corruption and conformed to the image of Christ. Then everyone will see that we are sons of God. By faith we have the adoption now; in glory it will be seen.
The word "redemption" here points forward, not back:
As the order shows, this means not the forgiveness of sins, which we already have, but the complete deliverance from the effects of sin in our bodies. We wait for that at the coming of our Lord Jesus.
That double position makes the Christian hard for the world to read:
The Christian is always in that sense a riddle. He has Christ as his life, but not yet fully as Saviour (Phil. 3:20); he has, and he has not, salvation; he is waiting for redemption, not as regards the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7), but as to the body (Rom. 8:23).
- Pledge — The Spirit is the firstfruits, a real first portion of the coming harvest. He is God's pledge of the glory ahead.
- Ache — Because that portion is real, it makes us long for the rest. The more we taste of the Spirit, the more the present grieves us.
- Link — Our body is the one remaining tie to the groaning creation, which is why our groan joins its groan.
- Not guilt — This is the groan of the forgiven and the free, not of an unsettled conscience. God allows a groan, never a grumble.
- Finish — Forgiveness is already ours. What remains is the redemption of the body at Christ's coming. Then our sonship will be seen by all.