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.