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.
For we have been saved in hope; but hope seen is not hope; for what any one sees, why does he also hope?
Paul has just described believers groaning as they wait for the redemption of their bodies. Now he explains that this groan belongs to people who are already saved — saved in a hope they cannot yet see.
One writer sets out what the saved already hold, and what they do not hold yet:
We do not yet enjoy all that is included in being "saved." We have the salvation of our souls now, and we receive it by faith. We have the forgiveness of sins, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the firstfruits of the Spirit. We are now the children of God; but we are saved in hope, as well as in present possession. We have not all the salvation now. Our bodies are still mortal. We are still in a world where the curse remains, where the usurper rules, and where one universal groan sounds out. But in hope we are saved from all this.
So what is still missing, and when does it come? A commentator answers by reading this verse together with the one before it:
The salvation spoken of here is not security, or freedom from condemnation. The believer already enjoys those. It is a hope he waits for, and even groans for, though he already has "the firstfruits of the Spirit." Nor is it the death of the body, or the spirit going to be with Jesus. Just the opposite; it is "the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body." ... But the body is not yet conformed to Christ's image. The work of adoption is not complete until the body too is redeemed. It is, then, for this we wait. This is the salvation for which we hope. But this "redemption of the body" is what Christ brings about at His coming for His saints.
Everyday speech uses "hope" for things that may or may not happen. One writer rules that sense out here:
The redemption of the body is a matter of hope, and in this sense we are "saved in hope." The hope does not imply any uncertainty. It only means the blessing is not yet made visible.
You do not hope for what you already hold. One writer shows where the believer's certainty comes from, and why it makes him groan:
We are saved; but it is by hope. As yet we do not see that for which we hope. If it were visible, then hope would have no place. ... But though we do not see it, yet knowledge is the ground of our hope. The certified assurance of the God who cannot lie is the pure fountain of a Christian's hope. But hope born this way creates desire. Growing desire brings a sickness to the heart. That heart now feels the coming liberty, and this makes the pressure of its still-prolonged bondage weigh on the spirit all the more. A free spirit, in a bound and lowly body, must groan.
The believer stands between two fixed points, one behind and one ahead:
We have the redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of sins. But the Spirit we received as a result is only the pledge of the rest. It is in this sense we are saved in hope. We do not yet have what God purposed to give us in salvation — that is, glory with Christ. But the work that saves us is done, and we have it by the Holy Spirit. We have received the Holy Spirit. So we stand between the finished work which saves us and gives title to the inheritance ... and the exercise of power which will bring the full redemption in when Jesus comes again.
How can you tell a hope is real? One writer points to the way it waits:
Hope is an essential part of Christian character — "an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast" (Hebrews 6:19). It is not a matter of vague uncertainty. If it were, we would not wait with patience, but with doubts and fears. Faith gives the certainty that hope will be fulfilled. We do not know when, but faith also makes us content to wait patiently.
- Saved — we already have the soul's salvation, forgiveness and sonship. But the body is still mortal, and the curse is still on the world. So "saved" here reaches further than what we now enjoy.
- In hope — in Scripture, hope is not a guess. It is a blessing not yet made visible, resting on the assurance of the God who cannot lie.
- Unseen — no one hopes for what he already sees. Hope is alive because the redemption of the body has not yet come.
- Between — the believer stands between a finished work behind him and a coming display of power ahead. The Spirit is the pledge that links the two.
- Patient — certainty makes the waiting calm, not anxious. Patient waiting is the proof that the hope is real.
But if what we see not we hope, we expect in patience.
The verse just before this one says we are saved in hope. This verse draws out the logic: whatever you already hold is no longer something you hope for. So Christian life means waiting, with patience, for what we cannot yet see.
In everyday speech, "hope" usually means we are unsure. Commentators say the word works differently here. It carries confidence, not doubt.
Notice that the New Testament sense of hope is never uncertainty, but immature or deferred certainty. Confidence marks it as much as expectation. So we are not left in doubt and uncertainty. Our strength lies in quietness and confidence. The world has its hopes, but they are so steeped in uncertainty that the word hope has become almost a synonym for doubt. The believer, though, is so confident about what makes up his hope that he can say, "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
The way we wait shows what kind of hope we hold. Doubts and fears would make us wait very differently.
Hope is an essential part of Christian character — "a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul" (Heb. 6:19), not a matter of vague uncertainty. If it were, we would not wait with patience, but with doubts and fears. Faith gives the certainty that hope will be fulfilled. We do not know when. Faith also makes us content to wait. This is true "patience of hope."
So what is it that we do not see? Commentators point to the redemption of the body. That guards the verse from a serious mistake: our forgiveness is not what hangs in the balance.
Notice, it is not for the salvation of our souls that we wait and hope, but for the redemption of the body. It may be from the grave, or we may be changed in a moment. It will be at the coming of the Lord. As to the body, even we have no relief from groaning and suffering until the coming of our Lord. We do not see that yet, and so we wait and hope. It is a fatal mistake to think all this means we do not know we have salvation. The opposite is true. We know we have eternal life — "whoever believes has eternal life." There is no waiting or hoping for that. But we can wait in patience for the redemption of the body.
The thing we hope for is not here yet. One writer sees the beauty of the verse in what that absence works in us.
We are saved now in hope, but that means we do not yet have before us what we hope for. If we see it, how can we still hope for it? How beautiful a thought this is! The hope is so perfect, and carries such complete assurance, that not having it only produces patience in us — not doubt, but patience! All human hopes may disappoint, but the hope God has given us is as sure as if we already had it. We wait with patience, and the patience itself is holy discipline for us.
Quiet waiting can look like not caring much either way. Commentators say the truth runs the other way.
Can it be strange, then, that we have to keep the word of His patience? That we have to remember what holds judgment back and delays the fulfilment of our hope as Christians? Patience is not indifference about that hope, but the very opposite. If we were indifferent, we could not speak of patience or know it at all: "if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
The scene around us stays the same while we wait. What changes is the spirit in which we look at it.
With this hope shining before us, we can wait with patience for the certain glory that will be revealed in due time. We may look at the sorrows around us in a selfish spirit, or as bystanders who only draw lessons from them. Then the power of evil will make us weary and impatient. If we view it all in the power of the Spirit, we will "wait with patience."
- Unseen — hope is hope only because it is not in hand yet. What a person already has, he no longer hopes for.
- Certain — this hope is deferred certainty, not doubt. The world's hope is almost a synonym for doubt; the believer's is an anchor.
- Bodily — we wait for the redemption of the body at the Lord's coming, not for the salvation of the soul. That we already have.
- Patient — the promise is sure, so delay produces patience, not fear. Patience is the opposite of not caring: only real longing can wait.
- Spirit-taught — a selfish look at the evil around us wears us down. Seen in the power of the Spirit, the same scene leaves us hoping and waiting.