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.