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.