What does it mean that all creation groans (Romans 8:22)?

First of all, "the whole creation" groans and travails in pain together. This was the case when the Apostle Paul wrote these words, and it certainly is so now. In these words the fist reference is to the lower creation, which has been dragged down by the fall of man. Dominion was given to Adam over all, and by his sin he ruined all. He was, so to speak, the top link, intelligently connected with the Creator, with all other links in the chain dependent 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 or kid as the leopard pounces upon it, or of the fly as, entangled in the web, it feels the spider's bite; but the groaning is there.

(V. 22). Thus 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 groans and travails in pain together until now". Those who reject the fall impute all the misery of a groaning creation to natural causes, and, in their folly, imagine they can remove the misery by their own efforts. We know that from the fall until now the creation groans and travails in pain, and will do so, until the manifestation of the sons of God.

Ans. — Yes, and more besides. “The whole creation groans” under present conditions — the human, the animal, and the vegetable—all that has life. Disease without end, oppression, corrupt governments, insubjection, afflict the human. Cruelty, man's greed, distempers, afflict the animal. Insects, fungi, all manner of enemies, are increasingly affecting the vegetable, destroying whole species, curtailing production, making extraordinary care necessary for man to obtain fruit. Even we Christians, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption of our suffering, decaying, dying bodies.

Intelligently or unintelligently, everything groans and cries aloud for the return of our Lord, who alone can bring on that complete change in the whole creation which will end its groans.

There is also suffering on account of the possession of the Divine nature. Creation groans all around us. From the highest to the lowest—from the head to the foot—from the man set in responsibility to God down to the worm that has its home in the clod at his feet the effects of the fall are felt; and every living thing is racked with pain. The heart of every one is made bitter on account of sin, and throughout all the earth there is a cry.

What we have to suffer now as waiting our true portion, given by God, is “not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). We are not alone in our waiting for the coming day, “For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.” When Adam fell, the whole creation under him fell with him, and was “made subject to vanity,” sharing the sorrow and ruin of man. Yet there is hope for the lower creation, when the curse shall be removed, and Christ shall reign in righteousness. Then shall the creation “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

Until “the manifestation of the sons of God” in glory with Christ, “the whole creation groans and travails in pain together” (Rom. 8:22). God is not insensible to the groaning of the lower creation that has come through the sin and fall of man, and has no intention to allow the groaning to continue. If God has been dishonoured by man, and by the sin and ruin that marks His fair creation, He has intervened in His own Son to take away sin and all its dreadful effects in His creation. How great must be the sound of the groan that reaches the ear of God through the sorrows and sufferings of man and beast. What pain is suffered by man and beast through disease and death and over ravages of sin! but God has planned for the removal of the groan, and the deliverance of the creature that has suffered through the fall of man.

Creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God; its groans will cease on the day of their glory. Hope was left in the cup of its sorrow when, by reason of man's sin, creation was made subject to vanity. Suffering and death are not to hold in their arms God's creation for ever. It "groans and travails in pain together until now." There rises up to God a moan from His suffering creatures on this earth, an unison of sorrow from its four quarters, as day by day passes by.

We will now consider briefly what God will do in that day for the CREATION IN GENERAL. Man, by his sin, has not only brought ruin on himself, but has marred his home, and dragged down all the creatures dependent upon him. Thorns and thistles are marks of man's sin, much more the groans of the brute creation (Gen. 3:18). Man, unlike angels, was constituted by God the centre of a system of things. The whole of this lower creation either suffers or rejoices with its head. This is its time of suffering. "We know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now" (Rom. 8:22). We who believe groan also in sympathy, our mortal bodies forming a link with the old creation. But we alone are in God's secret, as to where deliverance will come from, and when. Though it understands it not, "the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestations of the sons of God." When Christ comes upon the scene, bringing with him the whole glorified family of God, then the creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.

In the meanwhile creation groans in the travail that the sin of man has caused. The whole creation has been subjected, not of its own will — as was its fallen head — but by reason of Him Who has subjected it. When the Creator subjected it to vanity, He did so in hope of its deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, have also a link with a groaning creation. Have we not bodies of humiliation (Phil. 3:20-21)? As such we share the groan of creation. As to our souls we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and as to our bodies we wait the exercise of His power to redeem them, setting them free from every evidence of the fall. While we wait we are helped by the intercession of the indwelling Spirit. He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. At the same time forming in us exercises which deepen us in the knowledge that all things work together for good to those who — while they are loved by God — love Him in return. Has He not called us, not according to our need, deep and dire though it was, but according to His purpose? And the realisation of that purpose shall make His Son "Firstborn among many brethren," and also paramount in the coming universe of bliss and glory.

But if the present time is a time of suffering, of patience and endurance, we seriously err if we think of the sufferings as deserving comparison with the glory that is to be revealed to us in its own suited time (verse 18). The former are temporal; the latter is eternal. But, beside this, creation itself is not yet in its final and permanent condition. The manifestation of the sons of God will bring about a great change for it. By the will of God it was not given its permanent, abiding condition. It was subjected to change and decay, to vanity. But this condition was not intended to be permanent and final. So there is before it the prospect, not only of a measure of relief from its present groanings and travail-pains, when the sons of God shall be manifested, but of full and permanent deliverance at the end, when all things will be made anew to abide forever. It is to have finally the liberty from corruption that will characterize the glory of the children of God (verses 19-21).

If creation, now in a state of decay, in earnest hope looks for a final and permanent deliverance from it, how much more must we who are of the race of the risen Christ, already possessing the Spirit (the pledge and foretaste of new creation), be in earnest longing for the glorious change that awaits us, the redemption of our bodies. It is this that will complete our salvation. How we long for it! (verses 21-25.)

The creation was not made (as it now is) in decay, degradation, suffering, death. That God originally designed that it should be in such confusion and misery would be hard to digest; but the scriptures teach the contrary, as it shows that, whilst subjected to its present disorder on account of man's guilt and ruin, it longs not in vain for deliverance, but awaits in hope His revelation in glory. The very struggle of everything for life and against sickness witnesses that it is fallen to rise. Thus not only is the riddle of what now is solved by God's account of the past, but His word casts its own bright light on the future; for, though subjected to vanity, it was "in hope that even the creation itself shall be freed from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." It is only by faith that any enter into the liberty of grace; and this is the portion even now of God's children under the gospel. Creation cannot of necessity know such liberty, being unintelligent even where it is animate; but even itself shall exchange the slavery of corruption by which it is now held down for the liberty of glory when the children of God are glorified. Thus all will be vindicated on God's part, and all in due order. There can be no communion between us and creation in grace; there will be in glory when the power of God deals with all creation in honour of Christ's death, whose blood has bought not the treasure only but the field, the world which contained it, yea, all things.