Read Romans 8:18-25
Paul switches the focus from the implications of salvation and redemption for humans to the implications of redemption for the entire universe. In this section there is a surprising focus on how the redemption of human beings in the person and work of Jesus, then passed on to his people by the Spirit impacts all of creation.
After discussing how suffering was part of the inheritance that we have in Christ, Paul shows his readers that those sufferings, while real, are not ultimate. The point of this passage is for Paul to comfort Christians with a beautiful description of how rich we are to be counted among those who have been redeemed by Christ. Even the most significant and painful of our sufferings are incomparable to the vastness of our blessing in Christ. To illustrate this point, Paul reveals something truly majestic: the cosmic scope of our redemption.
The world is in bondage. This is plain to see from all of the different ways that creation does not work as we intuitively know that it should. Paul repositions this brokenness of creation as a type of groaning and lamenting that creation is doing for God’s Sons to be revealed. In fact, it was God who issued the curse onto the natural world as a consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. However, we learn here that even that curse was not given only as punishment, but served redemptive purposes. It was given in hope, the hope that one day Jesus would undo the curse and reverse all of the evil that sin and satan had unleashed on the world. This passage tells us that this reversal began with Jesus and continues in us and will be fulfilled only when all of God’s people have been drawn into God’s family.
Patience is the final exhortation of this passage. Picking up on the fact that we can only hope for something that is future, Paul urges us to be patient as we await our sure future. The bigger our expectation of that future is, the more endurance we will have. As we seek to live as Sons of God in the here and now, we also know that only the return of Jesus and the final act of redemption, glorification will ultimately perfect this world. “Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.” -Jonathan Edwards.
Questions
How does the expectation of a completely redeemed cosmos change how you think of your salvation?
What do we learn about God by knowing that it was God that subjected creation to futility, but that he did this with hope?
What makes it so hard to believe that all of creation is eagerly awaiting YOU to be fully revealed?
Where are you most impatient regarding the redemption of this world? How does viewing all of redemption as a promise of God help you with patience?