Chapter 8, verses 19-27
When the head of the old creation fell (Gen. 3), he dragged down with him the creatures who had been made subject to him; and God has not either with the present blessings of Christianity or with any prior dealing with mankind, delivered them from suffering and death. Yet has He fixed the time of their deliverance, and described its character in Isaiah 11:6, 96The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)
9They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:9). It is part of His purpose for the day of the Lord, for the thousand years’ reign of Christ which occupies so large a place in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and is referred to again and again in the New. Among many passages, the most extended references are to be found in Isaiah chapters 25, 35, 60 to 65; Jeremiah 31 and 33; Ezekiel 36 to 48, and Zechariah 8 to 14. Fitly here in Romans the emancipation of the creature is connected with the display of the glorified heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ (2 Thess. 1:7-107And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, 8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; 10When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. (2 Thessalonians 1:7‑10); John 17:22, 2322And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:22‑23)) which will take place in that day; for, when the Heir of all things takes His inheritance, He will not take it alone.
Who but God could know, and tell us, out of knowledge altogether beyond man’s, that the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the coming day of the display of glory? It was not of their choice to be made subject to vanity, to the bondage of corruption, with its accompaniment of groaning and travailing together in pain; no, it was because of the first man’s ruin that the dumb creatures were made to suffer; and they must continue to suffer until the Second Man, the last Adam, appears; yet, the suffering is in hope, the hope of deliverance. In that coming day they will be delivered into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. (“Glorious liberty” is not an exact translation in verse 21). We, believers are now in the liberty of grace, as freed from sin’s slavery; then we shall be in the liberty of the glory, and the creation will share in that; it cannot share in the glory which belongs to the heirs.
How wonderfully these verses (18 to 22) lead us into an understanding of the present condition of the suffering creation! What passions and what misery man’s sin has brought in! Sickness and death abound. The strong take advantage of the weak. And the cruelty of man to the creatures is often very painful to behold. As another has said,
“The more my heart understands what God’s presence is, the more deeply my soul will understand the place the creature has got into. What a wonderful position this puts us into—one of association with God!”
In our bodies we are connected with the creation, and so are subject to vanity, to decay, disease and death, even as they are; but groaning within ourselves, we wait for the redemption of our body. Though the groaning and travailing of the whole creation be unintelligent and selfish, verse 23 gives a different character to the believer’s groans; the Holy Spirit dwells in him, and his distress is consequently associated, not so much with his own personal suffering, as with a realization of the bondage of corruption that is upon all here; his groaning is thus according to the mind of God.
It has been remarked that we have no word of Scripture to tell us that Jesus ever smiled, and in Isaiah 53:33He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3) and 4, He is spoken of as in His earthly path a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” He wept at the grave of Lazarus, though in Him there was power to raise the dead, as He presently did (John 11:33, 35, 38, 43, 4433When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, (John 11:33)
35Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
38Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. (John 11:38)
43And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. (John 11:43‑44)). He wept again over Jerusalem (Luke 19:4141And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, (Luke 19:41)). Disease and death had no claims upon His holy body, but He could enter into the state of things which sin has brought about in the world, in wondrous sympathy, and in grief beyond anything we may feel.
In verses 24 and 25 the Christian hope comes in to lighten our burden: We are saved by, or in hope, and are to patiently wait for the promised redemption of the body, then to be in the glory of which we have been told. Our title is complete, our souls are saved, and we know what lies on before.
“Happy they who trust in Jesus;
Sweet their portion is and sure”
the words of a hymn we some times sing.
We have had the indwelling Holy Spirit presented in so many precious engagements for and in the believer; yet is there anything more precious than what is brought out in the 26th and 27th verses concerning His work for us? He joins help to our infirmities, or weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as is fitting; in this felt need the Spirit intercedes with unutterable groanings. If what has been before us is really the character of our lives (shame upon us if it is not!) we feel, as God would have us feel, the state of bondage shared by everything animate here; yet what should we ask for? For immediate personal deliverance out of this scene of groans? That would be unworthy of the Christian’s character as here on earth; have we not just read that we are to wait with patience for the Lord’s good time to ransom our bodies?
For judgment on the wicked? But this too is contrary to what we have learned. We rest therefore in His. Word, groaning because of the effects of sin seen all around us, and not knowing what we should pray for with respect to it; but the indwelling Spirit condescends to give our groans a form altogether beyond us to feel or express.
Verse 27 is exceedingly precious. First we have God searching the hearts of His children; and what does He find? As a writer already quoted, has said,
“It is a sweet thing to know that the Searcher of hearts finds the Spirit’s mind and intercession in us, in place of sin and the flesh.”
Searching my heart and your heart, dear young Christian, He knows what is the mind of the Spirit who dwells there; this is according to what we found in verses 5 and 6 regarding the character of a Christian. God looks in your heart, and there He finds the mind of the Holy Spirit wrought in you, in intercession for the saints according to God.
Does it not draw out your very soul in gratitude, indeed in worship to God, as you take in the depth of the grace that is His, in looking in your heart for what is after all the work of His Holy Spirit, and crediting you with those desires of the new nature which the indwelling Spirit has Himself produced there?
(To be continued, D. V.)
When the storms of life are o’er,
And I have reached the other shore,
In the Home of perfect day,
Where all tears are wiped away,
I shall praise Thee face to face,
For the riches of Thy grace.