Groaning Creation

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eight
THE GROANING CREATION

Scripture Reading: verses 18-23

FOR I RECKON THAT THE SUFFERINGS OF THIS PRESENT TIME ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE COMPARED WITH THE GLORY THAT SHALL BE REVEALED IN US. FOR THE EARNEST EXPECTATION OF THE CREATURE WAITETH FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD. FOR THE CREATURE WAS MADE SUBJECT TO VANITY, NOT WILLINGLY, BUT BY REASON OF HIM WHO HATH SUBJECTED THE SOME IN HOPE; BECAUSE THE CREATURE ITSELF ALSO SHALL BE DELIVERED FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION INTO THE GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD. FOR WE KNOW THAT THE WHOLE CREATION GROANETH AND TRAVAILETH IN PAIN TOGETHER UNTIL NOW. AND NOT ONLY THEY, BUT OURSELVES ALSO, WHICH HAVE THE FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT, EVEN WE OURSELVES GROAN WITHIN OURSELVES, WAITING FOR THE ADOPTION, TO WIT, THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODY.

Suffering is the keynote of the present disposition of all God’s fallen creation. The entire material universe has been plunged into chaotic distress by Satan’s rebellion and man’s sin; so there is an earnest expectation on the part of every living thing, looking forward to the day of redemption when the Lord Jesus in mighty power and great glory will take over the universe.

This present time of suffering is not worthy to be compared with the display of glory which will be manifest in us when the Lord Jesus Christ comes. He is coming to be glorified in His saints and admired in all true believers. So overwhelming will be the joy and exultation of that eternal display that the trials of this present brief period of time wane before its excellence.

All of us are part of a groaning creation, and every sane person is conscious of this candid truth. Suffering here is not confined to the thought of suffering persecution on account of the reproach of Christ. Rather, it is the over-all consequences of fallen man. In the Garden of Eden, God set up a spectacle of harmony and beauty, wherein Adam was the great administrator of God’s loving-kindness toward the lower creation. As a token of his understanding of the vast scheme of benevolence which God had inaugurated, Adam was impowered by God to name the animals. The herbs of the field, and the fruit of the trees were all to be the untarnished expression of the loving provision of his God. However, so great was the position of man in this wonderful realm of beauty that nothing and no one was found therein who could be a helpmeet for the heart of Adam. God took from Adam’s side his companion, Eve, brought her to him, and presented her as one who could share the joys and aspirations of his heart.

It was a realm of great order and charm, in which man and his consort could have wonderful communion with God, but Satan entered in and man listened to the serpent.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they brought tremendous consequence upon themselves and the whole creation around them. It was not simply that they did something contrary to the will of God, but by sin they wrecked the entire institution of the governmental order which God had set up. The dictates of the Almighty were set aside, and man at once became slave of the deceiver who had ensnared him. The living creatures around him were also affected by the fall. Instead of looking to mankind for direction and tender care, they became rebels against man’s authority. The beasts, which had been of a kindly nature, became ravenous and wild.

Then, because of man’s sin, the earth was cursed under the judgment of God. The readiness with which things grew in profusion for the hand of man was lost. Under hard toil and by the sweat of man’s face, the earth gave of its fruit reluctantly. God set man up a trinity, much like God Himself – three entities in one person, constituting spirit, soul, and body in that order. However, when man sinned the entire order was reversed and that spiritual being of beauty and harmony, a representation of God Himself in the creation, grievously fell. Man’s spirit took the lowest place – the lusts of the flesh became the paramount issue in his life.

Thus the entire creation crashed in ruin because of the entrance of sin, and from that day to this nothing has been right. So irrecoverable has it all been that the Lord Jesus Christ has come down into this world, taken a tabernacle of flesh, and in human guise charged Himself with the emancipation of fallen creation; bringing it back to the God who first created it. In incarnation, the first task of the Lord Jesus Christ was to lay down His life for His lost creatures, thus bearing the penalty of God’s judgment against sin. This He did at Calvary’s Cross. It is recorded in Hebrews 2, “He should taste death for everything.”

In the power of His redemption and in the light of His resurrection, man is now emancipated from the degradation and shame into which sin had brought him, and, identified with the Lord Jesus in new creation, the true believer is elevated to Paradise itself. Instead of being subjugated under the lust of the flesh and controlled by desires and instinct of the body, fallen man again has become a spiritual being controlled by the Holy Spirit of God. The new man in Christ is set up spirit, soul, and body, maintained by the power of the Lord Jesus. Moreover the creation around him is groaning in expectation of the moment when all this will be brought into actuality at the coming of Christ. Then the dog will no longer whine in agony and pain. No longer will the lion roar in the jungle so that every beast of the field trembles in terror. Then the lion and the lamb will dwell together and the ass will lie down with the kid. The earth will no longer be reluctant in fruit-bearing. The trees will no longer be diseased and covered with corroding scale, but the desert will blossom as the rose. The world around us today is crying out for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The grass of the field, the trees of the forest, yes, every living thing is groaning and travailing together in pain,¹ waiting for the moment when God’s sons will be made manifest. In glorified bodies, we are destined to come forth in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ to end the dominion of sin on the earth, bringing righteousness, peace, and salvation to a sin-sick, war weary, pain-racked creation. Lord Jesus come!

Footnote:
¹ “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” “The whole creation” means all mankind, the word “creation” being the same as that used in all of these verses (see under Rom. 8:19). Here the metaphor is that of the labor room in a hospital, only without modern anesthetics. Dr. William Harrison wrote: “For we know that all mankind, all of them, groan together, and unto this day are in pain, as a woman in labor, to be delivered out of the uneasiness of this mortal state.” Human beings are not asked if they wish to suffer, they must do so. This expectation of the creature is different from the hope of Christians. In their case it is an apathetic, unconscious waiting, a waiting for something better, yet uncertain of its goal. But it is expounded by the apostle according to its true nature. What men actually mean without knowing it, is the goal in Christ which has been given to mankind: divine sonship, freedom, divine adoption, participation in the glory of God. No adequate description of the groaning of humanity is possible; but all men are aware of it. Millions of hospital beds are freighted with agony and despair. The struggles of humanity are like the frenzy of a savage beast caught in a vicious trap. Tears stain every face, and blood lies upon every threshold. The problem of daily survival presses upon the hearts of millions who are snared in poverty, grounded in the mud and filth of human sin, facing a life of ceaseless want and toil, and, augmenting their wretchedness is the soul-fever of aching desires which agitate their minds, stifling the nobler impulses and condemning the unfortunate to the pursuit of goals which, even if attained, turn to dust and ashes in their hands. And to climax all that tragedy of agitation and failure, the very bodies of all people, after attaining some little strength for a day, wither and descend into the rottenness of the grave. Like a wounded serpent that sinks its poisonous fangs into its own flesh, people vent the agony of their madness through vicious indulgence of wars and revolutions, only to face with each new generation the unremitting sentence to repeat the old follies, over and over again. The screams of the labor room are an apt metaphor indeed of the human condition, “subjected to vanity.”