Human language has its limitations, especially when attempting to describe divine activities and extraordinary end-time events. Even though the working of God is real, it “cannot be described literally since the direct activity of God cannot be fully comprehended in human language. The biblical writers have therefore to resort to analogy and metaphor, the language of symbol, in order to convey their message.”1 Similar to apocalyptic language employed in the Thessalonian letters, here Paul shifts into personification along the lines of Hebrew poetry (cf. Psa. 89:11-12; 96:11-12; 98:7-8; 114:3-8; Isa. 35:1-2; 55:12-13).
Anticipating the Future
The “revealing of the sons of God” is “an eschatological revelation” (cf. 2:5; 16:25),2 involving “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (cf. v. 18; 2:7, 10; 5:2). “Scripture does not tell us much of what that glory will be, but it assures us that it will be.”3 In the meantime, the human experience in a fallen world includes “the sufferings of this present time” (vv. 17-18; cf. 5:3) to which God’s people are not immune. The scientific mind of the literalist, no doubt perplexed by the language used here, sees the degenerating world and woeful plight of mankind as a natural state of affairs. But the spiritual mind (vv. 5-6), with poetic personification, envisions “the creation” empathizing with the Lord’s suffering people. It “waits,” a verb describing an intense yearning for Christ’s return,4 with “eager longing.”
Unidentified and presumably already understood, “the [one] having subjected” or “him who subjected” evidently is God.5 The physical habitat he originally designed for an unflawed humanity could no longer be perfect when his human creation was corrupted by sin. It was therefore “subjected to futility … bondage to corruption … pains of childbirth” in the form of death, decay, hardship, and danger,6 though “not willingly.” Seeing that the material cosmos is not volitive, this is a subtle reminder of the widespread and devastating consequences of man’s willful choices that brought sin and death into the world (cf. 5:12-19). But God has worked through this lamentable situation “in hope,” with a personified creation joining God’s children in “groaning,” with eager anticipation of a future liberation from pain and suffering. When Christ returns, the volatility, turmoil, and decline of the physical world ends (2 Pet. 3:10-14), and “the sufferings of this present time” are exchanged for the incomparable “glory that is to be revealed to us.”7
God’s children are set apart from the rest of creation with “the firstfruits of the Spirit” or “spirit” (cf. 11:16; 16:5). The imagery is drawn from “the first portion of the harvest, regarded both as a first instalment and as a pledge of the final delivery of the whole. The Holy Spirit is thus regarded as an anticipation of final salvation, and a pledge that we who have the Spirit shall in the end be saved.”8 Cf. 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14.
Having already “received the spirit of adoption as sons” (v. 15), and having been justified through the redemption in Christ (3:24), we still look forward to the ultimate “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” A close parallel to this passage, without the poetic language, is Philippians 3:20-21, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”9 Other helpful commentaries are 1 Cor. 15:36-54 and 2 Cor. 4:14–5:5. Accordingly, this section of Romans appears to be an expansion of what Paul had already communicated to the Corinth church.
Saved in Hope
“For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom. 8:24-25).
“For” continues and expounds upon the fact that in this fallen world, “as we wait eagerly” for our glorious future, there is a connection between suffering and “hope” (cf. 5:2-5), namely “this hope” in which “we were saved” (in the past). Although in Romans Paul mostly speaks of salvation in terms of the future (5:9-10; 9:27; 10:9, 13; 11:14, 26), here we see that from the moment of our conversion “hope” carries us onward, all the way through to the end. By its very definition the object of hope has yet to be realized, so “we wait,” lit. “we hope” (presently and continuously) for it with “patience” or “perseverance” (NASB, NKJV) or “endurance” (NAB, NET) (cf. 2:7; 5:3-4; 15:4-5). If the focus is on God’s promise, we wait patiently; if on current sufferings, we hope with perseverance, although contextually both are applicable in the sense of patient endurance.
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 I. H. Marshall, Thessalonians 128.
2 C. K. Barrett, Romans 165. Cf. also 1 Cor. 1:7; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2 Thess. 1:7.
3 E. F. Harrison, “Romans” 94, emphasis in the text.
4 H. A. A. Kennedy, Expositor’s Greek Testament 3:463. See Rom. 8:19, 23, 25; 1 Cor. 1:7; Gal. 5:5; Phil. 3:20; Heb. 9:28; 1 Pet. 3:20.
5 Cf. HCSB, LSV, NASB, NET, NLT, NKJV, YLT.
6 Cf. Gen. 3:16-19; 5:29; Eccl. 2:22-23.
7 Instead of a renovated physical earth, which will have served its purpose at the end of time, the eternal home of God’s children is heavenly: Matt. 5:12, 16, 34; 6:19-21; Phil. 3:20; Col. 1:5; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:16-17; Heb. 6:18-19; 10:19-20, 34; 12:23; 1 Pet. 1:3-4; cf. also 1 Cor. 15:23-24, 35-54; 2 Cor. 4:14; 5:1-2.
8 C. K. Barrett, Romans 167. See also C. E. B. Cranfield, Shorter Romans 199; J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1:473-74; Theology of Paul the Apostle 329 n.68, 469.
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