This charcoal image called “Savior,” drawn as my Winter Capstone project in 2005, depicts Romans 8:18-28. I will offer a brief background on the book of Romans, Paul’s train of thought that spans the book, and an exposition of the passage. This will all be followed by my own train of thought on how I interpreted the passage to compile the image.
Background of the Book of Romans
The book of Romans is one of the most beautiful epistolary writings of the whole New Testament. Its language is colorful and dramatic, building up by a crescendo effect to climax at chapter 8 and then comes back down through a decrescendo. It has been called a “theological tractate,”[1] a compilation of how Paul systematically understood salvation theology, though not necessarily in those terms. He adds up (logizomai, λογίζομαι) the events of salvation and came to the summation of the theology that runs the length of Romans by recalling the major events.
Paul had a longing to go to Rome (Acts 19:21) and even to Spain (Rom 15:24) since he had not yet made it past Greece in preaching the gospel. He wintered in Corinth (Acts 20:1-3), just prior to making his way to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey where he delivered the alms collection of the saints to Jerusalem.[2] At this juncture, Romans was written about AD 56-57. Phoebe, the female church deacon of Cenchrea near Corinth, whom he most likely met with when his hair was cut off (Acts 18:18), would deliver this letter to the already established Roman church (Rom 16:1-2).
He wrote the epistle to introduce himself to the church and his gospel (Rom. 1:11-15, 16:25) so that he might have spiritual fruit among them, a minor theme carried throughout the book, characterized by his desire and push for believers to walk out their faith in deed and word. They were to offer themselves and their service to God as a spiritual sacrifice (12:1), a firstfruits (8:23, 11:16, 16:5), so as this fruit they could partake of God’s holiness (6:22, 7:4), and be counted as Paul’s fruit (1:13, 15:28). The major theme that runs the length of the book is glory; the redeemed man sharing in and promoting the glory of God. Sixteen times (δόξα, doxa) glory is used in Romans. It conveys the unspoken manifestation of God in His splendor, renown, revealing His infinite intrinsic worth carried within His weighty essence, shown by the brightness of who He is.[3]
Paul’s Train of Thought Throughout the Book
Paul opens his treatise at the beginning of creation (Rom 1:20), followed by man’s chosen behaviors (1:21-32), which stem from the major universe-altering event of the Fall of Man (5:12). By this God showed that He is both God of the Jew and the Gentile, for both have a law unto themselves of which they are guilty (2:6-29). He is, therefore, right in His judgments concerning all men (3:1-30). God then chooses Abraham to work salvation through by his faith (4:3), which He then reveals His law to man through Abraham’s heirs. Paul then turns to Christ’s sacrificial death (6:4) and His resurrection (6:8), by which salvation came to both Jew and Gentile (10:12), which will culminate in the Second Coming (8:23) and the newness of the age to come (8:21). However, while man is here on earth at this present age, they will struggle with the sinful flesh (7:7-24). Yet God has given provision through Jesus Christ, through whom came the coming of the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit might lead and empower the believer (7:25-8:27) to walk out a spirit-led life. Because God sent His own Son to save all, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that will separate the believer from God (8:29-39), therefore there is complete security of eternal life (6:23).
Despite the rejection of the Jews believing in Jesus as the Messiah during the first century AD (9:1-10:3), the Jew and Gentile (anyone who is not Jew) will be grafted together to make up the called of God (11:17-24) when the Jews are grafted back into the olive tree of God. I firmly believe this is going on in our day and age, and most likely long before the present. Therefore preachers need to be sent out so all who are in the world can hear the call of God that they may choose to respond to His calling (10:8-21). Paul’s conviction, which binds the believer to God through His indescribable mercy for all, dictates that the believer should live for God and fulfill the purposes for which He created them. (12:1-8). They should live like true Christians in deed and word, doing all in love (12:9-15:13). Paul begins his closing by stating what his ministry is, confirming his God-given work to the Gentiles by word and deed. Therefore he plans to come to Rome, though he has been hindered up to this point (15:14-33). Phoebe’s authority to carry the letter on Paul’s behalf is endorsed (16:1-2), and he closes with a fond hello to all those he has ministered with before in passing (16:3-24), ending with a final benediction to glorify God.
Exposition of the Passage
Romans 8:18-28 is at the heart of the book. This central location connects the past salvation events to the present and looks forward to the future ones that are to come. It binds all these periods together with Paul’s “characteristic note of ‘now and not yet’ that runs right through Paul.”[4] Christ has saved us from the penalty of the law by having died for us (5:8), thereby making us no longer children of wrath or slaves to sin (6:17). But God has now adopted us to be His children and fellow heirs with Christ (8:15-17). This sonship is characterized by the giving of the Holy Spirit who empowers the believer to walk in the newness of the spirit-led life (8:11), though they still struggle with the flesh that surrounds their spirit-man. So the believer is “now” saved, yet their salvation is not complete, for God is still presently at work saving others. But to the believers’ surprise God is not just saving them.
18-19: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
Paul discusses suffering as a shared experience that Christ had to endure while here on earth just as the believer does. He does this to convince to the believer that just as the believer and Christ shared in suffering in this life, so too the believer will share in the glory of God as Christ does.
These ‘sufferings of the present time’ are not only those trials that are endured directly because of confession of Christ—for instance, persecution— but encompass the whole gamut of suffering, including things such as illness, bereavement, hunger, financial reverses, and death itself. To be sure, Paul has spoken of our suffering in v. 17 as “suffering with Christ.” But there is a sense in which all the suffering of Christians is “with Christ,” inasmuch as Christ was himself subject, by virtue of his coming “in the form of sinful flesh.”[5]
Therefore Paul in essence is asking; suffering verses glory, which is greater? He confirms the glory of eternity with God far outweighs the suffering of this life which equates to a hair's breadth in the chronological time frame of one’s entire existence. For Christ’s suffering lasted only a few years in the framework of His overall eternal life. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 captures this same concept in eloquent overtones.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
The glory which the believer will share with God, will go on, and on, and on. It is eternal, age-long, unending. This is contrasted by the briefness of this present life, which could be but one breath for a newborn babe, or one hundred and twenty years for an elder in the earth, both are minor in the grand scheme of eternity.
It is with this eternal glory in mind that Paul can say that the creation is awaiting the revealing of the sons of God. This brings bubbling to the forefront expectation and excitement of the creation as it anxiously waits to see who these children are. “Suddenly we have turned a corner. Whereas, up until now, it might have been possible to think that Paul was simply talking about God’s salvation in relation to human beings, from here on it is clear that the entire cosmos is in view.”[6
20-21:For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Because of the Fall of Man creation was subject to the curse, however in like manner it too might share in the same promised hope concreted within the curse, the coming Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15). God always makes provision in hopes to save that which He loves, it was with this intent that He placed a promise within the curse. This Seed has already been revealed as Jesus Christ, the counterpoint of Adam (Rom 5:14-15). Just as sin reigned in man because of Adam’s sin, through which the creation was cursed, through Christ’s obedience, the free gift was offered to all men (5:21), and the creation will likewise be given the same free gift. The creation (just like Christ and man) will have to wade through the suffering of this life till after the sons of God are revealed in the Second Coming (1 Thess 4:15-18 depicts this reunion), after which point the creation will then have its salvation complete. Thus, Christ will redeem both the sons of God and the whole of the creation (lights, land, plants, and animals) by restoring the creation to its state likened (though not exactly) to a pre-fall state. Revelation 21-22 gives further detail into this newness, while the sons of God inherit the same type of resurrected body that Christ now exists in, not exact to their pre-fall state, though similar.
The creation’s current state is likened to slavery,[7] because it was and continues to be bound by the Fall, in which it was taken hostage by the darkness the followed the Fall of the sons of man, who still are themselves bound by sin and do not steward this earth as it should be. This is coupled with Satan usurping the dominion of man which was given by God (Gen 1:26, 28) with his demonic forces. Therefore when the children of God are set free from the corruption that characterizes the state of this epoch of time, so too will the creation be liberated and be transferred into the glory to come. The children of God are those who heard and responded to the call of God by faith, coming into a saving relationship with Christ through His redemptive blood and resurrected state. This excludes those who do not respond to the call of God in worshipful repentance, which they are characterized as ungodly and unrighteous men (1:18-32). When the Second Coming of Christ does occur, those who do not follow God will go to the White Throne Judgement (Rev 20:11-15), and not share in the New Heaven and New Earth.
V 22: For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
Jesus first metaphorically makes the connection for the disciples waiting for His resurrected state to a woman in birth pangs (John 16:20-22).
Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.
Paul uses this same metaphor for the creation awaiting the Second Coming of Christ in a play on words to graphicly describe the same metaphor further by using a succession of multiple words that stem from στενός stenos, meaning narrow, strait. Jesus is the only one to use this word in all the New Testament (Matt 7:13-14; Luke 13:24), regarding the narrow gate which needs to be entered through to be saved. Paul uses stenazo which is to groan within oneself because of compression and constriction that presses forward as in childbirth (8:23). Stenagmos which is to groan or sigh because of outward circumstances creating pressure is likened to slavery (Rom 8:26, Acts 7:35; Exod 2:24 LXX). Sustenazo to groan together (Rom 8:22), thus implying a joint groaning comprising all aspects of the creation. And stenochoria (8:35), a narrow space creating great stress and anguish which “God authorized and hence only produces a temporal sense of confinement.”[8] This last word is contrasted by thlipsis translated as tribulation, which is persecution, a narrow space that hems one in, creating internal pressure (8:35), which these two words are used in unison in verse 35.
So what is the purpose of all this? The creation will, in like manner, give birth to new life. However, it will do this through the same pain, anguish, compression, narrowing, and groaning that characterize the curse of Eve. She was cursed with multiplied pains in childbirth, “In pain (στεναγμόν) you shall deliver children” (Gen 3:16 LXX). This is the same στεναγμόν (stenagmon) that Paul uses in Romans 8:26, implying that the pain of childbirth has now been bound by the groaning pain of slavery to sin, from which the new life will have to come through at the Second Coming of Christ. This saving of man and creation through birth, birth of the Seed, who is the Deliverer/Savior from slavery from sin, is Christ the Lord, may be well what Paul had in mind in 1 Timothy 2:15, “However she (Eve) will be saved through childbearing.” If this is coupled with “in pain you shall deliver children,” it is Christ who saves all God’s children, and Eve’s salvation and deliverance from the curse (Christ) came through her pain of bearing children.
All this begs the question, what are the groaning pangs of creation? Just as Christ compared his coming resurrection to birth pangs, He does so with His Second Coming by giving a description to these birth pangs. In Mark 13:3-4, “Peter, James, John, and Andrew were questioning Him privately, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and the end of the age?’” Christ then proceeds to explain to them (vv. 6-8), “Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and they will mislead many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines.” He then makes this comment, “These things are only the beginning of birth pains.” An even more detailed list of further birth pains proceeds this point from (vv. 9-23), where there is a culmination of the events that are characterized by the word thlipsis, tribulation (v 24). This event could be likened to the transition of labor at the peak of pain and anguish for the birthing mother, at the point of pushing which brings forth the child. The completion of the tribulation produces, “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven,” (vv. 26-27). This almost leaves the hint that this will then be the end of the current creation, just before its rebirth as the New Heaven and New Earth (Isa 11:6-9, 65:17, 66:22; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1-22:5).
Paul takes his cue from Christ’s description in Mark 13 when he gives his similar description of the Second Coming in First Thessalonians 5:2-3, “For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” As the creation constricts with contractions so to speak, the believer can look at these signs and take comfort (1 Thess. 4:18), knowing that Christ is coming again soon to receive all who are His back to Himself.
V 23: Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
The creation is not the only one experiencing the labor pains of waiting for the Day of the Lord, but the believer is also. They share in a constant persistent yearning for the completed adoption where they will be united with Christ and the Father. God has given the Holy Spirit as a firstfruits. These firstfruits were offerings from the Old Testament that were given twice a year, once at Passover in its raw state consisting of wheat, barley, and fruit from the vine or tree. The second was given in a processed state such as oil, wine, or the loaves of bread waved before the Lord as an offering that would happen at Pentecost. These two offerings were a renewal of the Israelite’s commitment (both as a nation and individually) to “his covenant-relationship to God each year”[9] in the springtime. It was at these two events, that both Christ was given by God as the raw firstfruits offering of the resurrection at Passover, and the Holy Spirit was given as God’s processed firstfruits offering at the day of Pentecost. The owner of the field would mark off the best and firstfruits so that it would be set apart while ripening. God, in like manner, has therefore roped off the firstfruit of his harvest for the new age by marking the believer with the Holy Spirit. That way, as His elect are ripening anyone who “would go into the field [the earth], he would be reminded of the ownership of Jehovah, till the reapers [the angels] cut down the golden harvest [the rapture].”[10]
This marking by tying off a cord around the fruit is why the Holy Spirit is also called a pledge (2 Cor. 1:22, 5:5). A pledge connotes a guarantee to return to the one holding it. This is exemplified by the story of Tamar and Judah (Gen. 38), in which Judah gave a pledge (his signet, cord, and staff) to her, as a promise to return to pay for her. Her righteousness in her actions was proven because she held on to the pledge given her. The pledge redeemed her from the wrath of her father-in-law because it validated the identity of the one who gave it. The believer in like manner can hold tightly to the hope of adoption, because of the already given firstfruits and contained within promised pledge given them which is tightly woven to the identity of the Father, shown through Christ and the Holy Spirit
24-25:For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
Paul, because his understanding of the firstfruits, in which no Israelite would forget to return to their roped off ripening firstfruits, while inspecting it daily for the perfect moment to harvest it, is able to turn his attention to hope. “Hope is not mere wish-fulfillment with an uncertain prognosis. By its very nature, hope makes us confident that what God has promised will indeed come to pass. At conversion the idea of an uncertain future has ended once for all, and we absolutely know what our final end will be. Hope deals with what is unfulfilled and not yet here.”[11] Just as the Israelite daily is filled with hope for the day of harvest looking for the optimal time to cut with excitement to show their commitment to God and covenant, so too can the believer hope in the same similitude. This offering reveals their deepest thanks and acknowledgement of what He has done (deliverance from bondage) and their hope for what He is continuing to do (provide the promised land). These two harvests thus exemplify the believer's actualized hope of deliverance from the bondage of sin and their continued hope to see and partake of the promised land to come, the New Heavens and New Earth. “When hope’s dream seems to drag on and on, the delay can be depressing. But when at last your dream comes true, life’s sweetness will satisfy your soul,” (Prov 13:12 TPT). This satisfaction is what the believer and the creation have been waiting for in hope.
26-27:Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
As the believer walks in the now/not yet of this world, Paul recognizes the believers’ concern that the weaknesses of the flesh would overcome hope, especially their weakness in prayer since they do not know what ought to be prayed. So he reminds them that the Spirit is there to help them to stay in this hopeful stance of waiting, because the Spirit prays for the saints according to the will of God. “Spirit-inspired prayer is a key part of the experience of inaugurated eschatology (cf. Zech 12:10, where, in the context of the coming great eschaton, God pours out upon the house of David, and upon Jerusalem, ‘the spirit of grace and supplication,’ producing mourning in the midst of the promised glory).”[12] Paul illudes back to the image of the groaning mother in birth pains, which confirms to the believer that the Spirit is not just praying for them but doing so with such intensity that it is likened to the groaning of slavery (Stenagmos). Not that the Spirit is the one enslaved, but that He recognizes that believers feel as though enslaved because of the waiting of this present age since they are not yet fully redeemed. He, therefore, searches for God’s perfect will to ensure what to pray for the believer. “Those who cannot see that for which they eagerly hope need assistance to peer into the darkness ahead and to pray God’s future into the present. It is that assistance that the Spirit provides.”[13]
V 28: And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
As the believers’ own prayers are assisted through the groanings of the Spirit, they can be assured that God hears their “prayers as they are deepened by the accompanying intercessory work of the Spirit, and so He acts. And as a result of that divine action, the situation turns out for the best.”[14] God is the One who is making all these things (the suffering of this present age, the weaknesses of the flesh, and the good of this life), to cooperate together to form something overall good for the believer. He does this because the believer loves Him, just as God loves them. These God-lovers are those who heard His call and responded in obedience; therefore, He is able to work His purpose (of making them Christlike) in and through them, thus incorporating the good and the bad of this age for the welfare of the believer.
God has had a past, present, and future perspective on believers’ lives, it is through this perspective He is able to formulate the good. He was the One who fore-planned to make them, has given them the destiny to be like Christ, and has declared them righteous before Him. He has therefore, glorified them, “the divine decision to glorify those who have been justified has already been made; the issue has been settled.”[15] God has glorified at the event of salvation and will continue to grow His glory in the believer until it can be fully realized at the coming new age. It is in this process that the believer is moved from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). It is in this manner that the believer is able to now currently (here on earth) share in God’s glory, by reflecting and revealing His shining presence to those around them; with the addition of expectant hope that they will in future days share in His full manifested glory upon the revealing of the sons of God at Christ Second Coming, after which they will live in eternity in the presence of His full glory always.
Conclusion
Though at the time of the drawing, I did not understand the depth of the passage we just studied, nor do I profess to understand it altogether now, I only had an insight into what Creation may have felt at the time of Christ's soul’s departure from His body.
This horse represents the Roman soldier’s horse who carried him to Calvery’s Mount, carrying the spear that would pierce Christ’s side (John 19:34). The horse could have felt that the salvation of man would, in fact, be his and the whole of Creation. God did not just send Jesus, the Christ, to save men from the Fall of Genesis 3, but the Creation as well. Creation was tied to the curse of the fall. Thorns, thistles, dust, and hard ground were all part of the curse (Gen 3:17-19), but most prominently, blood. Blood was not meant to be spilled, which is why it has such a strong voice that God hears (Gen 4:10). This bloodletting was not just seen in what man would succumb the Creation to, but also in the transformation of the animals. Dinosaurs would become the apex predator, when before there were none. Even mammals were transformed into carnivores, but within the promise of the Seed of Genesis 3:15, God would house the promise for not just man but Creation as well. This horse feels the hope of Isaiah 11, which captures the Edenic state of what Creation will return to.
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountains, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people, for the Gentiles shall seek Him and His resting place shall be glorious” (Isa 11:5-10).
Thus Christ came to save man and Creation. Both will be restored at His Second Coming when the sons of man are revealed, at which time they will cry out, “Abba Father.” Creation feels the ever-growing pains of childbirth.
[1] Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 30.
[2] Stanley E. Porter, The Apostle Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 293.
[3] Compilation of meanings gathered from Strong’s Concordance at https://biblehub.com/greek/1391.htm.
[4] N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans. Romans 8:18-30, the Renewal of All Things,” In NIB, vol. 10 (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 393-770. https://www-ministrymatters-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/library/#/tnib/04e04e55fbf2a4da1edb5991b42041d8/romans-818-30-the-renewal-of-all-things.html
[5] Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 532.
[6] Wright, NIB, 393-770.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Strong’s Concordance, “Helps Word-Studies,” https://biblehub.com/greek/4730.htm.
[9] Alfred Edersheim, The Temple (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 306.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Grant R. Osborne, Romans Verse by Verse (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 160.
[12] Wright, NIB, 393-770.
[13] Wright, NIB, 393-770.
[14] Osborne, Romans Verse by Verse, 163.
[15] Moo, Letters to the Romans, 559.
