Back to the Future

8/5/07 | Richard Van Dyke | Romans 8:18-25 | Listen
Series: Getting into the Good News

Paul has given us some great encouragement in chapter 8 of Romans. In verses 1-4 he’s told us that we will never stand condemned for our sins. In verse 5-11 he’s talked about our changed lives and victorious living; in verses 12-17 he highlights 7 results of being led by the Holy Spirit.

While the passage before us-verses 18-25-ends in hope, Paul reminds us of our current situation and in fact the current situation of the entire earth. Verse 18 is really a transition verse into this new section as Paul makes a statement about our current suffering in light of our future glory, and those are really the two points of this passage-the current groanings in verses 19-22 as opposed to the future glory revealed in verses 23-25.

Paul uses the word “worth” or “worthy” in this verse which is a weighing term which refers to scales being equal or balanced. When something is worthy of something else, it means they weigh the same. Here we’re told they are “not worthy” which means they’re unbalanced. In other words, on the one side of the scale you have a very insignificant particle of dust representing our present sufferings; on the other side a huge piece of gold weighing ten tons representing our future glory (II Corinthians 4:17). However, when we’re personally going through suffering and trials, they seem very heavy and very long, but that’s from our limited perspective. As viewed from eternity, they’re light and short.

Another way to look at this passage then is a perspective on the current groanings of creation as well as believers in light of the blessings of the age to come, or the current frustration and bondage experienced by creation and believers which will disappear only to be replaced by future joy and freedom.

Paul begins by examining the current status of creation in vs. 19-22, and he makes three points about it. First, he says that creation has been subjected to frustration (v 20); second, that it’s in bondage to decay (v21) and third that it has been groaning in the pains of childbirth right up to the present (22). What happened to put creation into this situation? Remember God’s assessment of His creation in Genesis was that “it was very good.” The answer to the question lies in Genesis 3:17-18. God gave man a free will and with it he chose to sin. Both men and angels were given free will-that is, the ability and freedom to choose between good and evil. In the beginning Satan was an angel. In fact, he was the greatest and most glorious of all the angels. But the Bible describes what happened next: “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down-the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled down to the earth, and his angels with him.”(Revelation 12:7-9). The greatest created being became the lowest created being because of his rebellion against God. God did not create Satan as evil; he created a good and great angel of light who had moral freedom and will. Satan once was an angel of God who fell from God, and led others to follow him in his rebellion. The Bible says, “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home-these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.” (Jude 1:6). Lucifer, the angel of light, became Satan the ruler of darkness. The angels who fell with him became what we commonly refer to as demons or wicked spirits-twisted evil caricatures of what they at one time were.

When Adam and Eve fell to the same temptation that Satan fell to, of wanting to be like God, and rebelled against him, something terrible happened to them and the world. The world around them changed. It lost much of its beauty and friendliness. Nature was now set against man (Genesis 3:17-19).

God in judicial fashion executed judgment not only on mankind but also on the creation that God had told him he would rule over. When Adam sinned, death and suffering, futility and groaning came into the world. It was a result of God’s divine, judicial decree.

So, first of all, creation was subjected to frustration. Next he says that creation is in bondage to decay. This world is subject to the second law of thermo dynamics, sometimes called “entropy”. This law states that the universe is running down, that it’s decaying, that it has a built-in tendency now to disorder. This is not a natural quirk or accident. It is part of God’s decree. So we experience hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts, plagues and diseases. Since the fall, futility is built into the universe. What seems fresh and new one day will some day be old and broken down. Something that is growing and vibrant will some day shrivel up and die. That’s what it means to be in “bondage to decay.”

Perhaps you’ve heard this argument. Someone asks,” Did God create everything that exists?” The Christian answers, “Yes.” “Well, if he created everything that exists, where did evil come from? How can a good and loving God create a world where “natural” disasters often take an extensive toll on human life and suffering? Why are there famines and floods, illness and death? Since God created everything that exists, and evil exists, therefore God created evil. Consequently, God must be evil.” That’s one answer for the question of suffering and destruction. There is another option in this argument and that is that there is no God, and everything, including what we think of as evil, is mere chance and happenstance-a cosmic accident that has no rhyme or reason. Those who engage in this argument then want to say that either there is no God or, if there is a God, he is evil because he created evil. However, another possibility is that he exists, and he would like to do something about the evil in the world, but he is not powerful enough to do it. The power of evil is greater than the power of God. Of course, for the believer, none of these options are true. God does exist, He’s not evil, and He has all power.

These are important questions however which need to be discussed. When a tragedy occurs we often hear people say, “Why would God do something like this?” or “Why would God allow this to happen?” Good people, Christian people, ask these questions, not just atheists or skeptics. How could God allow something like the Holocaust to happen? Why didn’t he stop the terrorists on 9/11 since it was in his power to do so? Why did God allow the tsunamis and the hurricanes? Why do we have it so good and many parts of the world live in such poverty? Why are our babies healthy and well fed when in other places mothers hold starving babies until they die? People want the answer to questions such as, “Why did my marriage fail? Why did my father abuse me? Why did my child die?” What is wrong with the world, and why is there evil in it?

Sometimes Christians are so desperate to defend or remove God from the suffering in the world that they are willing to become “deists” in order to keep God out of the equation. A deist is a person who thinks of the universe as created by God and then let to run like a clock that’s been wound by God to tick on its own with no divine interference until it eventually runs down. Everything was explained in terms of merely natural laws, not divine decrees. But we understand from this passage that natural disasters and humanly motivated horrors result from man’s fall and God’s judicial judgment and that God has a definite and continuing hand in all of this. He is not removed from it. Thus creation is in bondage to decay and subject to frustration as a result of God’s direct intervention.

But a third point to consider is that Paul doesn’t describe a hopeless situation, in fact he says that God subjected creation to frustration “in hope” and describes it as “groaning in the pains of childbirth right up to the present.”

The screams of a person on a roller coaster are quite different from the screams of a person who would have been running from one of the burning World Trade towers on 911. Some screams reflect joy while others reflect pain. And what verse 22 promises is that for the children of God, all pain leads to life.

He also says that “the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” (v 19). In other words the redemption of creation is somehow intricately tied in to us and our final redemption and to “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” All of creation anticipates deliverance. One commentator writes, “Since man and his world are interrelated, it means that the world will experience whatever man experiences. When man fell, his world was bound to fall with him. But this is the glorious news as well. When man is liberated from corruption, his world shall be liberated as well.”

While it is true that child-birth is painful, that pain is “seemingly nothing” when compared to the glory of the child brought about as a result (John 16:20-22). These phrases are tied in to the concept of our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

So he concludes this section having shown that the futility and groaning in all of creation is a judicial decree which includes all of His creation from the fall to the end of the age, but it is temporary and will have an end.

In the second part of this passage Paul talks about the fact that we as human beings and as believers groan as well (v. 23).

Ray Stedman describes the work of the Spirit in the Christian’s life in this manner: “Our lives consist of groans. We groan because of the ravages that sin makes in our lives, and in the lives of those we love. Also we groan because we see possibilities that are not being captured and employed. And then we groan because we see gifted people who are wasting their lives, and we would love to see something else happening. It is recorded that, as he drew near the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus groaned in his spirit because he was so burdened by the ravages that sin had made in a believing family. He groaned, even though he knew he would soon raise Lazarus from the dead. So we groan in our spirits-we groan in disappointment, in bereavement, in sorrow. We groan physically in our pain and our limitation. Life consists of a great deal of groaning.”

Suffering and disappointment are normal for the Christian life (Philippians 3:10) and Paul certainly was well acquainted with suffering (II Corinthians 11:24-27). We who groan are described as having the “first fruits of the Spirit.” The concept of first fruits is prominent in the OT, where, according to the law, Israelites were expected to bring the first ripe elements of grain, fruit, etc., to the Lord as an offering (Ex 23:19, Neh.10:35). By this observance of worship the offerer acknowledged that all produce was the provision of God and was really his. Implicit also in the ritual was the assurance from God that the general harvest to be enjoyed by the offerer would providentially follow. From the human side this act of obedience was a manifestation of FAITH in the promise of Jehovah to provide what they needed. “First fruits” was the actual beginning, the first installment, of the harvest (Ex 23:19, Lv 23:10, Dt 18:4, 26:1-4); the presence of the Spirit in believers is thus the actual beginning of the future world; it’s the first installment.

To say that we have the first fruits of the Spirit means that even though we do not yet have our complete inheritance as God’s children, we have already received a significant portion of it in terms of the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, along with all He has already accomplished for us in regeneration and sanctification. This is the sense in which the Spirit is the “earnest of our inheritance” (Ep.1:13), i.e., the down payment, the first installment, the deposit, the pledge of the fullness of glory (2 Co 5:1-5). In this sense the “first fruits” are not simply the beginning of the harvest, but are also the guarantee that much more will follow. And as this context shows, the complete inheritance includes the redemption of our bodies and a liberated, glorified universe.

Since creation as well as human beings is presently groaning, we obviously want to ask “How long? When will it be over? When will it end?” Paul answers that with 3 phrases that all revolve around the same event: when the sons of God will be revealed (vs. 19), when everything will be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (vs. 21) and when our adoption as sons is complete (vs. 23).

Our adoption began in eternity past (Eph. 1:4-5) and we actually became His adopted sons at salvation (Gal. 4:4-7) but our adoption will finally be culminated in our resurrection (Rom. 8:30). Huiothesia is a word used only by Paul and is not found in classical writings, but it describes a Roman legal term by which a person takes into his family a child not his own, with the purpose of treating him as a full son and giving him all the privileges of a son. The custom was not common among the Jews, but was among the Greeks and Romans, with whom an adopted child was legally entitled to all rights and privileges of a natural-born child. This custom is used as an illustration of the act of God giving a believing sinner, who is not His natural child, a position as a fully grown son in His family.

The adopted person lost all rights in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family. In the most binding legal way, he got a new father. It followed that he became heir to his new father’s estate. Even if other sons were afterwards born, it did not affect his rights. He was inalienably co-heir with them. In law, the old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out; for instance, all debts were cancelled. He was regarded as a new person entering into a new life with which the past had nothing to do. In the eyes of the law he was absolutely the son of his new father. This is what Paul had in mind when he described our adoption.

So the promise is of a redeemed body when glory replaces groaning. The promise has at least three parts:

1. All pain and disease and deformity and disability will be gone.

2. All sin, which so often takes the body for its base of operations, will be gone.

3. And this is not because we will be rid of our bodies but because in a mysterious and wonderfully spiritual way we will have new and glorious bodies which are capable of touch and smell and taste and hearing and seeing.

(I Corinthians 15:42-44, 50-53; Philippians 3:20 & 21).

D. L. Moody said, “Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all-out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal; a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto his glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.”

One of the points that Paul mentions but doesn’t develop is that just as we will be liberated from our groaning at the resurrection when we get new bodies, creation itself will be liberated from it’s bondage as God will make a new heaven and new earth (II Peter 3:10-13). As we understand scripture, this event will take place later on after the judgment of unbelievers at the end of Christ’s thousand year reign and the final battle which is described in Revelation 20, followed by John’s description in Revelation 21:1 of the new heaven and new earth.

Paul wrote this section for 2 reasons:

  1. To remind us that we have hope-vs. 24 & 25 the best is yet to come. In other words if you had received ALL of your salvation already, what are you hoping in? But you’ve just received the earnest “money” or down payment of your inheritance (Eph 1:13-14). Rom 5:5 teaches us that this HOPE will not disappoint. The Holy Spirit living in us now assures us of that certainty (8:15-16). From the outset we have looked forward to full and final deliverance from sin, suffering, disease, and death. If we had already received these blessings, we wouldn’t be hoping for them. We only hope for what is in the future. In other words, in this life we cannot expect to experience the reality of our glorification but only the hope of it. But since the believer’s hope is based on God’s promise, the completion of his salvation is more certain by far than anything he sees with his eyes. Because of this future HOPE, Paul says that our present attitude should be one of “LOOKING” (with an attitude of expectancy) for the blessed HOPE and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.”
  1. To help us get perspective on our present problems-v. 18. Kent Hughes writes, “No matter what we have gone through, are presently going through, or will go through, the sum total is not worth comparing with the glory that awaits us. We can compare a thimble of water with the sea, but we cannot compare our sufferings with the coming glory.” This great section on our present possession of the first fruits of the Spirit (like a pledge cp Ep 1:14) and our future hope (certainty) of the redemption of our decaying mortal bodies in which we currently wage daily war (with the still co-existent enemies SIN & the FLESH) is truth that should give us encouragement to bear up under the circumstances (cp “suffering” 8:17, 18). We’re not home yet. The best is yet to come.

It was a balmy October afternoon in 1982. Badger Stadium in Madison Wisconsin was packed out. That day there were more than 60,000 die-hard University of Wisconsin football fans watching their team take on the Michigan State Spartans. It didn’t take long to determine who the better team was. Michigan State was moping up the field with the Badgers. But what seemed odd was that even as the score became increasingly lopsided against their team, there were bursts of applause and shouts of joy from the Wisconsin fans. How could they cheer when their team was getting trounced so decisively? It turns out that 70 miles away the Milwaukee Brewers were beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game 3 of the 1982 World Series. Many of the fans in the stands were listening to portable radios and responding to what was going on in another game, in another sport, in another place.

There is something to be said for being plugged into what is going on elsewhere. Sometimes, the things that are going on where you are become extremely difficult. So as Paul writes these words in Romans 8, He wants to make sure that our faith in God affects the perspective in which we view our circumstances. No matter how difficult or even desperate our situation seems, Paul says we can face it with hope.

He was just a little fellow. His mother died when he was just a child. His father, in trying to be both mommy and daddy, had planned a picnic. The little boy had never been on a picnic, so they made their plans, fixed the lunch, and packed the car. Then it was time to go to bed, for the picnic was the next day. He just couldn't sleep. He tossed and he turned, but the excitement got to him. Finally, he got out of bed, ran into the room where his father had already fallen asleep, and shook him. His father woke up and saw his son. He said to him, "What are you doing up? What's the matter?"

The boy said, "I can't sleep."

The father asked, "Why can't you sleep?"

In answering, the boy said, "Daddy, I'm excited about tomorrow."

His father replied, "Well, Son, I'm sure you are, and it's going to be a great day, but it won't be great if we don't get some sleep. So why don't you just run down the hall, get back in bed, and get a good night's rest."

So the boy trudged off down the hall to his room and got in bed. Before long, sleep came--to the father, that is. It wasn't long thereafter that back came the little boy. He was pushing and shoving his father, and his father opened his eyes. Harsh words almost blurted out until he saw the expression on the boy's face. The father asked, "What's the matter now?"

The boy said, "Daddy, I just want to thank you for tomorrow."

When I think of my past and the fact that a loving Father would not let me go, reached down in his divine providence, and lifted me off of the streets of Harlem, when I think of what he has done for me and then think that he is planning a new thing for me that will surpass the past, let the record show this night in this place that Benjamin Reaves testified, Father, I want to thank you for tomorrow!

--Benjamin Reaves, "Living Expectantly," Preaching Today