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As we did this morning, I ask
that you turn to Romans chapter 8. Our text this morning was found
in verse 18, where Paul says, 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. Tonight we take up verses
19 through 22. Here Paul continues, for the
earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing
of the sons of God. 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. For we know that the whole creation
groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 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. For we were saved in this hope
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. This morning we saw something
of what the Bible is speaking of. It speaks of the glory that
is to be revealed unto us. As we saw, this is not just a
glory of which we shall be spectators. It is a glory of which we shall
be participants, as joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. We
will reign with Christ as we saw on the throne of His glory. We shall be like Him in the image
of His glory, and we shall see Him in the full splendor of His
glory. This evening we're going to see
that as Paul continues to unfold this theme, he sets our expectation
of the glory which is about to be revealed against the background
of a much larger scene. And he invites us to participate
in a hope that is nothing less than cosmic in its scale. The terminology that he chooses
is as broad as is conceivable. He speaks in this text of the
creation. He is speaking of the material
universe in all of its width, in all of its breadth, in all
of its greatness. Earlier in this letter to the
Romans, he uses the term cosmos. But he is speaking on the largest
conceivable scale, at least the largest conceivable to our senses
and to our framework. His scale of thought is as large
as all of material reality. But beyond this he sees another
world. Beyond this he sees another reality. And he indeed presupposes that
Jehovah is actively engaged in fulfilling a grand all-embracing
purpose for this creation in which we now live. As the scriptures
describe it, it is nothing less than a transformation of the
present universe into a new heavens and into a new earth. The work
in which he is engaged is nothing less than the transformation
of this present cosmos into a new heavens and a new earth in which
righteousness dwells. which will be so glorious that
the scripture says the former creation will not be remembered
or even come to mind. In this text, as Paul has described
this work, he uses metaphorical language. The universe doesn't
have a soul. The universe has no voice. The
universe has not literally grown in the sense of audibly expressing
pain, it does not consciously hope for a better future. But
yet Paul chooses to personify the present creation. He uses
a figure of speech and by this means he depicts the creation
as if it were a person and he creates a more vivid picture
A picture that is more effective than a mere description of the
material effects of the fall of man into sin. He doesn't give
us a scientific description. He doesn't even give us a moral
description. He describes creation as though
it were a person groaning in pain and in travail. Cursed because
of man's sin. Its future. Tied to man's redemption,
the creation is to be restored, the scripture tells us, to its
original purity, raised to the most sublime heights. It is to
be made resplendent with glory far beyond anything that we now
can see. And indeed, it will never again
be subjected to death and to decay. When God has finished
this cosmic work, when He has finished this work on the whole
creation, Everything will be restored to what it was before
man's fall into sin, and far beyond that, the creation then
will have developed to its fullest potential as well. Now previously
in this letter, Paul had described the redemption of sinners. He
has said that we are justified freely through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. And though our redemption is
indeed the crowning aspect of God's saving work, he again here
is speaking of a larger picture, a larger redemption which includes
the entirety of creation. The prophet Isaiah gives us something
of a glimpse into this imagery as he describes the creation
rejoicing in terms of its joining in with rejoicing with God's
people because of our redemption. If you'll turn with me to Isaiah
35, this chapter, perhaps more than any other part of the scripture,
takes up this theme. Here the prophet looking to the
days when this work is accomplished, when God's people are redeemed.
He says, the wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall
blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing. The
glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel
and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the
Lord, the excellency of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and
make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful
hearted, be strong, do not fear. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save
you. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then
the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing.
The waters shall burst forth in the wilderness and streams
in the desert. The parched ground shall become
a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation
of jackals, where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and
rushes. A highway shall be there, and
a road, and it shall be called the highway of holiness. The
unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others, and
whoever walks the road, although a fool shall not go astray. No
lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it.
It shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion
with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall
obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
The prophet says these things, of course, to comfort God's people,
to comfort us in our trials. It is to lift up the faint-hearted,
to say to those who are fearful-hearted, be strong, do not fear. And that's
Paul's purpose as well in Romans 8. All of this is part of his
encouraging God's people to be strong in their faith, strong
in trusting Jehovah. to be strong in their hope that
all that He has promised shall come to pass. We find many other
passages like this in the Old Testament. I will direct your
attention just to one more, to Isaiah 55, verses 12 and 13. After saying that His word shall
go forth and accomplish all that He pleases, here the Scripture
says, for you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace,
and the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing
before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their
hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and
instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall
be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall
not be cut off." In passages like this, the whole creation
joins in with the rejoicing of the people of God, rejoicing
at their redemption, rejoicing at our redemption. Now Paul's
thought takes us a bit beyond that. For he speaks not just
of the creation rejoicing with us, but he speaks of its suffering
with us, and of its eagerly awaiting our final redemption, which shall
be its redemption as well. The consummation of our salvation,
the consummation of our redemption, the finishing of the good work
that God has done in us, the good work that He is doing for
us, finishing of all that He has begun is revealed in Romans
8 as the revealing of the sons of God. That is our manifestation,
our being brought forth with the work finished. with all that
God had purpose to do accomplished in us. There will be the revealing
of the sons of God even as the coming of Christ will be the
revealing of the Son of God when all of His work is accomplished
and all of His work is finished as well. Paul speaks in our text
of the revealing of the sons of God in the word that he chooses.
The term revealing means more, of course. than simply God's
uncovering to our sight what is now hidden. There is that
element to it. But it also includes the idea
of our understanding what we see, of our being able to perceive
things that were hidden, not just to see things because they're
brought to sight, but to understand what we are looking at, to understand
what's been done. It speaks of revealing to our
minds an accurate understanding. We read elsewhere. of our eagerly
waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we're
told that when He comes, when He is revealed, that we will
indeed see Him as He is. But we're also told that we shall
then understand the truth as it is in Jesus in a much fuller
way. And this hope will be fulfilled.
This will be fulfilled at His coming, at the revelation of
the Lord Jesus from heaven. at the revelation of His glory.
That day, the day of His revealing as the royal Son of God, will
be the day of our revealing also as the royal children of God.
And it is a day when all that God is now doing, much of which
is hidden from our eyes, the whole background of what we are
experiencing, much of that is hidden from us. We do not see.
We do not see the blowing of the Spirit. We do not see the
coming and the going of God in His works. But much of what is
now hidden from our eyes will not only be complete, but it
will be lavishly displayed and clearly understood to the amazement
of all that is both of men and of angels to all who behold the
sight. And what a day that shall be,
not only to have the work finished, but to be able to survey the
whole, to be able to see the whole, and to understand indeed
all that God has been doing. But that is yet future. That's
not our present experience. Now we see through a glass darkly. But in the present, Paul says
that the creation is marked by earnest expectation and by eager
waiting. The reality is we do not now
see all that there is to see, all that God will yet reveal,
all that He will yet show. But we live in an age in which
we are to be engaged in earnest expectation and eager waiting
for the revealing of the sons of God. Every word in these verses,
it seems, is packed with meaning and packed with instruction.
The term translated earnest expectation, it has something to the idea
of watching with the head lifted up. It's a term that speaks of
alertness and combined with it is this idea of constancy. So
the picture is of the creation itself with its eager expectation
as though it were waiting with head lifted up looking to see
for the coming of its redemption. Constantly looking, looking,
looking to see what God will do in bringing his promises to
fulfillment. The other term that is used here
has the idea again of eager waiting as well. And so taking these
terms together, Paul is saying that the creation, again it is
metaphorical language, it is imagery, sure enough, but it
is the idea of the creation now under the bondage of corruption.
Now, under the curse of God, because of man's sin, looking
up, looking beyond, taking hold of the promises of God, embracing
them, eagerly expecting, eagerly waiting for what God is going
to do. Now, why is the creation in such
a heightened state of expectation? What is it, if again we can run
with the personification and the figure, what is it that the
creation knows that most men seem not to know? What is it expecting? Well, the
answer is that the whole creation has a well-grounded hope of deliverance
from its present condition, a well-grounded hope of total deliverance from
its present condition. Like mankind, Paul says, the
creation has been subjected to futility. That is, put under
a curse that keeps it from fulfilling its Maker's purpose in creating
it. And we indeed see this, don't
we? It's all around us. There's no attempt made in Scripture
to demonstrate that point. We are simply told that the ground
is cursed for man's sake. And though we look around us
and see the beauty of the creation, even in this fallen state, if
we look close enough, we know that there is much that is not
beautiful. There is much that is decay. There is much that
has the marks of death upon it. But the creation here is portrayed
as knowing of a day that is coming when all of that is going to
be put right, when all of that is going to be removed, when
all of that is going to be taken out of the way. The creation is now subject,
whether it's the entirety or any of its parts, to the bondage
of corruption like all the sons and daughters of Adam. Creation
now is enslaved to death and to decay and ruin, and it's all
because of man's sin. The Bible makes no effort again
to demonstrate this, but as Paul says, we know that the whole
creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Here is a fact demonstrated by
our universal experience. Further, creation, he says, was
subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected
it in hope. Now again, the creation is not
a person. The creation doesn't have a will. It doesn't have
a mind. And indeed, it cannot literally
hope. But Paul is emphasizing the point that the creation,
unlike man, exercise no choice leading to the curse under which
it suffers. It was subjected to futility
not willingly, but it has been subjected to futility. It has
been subjected to the bondage of corruption, and that is solely
a matter of God's sovereign will. We may question, though we shouldn't,
the rightness of God's doing that. But He has a greater purpose
than we can imagine, and our duty is to submit to His wisdom
and not trifle with the secret things that belong under the
Lord our God. It is enough for us to know that
the Lord is righteous in all the works which He does. And
yet, though God has subjected the creation to futility, though
it now groans under the bondage of corruption, The Bible says
it has a well-grounded hope, it has a well-assured hope, for
it is also God's will that it be delivered from that bondage
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. So that
the day of our revealing is to be the day of its liberation. It is no wonder then that the
Bible describes the trees clapping their hands and the mountains
singing and the rivers and the deserts blooming, all of these
descriptions of tremendous joy in the creation itself when God's
great work of redemption is finished in us. Then in the language of
Revelation 22 and verse 3, there shall be no curse anymore. Ponder those words for a moment.
There will be no curse anymore. Then instead of the thorn in
the passage we read in Isaiah 55, instead of the thorn shall
come up the fir tree, instead of the briar shall come up the
myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, an enduring
monument, a beautiful, pristine, perfect creation. which has now
reached its potential, which is now freed from the bondage
of corruption. This is one of the great memorials
that God is raising to His own name. It shall be, Isaiah says,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. As I've looked at this passage
over the years, I've never preached a sermon on ecology. Well, this
is my ecology sermon. One time I thought about writing
over the text, don't worry about the second law of thermodynamics.
Some of you will understand that reference. My wife was listening
to a sermon the other day or sometime back on sermon audio
entitled, All Dogs Go to Heaven. And I thought, that's interesting.
It had nothing to do with real dogs, with spiritual dogs. Well,
I don't know a lot about the second law of thermodynamics.
But what I do know is that because of what this text says, don't
worry about that. That's one of the laws God will
cancel. The creation has a well-grounded
hope, a well-grounded hope of the redemption that is coming.
Now in the verses that follow, and we can't follow this out
tonight, but in the verses that follow, Paul again brings us
to the subject of the relation of these things to our own hope.
Again, that's what Paul is doing. He's not simply expounding a
cosmology. He's not simply opening up an
isolated theme. All of this is woven together
in order to encourage God's people to trust Him and to persevere
in their faith in Him and to persevere in their walk with
Him. But though we can't follow that
out, I do want to take up just three very brief lines of thought
coming out of verses 19 through 22, and then we'll be finished.
Please consider with me that Paul underscores first the futurity,
second the greatness, and third the certainty. of this work. That it is future and not present
is patent. Again, as I've said, all we need
to do is simply look around us. If we look in to the creation
that we can see and that we can experience with our senses, we
see the marks of decay. We see the beauty. We see the
order. We see the glory still shining
through the curse. But we see the curse. And if
a view of that does not convince us that the creation now groans
and prevails in pain, we simply need to look in the mirror. And
we see that age begins to take its toll. We see that change
takes place in our bodies, and it's not for the best. And all
of this is to persuade us, to remind us, We need a Redeemer. We need a Savior. And Paul here
brings these things forward to encourage us, to tell us, though
it is not present, it is future. It will come to pass. Here is
something that not only we but also the whole creation must
wait for. And even as the work that has
begun in us in the gospel by the Spirit is unfinished so that
we groan now because of its incompleteness. So the entire creation yearns
for the day of our revealing. As Paul says later, we hope for
what we do not yet see. But now second as to the greatness
of what God is doing, that is far beyond anything that we can
now think or imagine. Sit down tonight after you are
back at home. Find a quiet spot and some quiet
moments and try to wrap your mind around what God is doing. Not just in your life. But expand
your horizon to the entirety of the universe. To what God
is doing to restoring it. To what it was and what it could
have been prior to man's fall into sin. I can't wrap my mind
around that. I can't grasp all the facets
of what God is doing. First Corinthians 2.9 says, Eye
has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart
of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him. Only God's eye has seen what
he's doing. Only he is able, if you will,
to wrap his mind around all that he is doing. And yet what He
has revealed, though we do see through a glass darkly, it truly
is amazing. The curse is to be removed, and
that on a cosmic scale. There is no corner of this universe
where the curse upon man's sin will be unrelieved. There is
not one single place in this entire cosmos that will still
be in the bondage of corruption. Every corner of this earth, every
corner of the heavens, every corner of however big this universe
is, and who knows the answer to that, will be freed from the
bondage of corruption. One writer has said that even
as now the entire creation puts up a great symphony of size,
So then there will be unbroken rejoicing, not a sigh to be heard,
as God redeems His great work. Sorrow and sighing will flee
away, and the creation will sing with us. The wilderness and the
wasteland will be glad for us. The desert will blossom as a
rose. This is the greatness of what
God is doing. And as to the certainty of these
things coming to pass, the Bible speaks of the revealing of God's
sons and the redemption of the creation as the goal that God
is pursuing. This is His grand plan. He's
not just set about to call out a people for Himself to save,
as wonderful as that is. And that is wonderful, isn't
it? We are the beneficiaries of that aspect of His eternal
decree. But He is doing something far
grander, and it is the fact that He has pursued this from all
eternity, that He has revealed in Scripture what He is doing,
that gives us the certainty that He will fulfill it. Indeed, He
works all things after the counsel of His own will, and none can
stay His hand nor say unto Him, What doest thou? He will accomplish. all that he is purposed to do. Therefore, brethren, be encouraged. Take hope. Let your faith be strengthened.
Don't let your hearts be fearful. Don't let your soul be downcast.
As we look around us, we see so much that is wrong. Let us lift our eyes to this
larger scale of what God is doing. Now, unbeliever, do you long
for such a day? Do you long for a day when the
creation itself is delivered from the bondage of corruption? In some sense, many unbelievers
do. They look around at the creation
and they know everything's not right. They can write quite eloquently,
speak quite eloquently on things that are wrong in the present
creative order. Though they don't understand
it as a creative order, yet they see what's wrong. And they do
at some level yearn to see all made right. Do you yearn? Do you long for such a day when
God's work in this world is finished? If you do not come to Christ, if you do not embrace Him in
the gospel that is offered to you by Him, that is preached
in His Word, that is revealed in His Word, if you do not embrace
Him, then your future is not the liberty of the glory of the
children of God, but it is the never-ending bondage of corruption. I don't know where hell is. All that Paul has said here about
the redemption of the creation, of the removal of the curse, All of that notwithstanding,
there appears to be some corner of reality that God has reserved where there will not be the mountains
singing and the desert blossoming, where the trees will not be clapping
their hands, where there will be no joy, where there will be
no gladness, where there will be no redemption. where there
will be no deliverance, where there will be no hope, where
there will be no assurance, where there will be no grace, where
there will be no forgiveness, and where there will be no forgetting, and where tears will flow forever, a never-ending bondage of corruption. What a shame it would be to know of the work that God
had done and to see it pass you by. There will be a high degree of
understanding in hell. Not a participating in any of
the blessings of the great redemption. But there will be knowledge of
it. And to know that that has transpired,
and that multitudes have been brought into a new heavens and
in a new earth in which dwells righteousness, and where there
is no sorrow and there are no tears, and to realize to one's eternal
loss, that has passed me by. And I could have had it. I could have had it. What the gnawings of conscience
will be in that day. Come to Christ. Don't play a form of spiritual
Russian roulette with your soul. but come to Him and embrace Him. And the trees will clap their
hands at your redemption. And the fir trees will sprout in joy. And the deserts will
blossom. And there will be rejoicing in
heaven And you will know a joy that
can never be eclipsed, never taken away, never lost, never
forfeited, never removed, but as sure as God's promise that
He will fulfill all His holy will. Let us pray. Our Father, we live in an age and in a generation
where it is very popular to say that
one is living in step with the universe. One is trying to be one with
the earth or some such language. Lord, it is not conceivable to
be more out of step with the very universe in which we live.
And to turn away from your son and to turn away from your word.
And to turn away from the hope that is offered to us in the
gospel. We pray, Father, that indeed
this night you would encourage your people. with the reminder that you are
doing this grand work, far more sweeping on a far grander scale,
a far greater scope than their own salvation. We thank you, Lord, for what
you are doing, though our minds are simply incapable of coming
to grips with the greatness of what you're doing. Father, to have no part in that
surely is the greatest tragedy that can befall us. And so we
pray, Lord, that you will look with grace upon the unbelieving. That you would shake out of their
slumber and out of their ease those who do not wish to have
you in their knowledge. That you will look with grace,
even saving grace. We thank you, Lord, for your
goodness to us. Indeed, all of your works show
your faithfulness in your greatness and your goodness and your love. We pray that you would encourage
our hearts with these things and, Father, help us to live
in such a way as begins to bring into you something of the glory
and the praise that is due to your name. We thank you for the
Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, and we ask that you will hear
us this night in His name.
