Suffering and Glory, Creation and God’s Children
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. Romans 8:18-27
Paul now moves from the present ministry of the God’s Spirit to the future glory of God’s children. The bridging link was his allusion to our sharing in the sufferings and glory of Christ in 8:17 (‘Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory’). Paul first touches on the suffering and glory of God’s creation (8:19-22) and then the sufferings and glory of God’s children (8:23-27).
Sufferings and glory belong together. They did so in Christ’s life and will in ours. It is only after we have ‘suffered a little while’ that we enter God’s ‘eternal glory in Christ’ that we were called to (1 Peter 5:10). Moreover, the sufferings and the glory characterise the two ages. The contrast between this age and the age to come, between the present and the future, is summed up in terms of sufferings and glory. The sufferings include the opposition from the world as well as our human frailty, both physical and moral. The glory is the unutterable splendour of God, eternal, immortal and incorruptible. One day it ‘will be revealed’ (8:18) both to us, because we will see it, and ‘in us’ because we will share in it and be changed by it.
The sufferings and the glory cannot be compared. ‘I consider that our present sufferings (literally: ‘the sufferings of the now time,’ painful though they might be) are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’ (8:18). Sufferings and glory need to be contrasted and not compared. In 2 Corinthians Paul evaluated them in terms of their ‘weight.’ ‘For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory’ (2 Corinthians 4:17). The magnificence of God’s revealed glory will vastly surpass the pain of earthly sufferings.
But note how the sufferings and the glory affect both God’s creation and God’s children. Both are suffering and groaning now but both are going to be set free. As nature shared in the curse and now shares in the pain, so it will share in the glory. Knowing this, ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed’ (8:19). The word for ‘eager expectation’ means to wait with the head raised looking in the direction from where we expect to see what we are waiting for. It describes someone on tip-toe, leaning forward, craning the neck to see. What the creation is waiting for is the revealing of God’s children in glory. This will be the signal for the renewal of the whole creation.