Romans 8ROM 8
J. N. Darby
This creation awaits its redemption, but it cannot be delivered and restored until the children of God, in the glory of the kingdom, are ready to take possession of it as joint-heirs with Christ. Christ sits at the right hand of God until these joint-heirs are gathered.
It is a blessed thought that as we have brought the earthly creation under the bondage of corruption, so now it must wait for our being glorified, to be restored and delivered from this bondage (vs. 19). It is not the will of the creature that subjected it to this bondage; we have done it—but in hope, for this condition will not continue always; the creation will be restored. God, however, in the counsels of His grace..begins with the guilty, with those who are most alienated, with those in whom He will in the ages to come show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:77That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7); compare Col. 1:20-2120And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled (Colossians 1:20‑21)).
Creation, inasmuch as it is only physical, could not enter into the liberty of grace; it must await the
liberty of the glory of the children of God. When they are delivered, and their bodies which belong to this creation are changed and glorified, and when Satan is bound, then the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption in which it lies enthralled. For we know—we that are instructed in Christian doctrine—that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. We know it yet more because we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, and "we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
Thus we wait to possess that which is saved in hope; not only to possess eternal life as life—that we have already—but to be glorified by our bodies, which belong to this creation, being changed and we made like unto Christ the Lord, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself (Phil. 3:2121Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:21)).
Thus peace is made; our sins are put away, we have a new life, possess the earnest of the Spirit, the glory lies before us in hope, and we shall be like the Lord. But as long as we have not reached the glory, we groan with the creation. For while realizing our glorious hope, we feel the sad condition of the whole creation being connected with it as fallen, by our bodies. Free before God, free from the law of sin and death, filled with the hope of glory, we are led through the knowledge of this glory and of the full deliverance of the creature to groan, which is the expression of its groan to God.
Our groaning is not a complaint, the fruit of discontent, but the operation of the Holy Spirit in the heart. The Spirit directs our eye to the glory where we shall have no more occasion to groan, and leads us to feel according to the love of God the suffering of a creation under bondage. We at the same time feel it, because by our bodies we still belong to it. The Spirit of God, which dwells in us, forms these feelings according to God. God searches the human heart and He finds this operation of the Spirit in the heart of the delivered Christian. The Spirit Himself is there, the source of divine sympathy with a groaning creation (vs. 27).
The eye of the Christian will be, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, directed above to the glory and the rest of God where all is blessing. With joy he realizes what is before him. But as he is still in the body, he feels so much the more the condition of a fallen creation, shares its groans, and thereby becomes the voice of a creation groaning before God. But his groaning is in the spirit of love according to God, because in his relationship with God he is perfectly free.
With regard to his condition, he is saved in hope; but before God his heart is free in the consciousness of His love. He can rejoice in hope—the hope of glory. His conscience is perfect; the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit. And thus, according to this love, he can sympathize with the universal misery around him. He knows not, it is true, what remedy he ought to look for in his prayers; perhaps there is none. But love can express the needs, and does it according to the operation of the Spirit. And although the Christian does not know what he should ask for, He who searches the hearts finds the mind of the Spirit in his groans, for it is the Spirit that in the depths of the heart gives expression to the feelings of need.
Being ourselves still in the body, and as to our own condition forming part of the groaning creation and awaiting the redemption of our bodies, our sympathy is the more heartfelt. Although we know not what we ought to pray for, yet there is what we know with perfect certainty, namely, that God makes all things work together for good to them that love Him, whom He has called according to His purpose.
What privilege is ours through grace—privilege that we enjoy by the Holy Spirit! We are children of God; we know our relationship with God, and can realize it by the Holy Spirit; we cry, "Abba, Father." We are children, therefore heirs—heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. The Spirit reveals to us our inheritance, and gives us to understand what it is. We shall be like Christ in the rest of God and in His own rest—perfectly to the glory of Christ, and we shall reign with Him over all things. As men upon earth we lift our eyes to the glory of God which is our hope and which we shall share with Christ, there where all is pure conformity to the purity of God.
Looking at this poor world, our hearts are filled with the love of God, in which we share the sufferings of an undelivered creation and that according to God. So that He who searches the hearts finds therein the mind of the Spirit who produces in us this sympathy with the sufferings of the fallen creation in order that we, in our groans, may become the mouthpiece of the creation before God. And as from our lack of intelligence we do not always know what we should pray for, the Word of God comforts us with the assurance that God, according to His own will and love, makes all things work together for our good.
Grace has no limits, no bounds.
Be what we may (and we cannot be worse than we are),
in spite of that, God towards us is LOVE.