Oct 6, 2019
Originally Presented: Sept 2nd, 2007
Scripture Reading: Romans 8:18-25
This passage in Romans is filled with both horror and hope. The horror is the awesome judgment of God on His creation because of sin. Romans 8:20 says that God subjected creation to futility (cf. Gen 3:17,18). This is the source of earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and all natural disasters. The miserable condition of the world, in its futility and corruption, is owing to the judicial decree of God in response to Adam's sin. Which means that all natural evil is a statement about the horror of moral evil.
But this wondrous paragraph in Romans is not a funeral dirge, nor a song of despair. On the contrary, it is a hymn of hope. God's aim in subjecting creation to futility is hope. His final design for creation is not futility, but redemption. We see this design in this passage in wonderful ways.
First, one day there will be "the revealing of the sons of God" (Rom 8:19). In fact all creation is "waiting eagerly" for that culmination (Rom 8:19). One day "we will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is" (1 Jn 3:2). To redeem some people to be conformed into the image of His Son is one means of God's honoring Himself in all eternity.
Second, one day creation itself will be set free from its slavery to corruption (Rom 8:21). It is described in Revelation 21:1-4, when God creates a new earth and abolishes the "first things," i.e. death, sorrow, sickness, earthquakes.
Third, one day Christians will be given new bodies, never to hurt or die again (Rom 8:23).
It is no wonder that, repeatedly and using different words, Paul remarks in this passage that "we wait eagerly" for these glorious promises to be granted to us as God's children.