Paul discusses what we have to look forward to with the new heavens and new earth and how that puts our trials in context of our future rejoicing making our expectation not an exercise in futility. We do not labor in vain and this is the hope and assurance of the gospel.

We will continue our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, and we are still in Romans 8. This evening, I will be beginning at verse 18 and, God willing, read through verse 28. So, I would like to ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

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. 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, but 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.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

The Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Father, how grateful we are for those promises that come to us from Thy Word, promises that cannot possibly be broken. We thank You for the consolation of Israel that rests in these divine and certain promises that come to us from You. We thank You not only for the faith that You have brought to our souls through the power of regeneration, but we thank You also for the hope that maketh us not ashamed. As we contemplate these further promises of the future that come to us in Thy holy Word, we pray that Your Spirit would intercede for us in terms of our understanding and our spiritual growth. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Ruination of Creation

During our last session in the study of Romans 8, we considered the extraordinary grace and blessedness that comes with our having been adopted by the Father into the family of God. We have become joint heirs of God with Christ, so that all the Father gives the Son is shared with all who are united to the Son by faith. But now, apart from that mention of the supreme blessedness of our adoption, Paul considers once more the afflictions, trials, tribulation, pain, and suffering that are such an integral part of this veil of tears through which we walk in this world.

If you have watched the news recently, as jaded as we are to daily scenes of upheaval and violence in the world, it seems like those activities have been turned up another notch. One brief look at the television news leaves us with the question, Has the world gone crazy? Violence upon violence, hostility upon hostility, suffering, blood, and death are all around us in this world. When we look at the reality of that violence and the suffering that comes in its wake, we pause at times and wonder, Where is God in all of this?

I think of the skepticism uttered by the philosopher John Stuart Mill when he considered the manifest presence of pain, suffering, violence, and wickedness in this world. He said that what we encounter daily belies any hope of a good God who is a God of love. He said that if God is a God of love and allows the pain and suffering that goes on in this world because He is powerless to prevent or stop it when it occurs, then He must not be omnipotent. He must be a divine weakling incapable of administering peace and justice in this world. If, on the other hand, God has the power to prevent this evil or stop it when it arises and chooses not to, but stands by and allows it to continue, then He may be powerful, but is not good. He is not loving. The complaint Mill raised against historical Christianity is that you cannot have it both ways. Either God is good but not all powerful, or He is all powerful and not good.

What is missing from that oversimplified equation in the economy of grief and pain in this world is that the basis of God’s toleration of violence and suffering in this world, indeed, His actual ordaining of it, is the reality of human sin. It is not that God lacks in goodness; it is that we lack in goodness.

Because of the entrance into this world of human sin, the whole creation has been plunged into ruin. It is not just people, but animals and the land itself—the earth mourns because of us. When the transgression came in paradise, the curse of God extended beyond Adam, beyond Eve, and even beyond the serpent. The land itself was cursed. Repeatedly through the prophetic oracles of the Old Testament, when God chastens His people Israel for their hard-necked disobedience, He says, “Because of you,” and “You do not listen to My Word,” and “Violence follows upon violence; because of you the land mourns and the ground suffers.”

When the Bible considers the condition of fallenness that we experience in this world, the Bible always considers it in cosmic terms, not merely in terms of the human species. The ruination of the whole creation is laid at our doorstep. It reflects God’s judgment upon us, which spills over into that domain for which we were created to be God’s vice-regents, those made in His image, who were to have dominion over the earth, the animals, the ground, the vegetations. When we are ruined, everything under our dominion is infected by that ruination.

No Comparison

The ruination of creation is what Paul is concerned about here in the scope of the epistle. But first of all, he sets a contrast between the present and the future, between the present sufferings and the future glory that God has prepared for His people. He is quick to point out to us that this is not a simple contrast that has a certain formula of ratio and proportionality to it. There is no analogy between the present climate of pain and the future climate of blessedness. The comparative here is in terms of how much more.

Paul, who is so articulate, even under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, cannot seem to find words to describe the radical difference between the now and the then. Look at what he 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.”

Do you hear what Paul is saying? The difference between the present degree of pain that we experience and the blessedness to which God has appointed His people is so immense that there is no way to compare them. Any comparison that we could seek to utter would fall short. It would not be worthy of description.

Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time . . .” Listen to this. He does not say: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not real. They’re just an illusion.” Paul is not a practitioner of Christian Science. He understood in a visceral way—in a way that few of us have ever had to experience—the stark reality of human suffering.

One of the most persecuted, afflicted men to ever grace this fallen planet was the Apostle Paul. Indeed, his Savior was more acquainted with grief and sorrow than he was, but of all the rest of mankind, there are few who approach Paul’s personal experience of suffering. But he shook off that suffering in light of the hope that God had given to us in Jesus Christ. He said that it is not even worthy to talk about this suffering in comparison to what God has laid up for us in the future.

God’s Glorious Promise

Christians have sometimes been mocked and ridiculed for their hope of heaven, their hope of future redemption. We are told that this is just “pie in the sky.” Karl Marx believed that religion was invented for economic reasons because in the society dominated by class, those who are the owners are always in the minority over those who are the workers. If ever the majority of those who labor understood the strength that they had in numbers, they would rise up in revolt against the owners and take for themselves the plunder of their own labor. But, in Marx’s estimation, the owners have been smart. They have found a way to keep the workers in line. The owners give the laborers religion and the promise of a future benefit. In the meantime, their lives are lived in chains, in sweat, and in toil while the owners laugh, according to Marx, all the way to the bank.

Consider the American experiment with slavery. If you look carefully at some of the songs that enrich our hymnody, you hear the motif of the slave who sings: “Swing lo, sweet chariot. I looked over Jordan and what did I see? A band of angels coming after me.” The only hope that this slave had was in another world, in heaven. Marx would look at that and say: “See? It’s opium. It’s a narcotic given to dull the senses, to minister to the pain, to give people hope when there is no hope.”

I do not believe what Marx says about religion is true. I believe that God’s promises are eternal, immutable, and unbreakable. God repeatedly says to His people: “Yes, the pain now is real, but wait. We’re not finished yet. I have a plan for this planet. I have a plan for My people, and that plan is glorious. I have established My Son upon His throne, and I have called a people upon Myself that I give as a gift to My Son. Together with Him, they will reign forever and ever.”

God’s redemption will extend far beyond the realm of the human. It will include within it every dimension of fallen creation. The whole world, which has been plunged into ruin, will be redeemed. There will be a renovation. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform it.

This is our Father’s world. It is His property. It is He who has made it, not we ourselves. He may dispose of this world however He sees fit. He has seen fit to appoint it for glory for those who love His coming. Paul is eloquent in this text, rhapsodic in considering the future promise, considering that the sufferings of this present time are not even “worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”

Let me just say something off the subject here: If you follow along when I am reading from the Scripture, you might sometimes notice that I do not read exactly what is there. I just did it again. It drives me crazy that these guys write which when it should be that. Did they not go to grammar school? Do they not know the difference between that and which in the English language? I can hardly bear to read the incorrect grammar of the English translations. Excuse me for that. I am going to say that they are “not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”

Creation Eagerly Waits

Paul continues, “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” Here is a personification of even the impersonal forces of nature. In Hebrew poetry, these forces are brought into the arena for celebrating God’s redemption: “The rivers clap their hands” (Ps. 98:8). Elsewhere, we see the beasts and the cattle being called to rejoice and praise the Lord.

I have a friend in our congregation who has taken me hunting many times. When he does, that is an exercise in patience for him. Usually, it goes something like this: He guides me safely into the woods, finds me a nice tree stand, and helps me up into the tree stand. He says, “Are you all right?” I say, “Yes, I’m fine.” He says: “I’ll be back at a certain time. Don’t worry. Don’t move.” He feels it is his moral responsibility to see to it that I get out of the woods alive. Then he goes off and finds a place to lie down and go to sleep.

I always notice something when we go hunting deeply into the woods. When you walk into the woods, they are absolutely silent. There is not a bird singing. There are no turkeys gobbling. It is just silent. You can hear your own footsteps as you go. But once you climb up into the tree stand and stay there quietly for fifteen or twenty minutes, then you will begin to hear the chatter of the squirrels, the songs of the bird, and the gobbling of the turkeys—the woods come alive. Why? What made it so quiet at first?

I have sat in tree stands and looked down, and I have seen wild boars, four or five turkeys, and a couple of deer feeding—I have seen all three varieties of beasts coexisting in the wild in a spirit of peace. But let them know that man is present and a pall of fear falls over the bird, the squirrel, the deer, and the turkey. It was not supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be that the animals would rejoice in the presence of the one to whom God gave dominion over them. But now the animals suffer because of us, and they are no longer comfortable when we intrude into their domain. But these dumb brutes, as they are called, have an earnest expectation, a conviction of hope for the day when that will all change, when the glory of God will be revealed in us.

Unwilling Futility

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope.” That word “futility” is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Nothing could possibly be worse or drive the human being to despair more quickly and deeply than the idea that our pain and our labor are merely exercises in futility and meaningless, that the human experience is like the myth of Sisyphus, who uses all of his energy to push a gigantic rock to the top of a mountain, but as soon as he gets to the top, the rock falls back to the bottom, and he has been sentenced to push it back to the top again and again forever in vain labor.

In contrast to that, the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:58 that we ought to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That is the hope of the gospel: Your pain is not meaningless. Your toil is not futile. Every ounce of effort that we expend in this world and every tear that falls across our cheek is not meaningless.

Our pain is not futile, but for the present time, the whole creation has been subjected to the appearance of futility. It was not by vote. The human race, along with the animal kingdom, did not go to the polls and say, “We vote, dear God, to have to endure pain, tribulation, and travail all of our days.” No, this was by divine decree. The world is filled with pain and suffering not because God isn’t good, but because He is good and will not tolerate evil, and because of our sin, God has subjected the entire creation to pain, to affliction, and to sin.

The next time you hurt and become angry with God, when you shake your fist in His face and say, “Why me?” listen for the reply: “Why not?” The real question is why God, in

His grace, should store up for us in heaven a glory and blessedness that is not worthy to be compared with the pain that we endure even now.

Release from Bondage

Paul continues, “Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” We have seen in Paul’s epistle that the gospel and the power of Christ have delivered us. We are people who, by nature, are in bondage. But as Paul has just explained, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we have been set free. We are no longer under the bonds of sin. We have been released from incarceration. We have been set free.

That release from bondage does not end with us. The goal of the gospel—the goal of the finished work of Christ—is to rescue the entire creation. The land will stop mourning, the animals will no longer be afraid. Though nature may be red in tooth and fang, that bloody crimson violence will be done away with in the new heaven and the new earth where the lion will lie down with the lamb. As Paul says, “The creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Just as the created world has suffered with our pain because of our sin, so the whole creation will participate in the liberation from the consequences of sin at the time of the manifestation of the children of God.

“For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” Do you see the metaphor? It is the metaphor of the woman in labor, who is at a threshold of pain before she gives birth that seems excruciating. She cries. She groans. Paul says the whole creation is like that—crying, groaning in birth pangs. But the pain of that labor is not worthy to be compared with the joy that follows when the child is born.

The Hope of Inheritance

“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.” What does Paul mean? We have already been adopted. There is a present sense in which we experience the adoption into the family of God. But there is still a “not yet” dimension, a full completion of what it means to be adopted when we receive the inheritance that is stored up for us in heaven.

How wonderful is will be when we hear that promise fulfilled, when God will say: “Come, My beloved. Inherit the kingdom that I have prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” That is our expectation. That is our hope.

“For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?” Do you remember the three great virtues? Faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love. We talk about love and faith all the time. We rarely talk about hope. But Paul is constantly talking about hope. When he talks about hope, he is not using that term in the way we use it in our common expression.

We usually use the term hope to express our desire for some future result that is uncertain. Say that you ask me: “How do you think the Steelers are going to do this year? Do you think they’ll win the Super Bowl?” How would I know if they are going to win the Super Bowl? How do I respond? “I hope so.” But I sure do not know it. That is not the concept of hope in the New Testament.

The hope concept in the New Testament is descriptive of a situation in which the future is absolutely certain. It is faith looking forward. It is faith being certain and receiving the assurance of what God promises for tomorrow. Our hope is the anchor for our souls. It is that which gives stability to our faith. It is when we stumble and trip today—when we become uncertain in our faith because of the afflictions—that hope kicks in and we are reminded of God’s promise for tomorrow. That is the great explanation for the behavior of the saints of the ages who were willing to go to the arena and go up against the lions or to be human torches in the garden for Nero. They knew where they were going. They had a hope that would never embarrass them or leave them ashamed.

Paul says: “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”—not just patiently wait for it but eagerly wait for it—“with perseverance.” How many times in this epistle already has Paul talked about the link between perseverance and character? It is our hope that keeps us going.

Pray with the Holy Spirit

“Likewise,” Paul says, “the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

This is the one of the most important passages in all the Bible that instructs us about the nature of godly prayer. We understand that our communion with God the Father is not a simple one-on-one communication between us and the Father. We know enough to say when we pray that we pray in the name of Jesus, because we know one of the most important roles that Jesus exercises even now is that He is our High Priest in heaven and makes intercession for us every day.

When we pray, we pray to the Father through the Son, and we implore our intercessor to intercede for us: “Please, Jesus, carry our prayers and our requests to the Father. We don’t dare appear in our own garments to make our requests, but we come before the throne of grace garbed in Your righteousness and pleading for Your intercession.” We should always keep in mind when we are praying that Jesus is praying for us. We ask Him to help us with our petitions.

Prayer is a Trinitarian activity. It is not simply that we pray to the Father through the Son, but in this text, we see that in the very articulation of our prayers to the Father through the Son, we are assisted by the help of the Holy Ghost. So, when you pray, remember to ask the Holy Spirit to assist you in your prayers, because so many times we do not pray as we ought.

If you really want to see answers to prayer that will put strength in your soul, pray according to the leading of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Spirit helps us to pray according to the will of God rather than the will of our flesh. You see prayers answered when your prayers correspond to the will of the Father. If you ask God to do something that is not His will, you are going to be frustrated. He will answer your prayers by saying no. But when the Spirit helps us to pray as we ought and assists us, this One who searches the deep things of God, who knows our souls and knows the very mind of the Father, then we begin to pray according to the will of God.

All Things Work Together for Good

Finally, verse 28, one of the most popular, comforting, consoling verses in all of sacred Scripture. I just looked at the clock and I thought, “How can I cover this in just a few moments?” It is too rich and too deep to cover briefly. So, I will just mention it, and then we will explore it more deeply, God willing, next week. But listen to it now and think about it this week.

“And we know”—Paul says we know, not that we just hope—“that all things work together for good.” We might think: “What? Paul, you may know it, but I find that hard to believe, because I see things happening in my life, in my children’s lives, and in the community all around me in which I can see no redemptive value whatsoever. I do not see how this could have any good consequence at all.” But Paul continues, “And we know that all things work together for good” for a restricted group: “to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

I want to explore that with more time, God willing, next week. But this week, really think about this text that you’ve heard so often. He says, “All things work together for good.” Notice where this comes in the text. This comes at the grand conclusion of the announcement the Apostle has given us, saying that the suffering we endure in this world is not worthy to be compared with the glory the Father has stored up and that will be manifested in His children. It is in light of that promise that Paul says we can be certain that everything that happens in this world, as painful as it may be for this present moment, is working. This is working with that, which is working with this, which is working with that. They are all working together in a grand symphony for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.

This is one of the most profound elements of the doctrine of providence that we encounter anywhere in Scripture, and for the third time I will say, I am not going to expound it any further now. You are going to have to tune in next week for Romans 8:28. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, how easily we become frightened, discouraged, and downcast. How fragile is our faith and how weak our hope that all we can do is keep our eyes fixed on the present moment. We have lost sight of that glory You have promised for tomorrow. We thank You that while You were pleased to subject the whole creation to pain, You have not abandoned it and You will not destroy it, but You will redeem it. We thank You for that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.