The Glory to Be Revealed: Romans 8.18-30, Part 1

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There can be no doubt that Romans 8 represents one of the high points not only in Romans, but also of the whole New Testament. So far, we’ve seen how Paul shifts the focus away from what the rule of sin and death look like to what the rule of the Spirit looks like, and then how he specifically re-envisions the life of faith as a big and beautiful household, with all of us as Jesus’ adopted siblings. Over the next three posts we’ll look at the next section of chapter 8, which further expands on the new humanity created by the Holy Spirit in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Today, we’ll look at the passage as a whole in its broad strokes before spending the following two posts on specific questions the passage suggests to readers today.

Text

[8.18] For I consider that the sufferings of this present season are nothing compared to the glory that is about to be revealed to us. [19] For the eager longing of creation awaits the revelation of the ‘sons of God’. [20] For creation was subject to purposelessness, not of its own doing, but on account of the one who subjected it, in the hope [21] that creation itself will be freed from its enslavement to decay into the freedom of the glory of God’s children. [22] For we know that all of creation has been groaning and labouring together until now — [23] and not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly awaiting our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. [24] For we were saved in hope: and hope for what is already seen is not hope at all, for who hopes for that which they already see? [25] But if we hope for that which we do no see, we await it patiently.

[26] In just the same way, the Spirit helps to support us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but this same Spirit intercedes with groans for which we have no words. [27] But the one who searches our hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in alignment with God.

[28] And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called in alignment with God’s purpose. [29] For those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, with the result that he might become the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those he predestined, he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified.

Experience & Encounter

My sense in this passage is of Paul suddenly zooming out. We’ve been focused on the human situation and now he takes a bigger perspective, talking about creation groaning on account of our sin and eagerly waiting for humanity to get our act together. We might even say that creation becomes the main character in this passage. This raises two obvious questions: First, is this as out of nowhere as it seems? And two, if so, why might he make this transition now?

On another note, while certainly anachronistic, as I write here when a record-smashing heatwave was just ended only by the intervention of intense wildfire smoke, it’s hard not to contemplate the passage and its apocalyptic themes in terms of ecological theology. Even as we don’t want to read contemporary issues into an ancient text, it’s certainly fair to ask what the text says that might legitimately inform how we understand our relationship with the earth.

Finally, the passage ends with one of the most prominent New Testament texts on the highly controversial theme of election and predestination. This will require some unpacking too.

Explore

These verses are nothing short of explosive: they paint a big, beautiful picture about salvation, but also contain some powderkegs that could easily blow up our interpretation of the text as a whole. So I want as much as possible to bracket the discussions of eco-theology and predestination today and focus on Paul’s overall message here. To that end:

  • What is the structure of Paul’s argument here, and how does it connect to the broader structure of the letter?
  • And, in the big picture, what is Paul saying in this passage?

Literary Matters

It should be clear by now that Paul is rarely clear in his writing, and this includes the logic of his argument structure. I think it’s best to understand this section as follows:

  • Thesis: Present suffering is nothing compared to future glory
    • Argument 1: Creation’s future participation in salvation, which is tied to our own
    • Argument 2: The Spirit’s intercession for us
  • Conclusion : All things work together for good…

The arguments are connected by the themes of hope, expectation, and groaning or lamentation at the discrepancy between the world we experience and the world as God longs for it to be.

If we zoom out, these themes fit well within the broader argument that began around 5.12 when Paul introduced the theme of the two humanities (’in Adam’ and ‘in Christ’). But concerned that this message might be misunderstood or misrepresented, he then explores some of its implications:

As we’ll see next week, Romans 8.31-39 concludes not only this this section on the two humanities, but also the entirely of the first set of arguments, which started at 1.18.

Paul’s Message

Paul’s message in this section of Romans 8 is pretty straightforward: that present suffering is nothing compared to future glory. But how he talks about it is worth exploring.

Creation

We’ll look at this a lot more next time, but for now it’s enough to say that Paul steps back from our human situation to take a more cosmic perspective. While this movement has been controversial among those whose theology doesn’t easily welcome a cosmic understanding of salvation, their protests are unconvincing, and there is a solid consensus today that when Paul is talking about creation here, he is talking about creation as a whole, not humanity (see Witherington 222 for a discussion of the debates).* The references to creation’s purposelessness (it’s the same word that gets translated as ‘vanity! vanity!’ in Ecclesiastes) and enslavement to decay strongly suggest Paul has the story of the Fall and its effects (Genesis 3.17-19) in mind here (Witherington 223; Kruse 342).

We could possibly even think of it as Paul returning to his original train of thought from 5.12-21; there he compared the consequences of Adam and Christ for humanity. Now he turns to those consequences for all of creation (SBL; Witherington 223; Kruse 343). If you’ll recall, in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve’s sin causes creation to be cursed. The connection of sin and the subjection of creation to decay is also spoken of in the Prophets. For example, Isaiah 24.4-5 speaks of the earth dried up, withered, and polluted because of humanity transgressing God’s laws. And the Deuterocanonical book known 4 Ezra (or 2 Esdras) notes that “when Adam transgressed my statutes, what had been made was judged” (7.11). At the same time, the restoration of creation was a part of apocalyptic and messianic literature from their very beginnings (Kruse 343f). Take Isaiah 11 for example, with its vision of an age where predator and prey, and venomous creature and its innocent potential victim are imagined to dwell peacefully side by side.

Here that creation is personified, eagerly awaiting (literally, ‘craning its neck in anticipation’) this restoration, and groaning like a woman in labour until such time as the renewed creation is born (Tonstad 244; Eberhart). This is an apt metaphor for suffering undertaken with hope and expectation that blessing awaits on the other side, and was a common image in Second Temple Judaism for the crisis and suffering of this age in anticipation of the messianic age to come (Eberart; Witherington 223; SBL). While Paul does not talk about what this renewed creation will look like, the reference to its current purposelessness suggests it would be a restoration to its proper and peaceful original functioning (Kruse 344). But even here, this is dependent on humanity. Paul writes not of creation’s longing for its own salvation to be revealed, but for ours. This is because, in the vision of Genesis, Adam and Eve’s sin was a rejection of their created vocation to be the Garden’s caretakers. And so creation’s renewal must await our own (Kruse 344).

But its patient waiting does not mean it is silent. As several recent commentaries point out, this is a very loud passage; in fact groaning is the tie that binds this section together (Eberhart). As Luiza Sutter Rehman puts it: “Not to sigh quietly and practice patience is precisely the point here; the issue is to cry aloud, to protest, to demand abundant life and justice” (quoted by Eberhart).To live in the present age requires lamentation and the fierce commitment to proclaiming the glorious, peaceful and just world God longs to see realized. This is true of creation (8.22) and it’s true of us (8.23).

The Holy Spirit

It should go without saying by this point in the series that with all the talk of two ages, the establishment of God’s reign of peace, and present suffering in hope of future glory, we are firmly within the purview of apocalyptic literature here (Eberhart; Witherington 223; SBL). Within this apocalyptic framework, it’s no surprise that the Holy Spirit — the sign par excellence of the age to come — is also front and centre (Nanos 320). Here the Spirit and its initial work in our lives are called the ‘first fruits’ of our salvation, that is, a “preview of what’s to come” (Witherington 224; cf SBL; Kruse 349). In the context of the passage, it would seem its full realization will come at the general resurrection, when our bodies will be transformed as our hearts and minds are being transformed now and no longer subject to the weaknesses and impulses of embodied life as we know it (Witherington 224; Kruse 341; Nanos 320). This idea of first-fruit and the fulness of the harvest is echoed in the different way Paul speaks here of our adoption as sons of God. In 8.14 this was a past act of the Spirit; but here it’s spoken of as a future expectation (Eberhart). Once again we find ourselves in the now-but-not-yet of Christian theology, spirituality, and life (Witherington 224; Nanos 320).

Participation and Synergism

Throughout this big section exploring the two humanities, Paul has used a lot of participatory language. So we died, were buried, and will be resurrected with Christ (6.1-14) and suffer, become co-heirs, and are glorified with Christ (8.14-17). Here we see a return of that language, only instead of us participating in Christ’s experience, now it’s about solidarity within creation, and God’s solidarity with creation. This is hidden in English translation, but, using the same syn- prepositional prefix as in the other places, the creation “groans-together” and “labours-together” (8.22). While it’s not signaled with that same prefix, the text here also lumps humanity in together with other-than-human creation in this process (8.23). And, most beautifully of all, the Spirit is too. The verb I translated as ‘helps to support’ more literally means ‘supports with’ (yes, using syn-).

With God (through the Spirit’s activity), humanity, and the rest of creation all aching for the same outcomes, “all things work together for good” for those who love and are called by God (8.28). As Kruse notes:

Paul has already suggested a synergistic collaboration between God and the Spirit in the matter of intercession for believers in 8:26-27. This idea of synergistic collaboration is then carried forward into 8:28, where God and the Spirit work together for the good of believers. (Kruse 354)

To this synergism within God is added our own participation, which involves our being increasingly conformed to the likeness of Christ (Kruse 355f).

God’s Good Intention

All this is connected to God’s good intentions for us, which Paul describes here in the language of election (’chosenness’), predestination, and adoption. We’ll talk a lot more about this later this week, but for now it’s enough to say that the point of this language is to reassure the faithful that God is on our side — something that Paul will declare in rousing hymnic language in the next part of the text.

Expand

I’ll leave the Challenge section to the next two posts, so for now, how might the interpretation that has emerged in this study contribute to our spiritual growth and the expansion of the horizons of our faith? It does this by shattering any myopic and anthropocentric myopic illusions we might have. Christian faith is not just about ‘me and Jesus’. Because my sin impacts more than just my relationship with God, but also harms my relationship with others and the creation itself, so must my vision of salvation be big enough to encompass the restoration of these relationships.

Summary & Conclusions

Here the full cosmic, as well as anthropological, dimensions of Paul’s theology are on display. Human sin impacted the whole of creation, and therefore so does God’s salvation plan, and the whole universe eagerly longs for the day when it comes to pass in full. But as beautiful as this theology is, it’s couched here in a basic message of encouragement. No matter what we may be suffering and experiencing in the here and now, we are not alone. The whole of creation and God’s very Spirit are suffering alongside us. And with all of our energy and longing directed to the same end, we can be certain that God will make everything right in the end.

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