WE looked at verse 18 last time and thought upon Satan’s anger against the Christian and the suffering this brings into the life of the believer, which is on top of the usual suffering which every human being has to undergo in this troubled life. We compared this with the glory which the Bible speaks of which is the promised inheritance of the children of God, and saw that this glory was so wonderful that the suffering we may have to undergo as Christians in this life is nothing compared with the glory we shall experience in that promised glory Christ has won for us. We now go on to see how the apostle Paul enlarges on this theme to bring to us the great strength which the message of salvation in the Bible gives to those who believe in Christ.

There is no doubt that we need this strengthening. As time goes by we get closer to the point when the death of our earthly body draws nearer, and the time will come when we have to face the fact of terminal illness, and coming to the point when this earthly body dies. There is no doubt that even for Christians this is a time of fear and foreboding, and the only way we can face this moment in strength is by knowing and living in the certainty of the hope of glory. We need not only to understand the hope that it is ours in Christ, but so to live in this hope in our present life so that its reality fills us, and the assurance of Christ that he will bring us there to this glory is an ever present reality.

It is the apostle’s purpose to cause us to do this, and know this, and so be full of the hope of the glory of God.

THE BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE.

In verse 18 the New International Version of the Bible speaks of ‘our present sufferings’. There is nothing wrong with this translation as far as it goes, but it does obscure somewhat the Biblical perspective which Paul is seeking to help us to see. The way Paul speaks in the original Greek is of the ‘sufferings of this present time or present age’. It is ‘present suffering’ but Paul is seeking to place this suffering in the context of this present existence in time. This ‘present time or age’ is speaking about this world of time and what we experience in this world of time. Human beings come and go during this present time, but this present time, this world of time, always remains the same. It is a place of suffering, and specially for those who believe in Jesus.

The contrast Paul is making is between this earthly life in time and the glory of eternity which will replace it. Paul is seeking to help us realise the truth which God’s revelation in the Bible opens to us. This world and earthly existence is all that people who are not Christians know. All their hopes are found in this world, and so the end of life in this present time is the end of life. Humanity is always seeking to find the meaning of life in this physical world, and so we have the exploration of space, and the hope that it will reveal the origin of life. There seems to be some hope that in this the secret of improving this life in time may be found. In fact the Bible opens up to us all that we need to know, but humanity in its wisdom speaks of this revelation as foolishness. However when we believe the Bible revelation we have a hope that is strong and sure.

What the apostle Paul holds before us by speaking of this present time of suffering is the revelation that this present time, this present world order, will come to an end and God will replace it with a new heaven and earth which will transcend in every way what we know in this present time, and also explains why this present time is one of so much suffering. The point we have to realise is that this hope of the glory which will be revealed in us is only for those who have placed their trust in Christ who redeems us from this present life, and gives us the privilege of being members of the family of God. It is only the children of God who have this assured hope of glory. We who believe have a strength in the face of suffering, and our final death of the body, which the rest of humanity, whatever their religion or philosophy, do not have. The rest of humanity who do not believe in Jesus as God and Saviour are, as Paul describes it in Ephesians, without hope, and without God, in the world. Physical death for them is to be feared because is brings them into total loss. This is a terrible thing which surely must motivate every believer to pray and work that others may come to know the hope of glory in Christ, which is open to all who will believe in Jesus.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CREATION.

Paul is not content to just state the truth that those who are children of God through faith in Jesus have this eternal weight of glory to look forward to, which is certain and sure, but he opens up to us the eternal purpose and will of God, so that we may see our hope in terms of eternity and God himself.

In verse 19 Paul tells us that creation, that is this physical world and universe, is waiting for this glory which is promised to the children of God. He personifies creation, and speaks of creation as eagerly waiting for the time when the sons or children of God will be revealed.

Paul is speaking of the new creation which will be brought into being by the second coming of Christ. It is this that the present creation is eagerly waiting for. It is at this time, that we who believe, the sons of God, will be revealed. Paul speaks of this revealing again at the end of verse 21 when he speaks of the ‘glorious freedom of the children of God’. We may well ask what Paul is speaking about here. It is plain he is speaking about the new order and creation that will be introduced when Christ returns to judge this present world, but why does he speak of it as the revelation of the sons of God. Paul speaks about this more in verse 23, but what is being revealed is the fact that we enter into the fulness of our hope of glory in Christ at the time of Christ’s second coming.

With this truth we enter into the question of what believers enjoy when we are separated from this earthly body which is not part of the teaching of this particular passage. It is sufficient to say here that this intermediate state is one when we are separated from our body, and to be so separated is to be incomplete because God created us to live within a body. This intermediate state will be one of peace and joy in the presence of the Lord, but it will not be the experience of the fulness of redemption. The fulness is certain, but in this intermediate state it is still incomplete. The revelation of the children of God will be when our redemption, which Christ won for us, is complete, and this will be when we shall receive a new resurrection body like Christ’s resurrection body, which will fit us for life in the new creation, the new heaven and the new earth, in eternity with God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The present creation is waiting eagerly for that revelation of the sons of God because the creation is going to have a part in it. Paul goes on to speak of this in the next two verses. This present creation, this present world order, was subjected to frustration. Creation did not choose this, but was subjected to it by God. The one who subjected it is plainly God, but God did not mean this frustration to be permanent. It was subjected in hope of liberation from this bondage of decay, and the hope of being given glorious freedom and a new beginning which will be glorious.

This has to be so because we have been created to live in a world. When we are brought to the fulness of our redemption in Christ, that fulness is not simply that we receive a new body, but we receive a new world in which to live in the body. This is entirely new. It is not a hyped up version of this world, but something entirely new - a new creation. This world will be dissolved and done away. A new heaven and earth will come down from God. And nothing which defiles or harms will have any place there. The idea being revealed by Paul is that the present creation will receive a rebirth like each believer does, and is looking forward to this eagerly. Although the new creation will be different, it will have a connection with this present suffering world, just as our resurrection body will be different and new, but will have an identity with our present body, so that we will know each other. In the same way the new heaven and earth will be identifiable because of this identity with this present evil world, but will still be new and perfect.

SEEING THIS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE BIBLE REVELATION.

When did this subjection of creation take place, and why did it take place. The answer is to be found in the third chapter of Genesis. This subjecting of creation to frustration was God’s decree because of the sin of Adam. God created the world perfect to be a wonderful environment for his crown of creation, man/Adam. At that time creation was created, as was Adam, in a state of probation. This was not that the creation was under probation, but that the creation was bound up with the probation of man. The emphasis is that if Adam had passed his probationary time and granted immortality, then creation would be brought into this immortal state as well. When Adam failed, creation, in the decree of God, was bound up in the curse that fell on Adam. The creation was subject to frustration.

This is described for us in Genesis chapter 3 and verses 17 to 19. The description is as follows - To Adam God said, "Because you have listened to your wife and eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

We see from this the inevitability of the creation being subjected to frustration. The creation was given by God for man to dwell in. It could not remain in pristine condition for man when man was cursed and sentenced to death. Creation had to be reduced to reflect and bring upon man the condition of death. If creation had not be subjected to frustration, then the punishment for sin would be hardly any punishment at all, because creation would still be giving a blessed environment of paradise.

When God shut the garden of Eden from Adam, and placed the angel with a flaming sword to defend the garden from Adam's intrusion again, Adam and all his progeny were shut out of paradise. The world was subjected to frustration so that it would cease to be paradise, but become a place of curse and frustration for humanity who had sinned in Adam. This curse is set forth in the verses quoted above. Creation became cursed for Adam’s sake. It was subjected to frustration by God so that the curse of death may be truly upon Adam and humanity in him. The wonderful order and beauty of its original creation was taken away, and disorder replaced it. This is why the seasons are so unstable. This is why the vegetation is so disorderly so that if humanity by sweat and labour does not work it, it returns to disorder and mayhem. This is why, instead of peace and harmony being in the animal population there is violence and pain. When human beings in their pride speak of a garden returning, when untended, to weeds and disorder, as the work of God, humanity is refusing to understand that the earth is cursed because of our sin.

However God did not mean this frustration of creation to be permanent because he planned to redeem and win for himself a redeemed humanity by the coming of Jesus to live and die to purchase redemption. Because of this there had to be a purpose in God that creation would be redeemed in order to be the perfect environment for his children which he had redeemed. So creation was subjected to frustration in hope. Paul indicates that creation always understood this, and so was and is always looking forward to the revelation of the sons of God.

CONCLUSION.

So we see the truth about creation and this puts our redemption into context, and it enhances our understanding of the hope of glory that is ours. In this way we are strengthened. This purpose for creation puts flesh and bones, as it were, upon our hope of glory. It is very difficult to imagine glory in the nebulous terms of everlasting life. The question then arises as to what this life is like, and we can’t imagine what it is. We are assured that it is wonderful, and that we shall see Jesus, but we seem to be living in a vacuum, and this seems to have no substance.

Things become so different when we are able to appreciate this wonderful revelation concerning creation. We will be brought out of bondage and decay into glorious liberty, but this wonderful vista is anchored down for us in an environment that we have always identified with. However this environment is totally new and wonderful, and purged of all the frustration and curse that we have experienced here in this earthly life.