Variety: Romans 8v18–25

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8:18–25

There is a contingent of environmentalists who consider humans a blight on the earth, nothing better than a cancer. For nature to heal, the argument goes, humans need to get out of the way or preferably die back or die out altogether. They have a point – the main drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change are human interventions such as pollution, overconsumption or the introduction of invasive species.

But this is not the biblical worldview. Humans have a glorious, God-ordained role to bless creation. When we live according to our true identity and calling we are not a curse, we are not neutral, we are the means by which this world and its creatures live their very best lives.

I wonder what was in Paul’s mind when he wrote about creation’s groaning. What do you think of? For me it conjures a visit back to my childhood home in southern Portugal after a number of years to find most of my favourite trees had died due to prolonged drought, and the 2019/20 bushfires in Australia killing or maiming 3 billion animals, and my conservationist friend whose job it was to respond and the breakdown it caused.

It is significant that Paul uses the metaphor of labour pain (v22). While absolutely agonising and brutal, this is productive, fruitful pain which, all things being well, results in the miracle of new life. There is also an implied continuity. The foetus in the womb is the babe in arms is the fully-grown adult, however radically transformed along the way. We are waiting with real hope, grounded in our faith in Jesus, for redeemed bodies (v23) and we have every reason to hope for the physical redemption of creation. All of creation, along with us, will one day be ‘liberated from its bondage to decay’ (v21).

Few of us can ignore or avoid the reality of ‘present sufferings’ (v18) – our own and the rest of creation’s. We are all of us under ‘bondage to decay’ (v21), which brings grief, physical and emotional pain, loss, and trauma of all kinds. The trajectory of the human body, as I am discovering in middle age, is an inexorable decline.

There are so many ways the cross of Christ enters and transforms our suffering, not least this shining vision of a glorious future for us in a creation fully restored to health, beauty, and wondrous diversity. 

Jo Swinney A Rocha International