How big is your understanding of Jesus Christ and His redemptive work? What kind of scope do you see this redemptive act of Christ accomplishing? ‘Well, it is certainly big. It was big enough to save me!’ Yes, that is true and altogether wonderful. But that work saved others around you too; and not just those around you but people scattered across the globe in sprawling urban areas, tribal villages, and remote towns. We must not stop at that point, either. For the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of what God in Christ has done to reconcile sinners to Himself, has a historical dimension. We look back through the centuries and read the testimony of a few whom Christ saved. Yet multitudes more that we know nothing of except to walk in their footsteps trod before us.
So far our scope of Christ’s redemptive work covers present day believers and those who trusted Him in the past. Does that include those saved during the Old Testament era? Yes, indeed, it includes them too, because “no one comes to the Father” but through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Though we have the full revelation of the gospel in the New Testament it was present from Genesis 3 to Malachi 4.
Okay, so we have present day believers, those converted through the apostolic witness onward, and also those from Genesis until the public ministry of Christ. Is that the scope of redemption? None of us would argue that this is massive! Millions upon millions of sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ, transformed by the power of the Spirit, will gather around the throne of God for eternity. But does more need redeeming? Surely God will ultimately redeem all of the elect! We have that certainty by the kindness and power of God. Yet, with all the wonder of this saving work in sinners, there’s yet more under the broad scope of Christ’s redeeming work.
What happened in the Garden? Man fell into sin. Yes, man in his innocence as one created in the image of God walked the road toward perfection. While not flawed he was not yet perfect in that he had yet to fully obey God. Once that happened, humanity would have been crowned with glory forever—the radiant perfections of our God would have clothed the human race with never a hint of sin, disobedience, discouragement, or countless ills faced throughout history. But the road to glory derailed. Man fell into sin. And when man fell, everything tied to him fell as well. If you have seen the pictures of a train derailment you know that the first train gets off the track and all the rest follow into a twisted mass of noise and steel. When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit they doomed the entire human race; yet additionally, they derailed creation.
Do you remember the curses leveled by the Creator? The serpent was cursed but not just the serpent. “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field” (my italics). In the curse aimed at the serpent the announcement of a broader curse is made; it’s just that the serpent would be more cursed than the rest of the animal kingdom (Gen. 3:14). The woman would face multiplied pain in childbirth and conflict with her husband (3:16). Then God declared, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (17-19). Do you see the all-encompassing curse? Not only was man cursed, not only the serpent but also every other living creature, and not only that, but also the rest of creation fell under the same curse. The ground was cursed. It would produce thorns and thistles. It would present man with difficulties at every turn just to survive. Thus began every speck of decay, rot, natural disaster, and every destructive force of the natural order.
Man fell and needed redemption and reconciliation with God. Creation fell when Adam fell. As representative of the human race, Adam also was vice-regent of the created order, serving as the God-appointed governor of the created order. But when he fell creation derailed, and with it, the curse of sin entered the world with all its destructiveness. Creation fell and needed redemption too.
Now, you may ask, what does that have to do with our text in Romans 8? Everything! The Apostle moves his argument from sin to redemption to sanctification to assurance and now to glory. God created everything for glory because God is Himself full of glory. Everything affected by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ moves toward glory. If we understand this truth it affects the way we live in the present. Keep in mind that Paul has just laid out the marks of assurance (8:12-17). Where does assurance ultimately take us? It takes us to glorification. Christians need to live with a view of future glory. It is only as we grasp this certainty that we can persevere with hope even in the most difficult times. How does this view of future glory transform our present actions?
The last clause of 8:17 brings up suffering in the context of assurance. We admit it to be strange in our western minds yet suffering with Christ is evidence of our union with Him. We are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” Last week, I pointed out that suffering “is any of the effects of the fallen world that test our love, loyalty, and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.” Whether physical, mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, or any other realm, if it calls upon us to stand for Christ or apply our faith or deal with sin or exercise perseverance then it is part of the Christian’s suffering with Jesus Christ. But what follows suffering? “So that we may also be glorified with Him.” Suffering, ultimately, is on the path to glory.
Notice the connection in verse 18 with the previous passage. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.” What sufferings does he have in mind? It is the sufferings that the believer encounters as one in union with Jesus Christ. Does this mean that each act of suffering has to be a direct, oppressive assault upon your faith in Christ? Certainly not, for we have Jesus Christ as the ultimate example at this point. “Although He was a Son, yet He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). So what does Paul counsel us to do? He calls us to think about suffering leading to glory. “For I consider,” translates a term that means that you are putting it all together in reasoned fashion. You are thinking, using your mind, mulling over the details, and counting in logical fashion what is taking place.
Paul had just introduced suffering as a partner with assurance. That would offend many, especially those with the false view that being a Christian means that everything comes up rosy! Does he debate the legitimacy of suffering? Not at all; he just states it as reality but not something to dwell on. Instead of dwelling on suffering we are to dwell on glory. How do we know that? Suffering is not worthy of comparison to glory.
What is the point of sufferings in this world? Suffering is the direct result of the fall of man recorded in Genesis 3. That much is plain in the curse explained in brevity by God to Adam and Eve. Parched ground, destructive tsunamis, disease, poisonous snakes, polluted ground, putrifying funguses, and a host of other natural acts of destruction follow in the wake of the fall. So do conflicts with nations, economic upheavals, viral infections, corrupt politicians, bankrupt companies, and tyrannical governments on large scale, along with family feuds, broken marriages, rebellious children, parental desertion, child abuse, sickness, broken bones, lost jobs, and much more on personal levels. Trace it back to Genesis 3 and the act by our representative in choosing to rebel against God, choosing to disbelieve the Word of God.
This global fallen state is evident corporately and personally. When a country attempts to hold a fair and free election yet it is corrupted by ruthless tyranny, multitudes suffer. The hundreds of thousands demonstrating in Iran over that country’s failed political system is ultimately a demonstration against the effects of the fall. They don’t know that; they are just trying to see a fair vote taken and a regime overthrown. But it is happening because of the fall.
The storms that blew destruction through our community and beyond last week expounded the fall once again. We live in a world that is unstable and unpredictable. People sometime talk about moving to a part of the world where no hurricane, tornado, hail, earthquake, flash flood, or volcano can reach them. But if it is not one of those disasters it will be another! We live in a fallen world that anxiously waits for redemption leading to glory.
We suffer personally too. Does this mean that all personal suffering is a direct result of personal sin? No indeed; remember that the sinless Son of God suffered and even learned obedience from suffering. We must make sure that we do not live with that kind of mind that makes personal suffering an equalizing effect of personal sin. Those with that mentality think that if they will just do everything by a certain rule and order then life will be trouble free. They have read the Bible selectively and quite obviously ignored this passage! Look at Paul’s life. It was a life of suffering. The Lord even told him just after his conversion that “he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:16). This was not punitive but the path leading to glory. Paul said that on his part he filled up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions so that he could say, “I rejoice in my sufferings” (Col. 1:24). Not that Jesus did not suffer enough for our redemption, but rather, the pathway for those in union with Him includes suffering.
Paul tells us that he considers these sufferings—he mulls them over, he looks at their logical connection in life. They are real for the Christian. But he chooses to dwell on glory and not on the suffering, not because the sufferings are not genuine and not in an attempt to ignore them. Rather the Apostle thought them to be light compared with future glory (cf. 2 Cor. 4:17).
What is the Lord doing in the sufferings of His people? Let us answer that by considering what suffering did to Him. It taught Him obedience (Heb. 5:8). He was in the Father’s school when He suffered. Think of the intense suffering of temptation that Jesus endured at the hand of the devil. What did He do? He relied upon the strength of the Spirit, He made application of the Word of God, and He kept resolute in His devotion to the Father (Matt. 4). Luke makes an interesting observation. Jesus went into the wilderness “full of the Holy Spirit,” and then when He finished, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (4:1, 14). The deprivation and suffering that our Lord faced enabled Him to be “a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God” (Heb. 2:17). The writer of Hebrews also identifies the process of our Lord’s suffering resulting in Him “having been made perfect” (5:9).
Will the Father do any less in our lives as He takes us on the path that leads to glory? In an epistle that deals with suffering from one end to the other, not with a grim spirit but with a living hope, Peter ends with these words: “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Pet. 5:10). Suffering—grace—glory. That’s the path of the one in union with Jesus Christ.
How long will sufferings last? Notice the language: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” It is obvious that Paul speaks of a time when suffering will cease, yet not now because we live in the era of suffering. The Greek has two different words that we translate as time. One is chronos from which we get chronological time: eleven o’clock, June 21st, 2009. That’s all chronological. The other word is kairos which we translate as “time” yet it has more to do with an epoch or event or an age or a point in history. “In the fullness of time (chronos), God sent forth His Son…” (Gal. 4:4). At that epoch or juncture of history, God sent forth His Son. That’s the word that Paul uses in our text. When he speaks of “this present time,” or more literally, “the now time,” he points to the age in which we are living. It is the period from the fall to the consummation of the ages; from the entry of sin into the world to the end of sin by the coming of Christ.
Paul moves in thought between “the now” and the “not yet,” as we see so often in Biblical language. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be” (1 John 3:2). John does this frequently in Revelation, as he moves between the now and the not yet. As long as we live in “the sufferings of this present time” we live in history. But when “the glory that is to be revealed” takes place, that day history ends and the glory that already exists with God will be “revealed” to those redeemed by Christ.
Think about that word “revealed” for a moment. It is the same stem from which the title given to the book of Revelation derives. You can only reveal what already exists. A famous sculptor labors for years on one statue but before it is seen by anyone, the day of revelation is set. A giant tarp covers it, and with great ceremony, the cover is tossed aside and the statue revealed. It existed before that moment but it was not known or understood by the onlookers until that moment of revelation. That’s something of what Paul does. The day will come when that which existed with God in eternity past—glory—will be revealed unencumbered by mortal bodies, undimmed by sinful eyes and thoughts. All of the created order moves toward that day of revelation of God’s glory. The knowledge of that future glory is enough, as Paul puts it, to help us persevere in “this present time.”
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.” Let’s compare suffering and glory. Suffering afflicts us, causes pain, wounds us, discourages us, depresses us, causes loss, deprives us, causes anxiousness and worry, grieves us, saddens us, alienates us. It is no light thing! We must not miss Paul’s point. He does not make light of suffering. Read his own experiences of suffering scattered through the book of Acts and his epistles, especially 2 Corinthians. He knew hunger, loss, pain, threats, burdens, accusations, beatings, stoning, and shipwrecks to boot. Were those easy ordeals to endure? Do you remember his time in Corinth where he fretted about what would happen? The Lord came to him to encourage him to continue teaching, assuring the Apostle that He had many people in the city (Acts 18:9-10).
Your sufferings are no less intense and real. Losing a parent or a child, losing a job that you had labored in for years, rejection by a child that you nurtured, pain caused by disease or injury, false accusations against you, reputation tarnished by gossips intending to destroy you, painful disagreement with spouse, conflicts with extended family, bankruptcy, sexual abuse, cancer with treatments, surgery, and painful recovery, misunderstandings, depression, aches and pains, persecution for your faith, promotions denied because you are a Christian. Are these things painful and difficult and real? Just the mention of some of these, bring the keenness of your pain and loss fresh to mind.
But what about “the glory that is to be revealed”? That’s the point of Paul’s comparison. Take all of the suffering, every pain, every disease, all of the loss, every moment of depression and discouragement, every misunderstanding, every abuse toward you, all of the times you were cursed and bad-mouthed and made fun of, every broken bone, every virus that left you sapped—take every one of these things and drop them into a sea of forgetfulness and non-existence. When “glory” is revealed, all those things are forever done away, never to afflict you again.
We understand this better by what is not present than maybe by what is present. John wrote, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). But what will there be: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (21:3). “Glory” is not lots of stuff that we can exchange or barter; it’s not boxes full of nice presents that we can touch and play with. “Glory” is God in our midst! Glory is all that God is in His attributes, character, power, might, and eternal blessing known so intimately, so fully, and so wondrously that it will satisfy us forever. The glory revealed is so satisfying that we miss nothing in this fallen world.
“Glory” is an appropriate word because the root of it is “heavy or weighty.” Paul puts our sufferings on one side of a balancing scale and they plop down immediately with the reality of how harsh and painful they truly are. Yet when he puts “glory” on the other side, it is as though the sufferings are a feather on the scale with an anvil! You cannot compare your sufferings to the future glory. The more you can anticipate and lean in the direction of future glory, the better equipped you are to handle the present sufferings. In such reality you know that the sufferings end but the glory does not. So persevere in hope.
Now what of this strange talk of creation longing for this same glory? “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Here’s what I want you to see. If the creation anticipates the glory that belongs to the redeemed, should we not anticipate it even more?
Creation and humanity have something in common: they both fell when Adam sinned and consequently, the centuries that have passed have unfolded the impact of sin in the world. But more importantly, creation has something in common with the Redeemed: both will see and experience glory. Why else would the creation strain its neck with outstretched head in anticipation of this revelation spoken of in verse 18? The word “anxious longing” indicates, “diversion from all other things and concentrating on a single object and indicates a patient waiting” [ELKGNT, 330]. It patiently tolerates pollution, rust, erosion, nuclear tests, forest fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, mudslides, and every other destructive force and manmade disaster in anticipation of future glory that belongs to the redeemed. It is because in that moment of revelation “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom [the same freedom!] of the glory of the children of God.” Creation has its eyes on the saints! After speaking of Jesus as Creator and Sovereign, Paul explains that as Redeemer through His bloody death at the cross He reconciles “all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20).
What did the fall do to the creation? “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it.” The Septuagint translation of Ecclesiastes uses the same word, “futility,” to translate the vanity and aimlessness described in that wisdom book. In the beginning, creation had a nobler purpose. In every way it was to display the glory of God. We still see vestiges of that glory every day even as we still see remnants of the image of God in man. Yet as wonderful as is the sunset, beautiful mountains, spectacular forests, tiny flowers, and blue skies, it is still affected by the fall. Creation is not what it will be in the consummation of the ages. Creation did not join in man’s rebellion. It was subjected to futility “not willingly” but as part of the curse that the Creator declared upon it.
If you have ever had trouble grasping (and who hasn’t!) something of the meaning of “a new heaven and a new earth,” then consider what Paul is teaching. As lovely as we think creation is at present, it pales in comparison to the glory that will be revealed when God reveals His glory in the redeemed!
With an eye on the redeemed, creation looks for the day that it “also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” The future passive verb implies that God will do the work of liberation, with the context declaring it as fruit of Jesus Christ’s redemptive work at the cross. What does creation hope for? Hear the words of Isaiah 11:6-9.
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Paul has no hesitation about the way that the creation hopes for the day of revelation. “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Both “groans and suffers” are prefixed with the word “together,” showing an act of unison by the whole of creation. But his point is not just to explain how creation looks for the day of Christ’s return when the work of redemption through the death of Christ ushers in eternal glory. He tells us, “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the fruit fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” We groan together with the whole created order in anticipation of the glory that will deliver us from these bodies of death and this slavery to corruption.
It is certain that Jesus Christ has delivered us from the curse of the fall. We who are in Christ no longer bear the guilt of Adam or the guilt of our own sin. But we still feel, see, and experience the effects of the fall. And we will as long as we live in the “present time.” But “glory” lies ahead for those whose hope is in Christ Jesus, the Redeemer who has reconciled not only sinners to Himself but ultimately, all of the created order. Is your trust in Him? The hope of future glory gives all who are in Christ the strength to persevere even in suffering.
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