Romans 8:23 Bible Teaching

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Romans 8.23
July 25th 2021
In reading Romans – from chapter one up through chapter eight – it kind of like taking a magnifying glass to the corner of a giant piece of wall art.

There, under the amplified glass we can see every bump and line and color and fibrous thread.

But as we pull back, more and more and more of the wall-mural is added to our vision, with all the variables – the subtlety and the grandeur, the nuance and the overarching themes – coming together in a giant beautiful mosaic.

It is truly a magnificent book.

On the portion of the canvas where we looked at last week, there comes a few key words that seem to pop out before our eyes and cause us to reflect and ponder.

Sons (and daughters) of God
Creatures
Suffering
Groaning
Patience
Hope

So let’s read our text for today beginning at verse 17 (which we covered two weeks ago) and then see where the Lord leads in helping our understanding of it.

Read:

Romans 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Alright . . .

Chapter seven ended up teaching us that in a very real sense Christians exist in a dualistic world – one of the Spirit indwelling and one of the flesh striving to take control of our heart.

Paul therefore admits that with his Spirit he will serve the Law of God. And in times when the flesh is winning, he admits to serving what he calls, “the law of sin.”

Recall then that Chapter 8 begins with a verse that summarizes all of chapter seven with the most awesome passage.

Remember?

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh (meaning who serve not or do not ardently pursue the flesh), but after the Spirit.”

From this passage we were delivered into a world of tremendous hope produced by the fact that our eternal identity is our Spirit, not our flesh, (which will go to the grave) and that we have been saved by grace through faith, and that there is no condemnation as we walk by and through the indwelling Spirit guiding us – even though the flesh will at times rise up and try and conquer our lives.

Then Paul begins to describe to us what that means – what it looks like – to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit . . .

. . . to live lives as sold out believers in Christ Jesus WHILE existing in these, these tents, these bodies of corruption, these limited, fallible, “subject to the whims of the fall containers.”

They are SO not us.

Several years ago, I flew home from Salt Lake to be with our family who was gathered in a hospital around Mary’s mom. She had suffered a major stroke.

Over the course of the week and after all sorts of MRI work it was determined that the best course of action would be to remove all life support.

Mary arrived at the hospital on Sunday morning and didn’t leave her mothers side.

Our three girls had rallied around their grandmother and also been there singing for her, laughing, crying, and expressing their hearts when I got on scene.

When the time came, a doctor and nurse came in an explained what would transpire and at 10:32 pm they removed the breathing tube.

For about ten minutes she struggled greatly with what sounded like a chest filled with fluid.

She then calmed and slipped into what sounded like her normal breathing pattern – this included snoring, which caused all of us who had endure her snoring before to laugh and joke.

After an hour and forty-five minutes of regulated breathing we all noticed a small rest between breathes – at first in a span of about two seconds, then the span between breaths grew to four six, eight, ten seconds.

Then super long spans.
(Beat)

And suddenly she would take another breath out of nowhere.

Mary asked me if I would recite the Lord’s prayer, which was her Mother’s favorite passages of scripture.

I began:

Our Father, which art in heaven.
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day,
Our daily bread
And forgive us our debts,
As we forget our debtors.

(At this point the girls grew agitated because she had not taken a breath in quite a while. They thought she was gone. Then in the midst of their remorse, she took another. This caused me to forget the line “and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” and I continued on at)

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever . . . (and right at this moment she drew in the last short breath of her mortal life) . . . Amen.

And she was gone. Listen to how I said that – SHE . . . was gone.

And our entire family had the blessed opportunity to watch as the flesh that housed this seventy-six year old woman was abandoned by her true identity . . . and what was left behind was not her. What was left had changed.

It became more than inanimate. It was vacated. Just a lifeless shell of a life once vibrant and funny and highly dispositional and opinionated woman.

She was certainly gone – but the body that contained her, the tent, that covering just laid there and unseen to our eyes had already started to decay.

It was really, truly interesting, my friends, that after all the mourning, and sadness, and tears, and pain working up to this moment – the family was able, having watched who they called, Dader, actually leave her body, and to travel on to a destination believed in but unseen.

We walked away without anyone feeling that they were leaving her behind. Her real identity exited, taking anything and everything eternal, went to our future home ahead of us.

In the days to come I was able to see our family transition back into life – with love, joy, and hope. Yes, memories were shared and tears were still shed, but not tears of pain and worry and fear – but of fond memories – some (natural) residual guilt, and the very real fact the true essence of Mom, Dader, and mother in law would be missed but ongoing forever more.

This is every humans destination. In chapter eight, Paul has been describing how to exist as believer in Christ until that day when we too will exit the temporal body and enter our destinations.

He has gone to great lengths to show that we have a choice in how our earthly presence we will live – by our flesh, by our own minds, wills and emotions, or by our spirit that renews and prepares us, day by day, for our eternal destination.

At verse 16 he teaches us that by the Spirit within we know we are Children of God and at verse 17-18 he describes what this means, which we discussed last week, which says:

Romans 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
18 But I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

And we talked about the extreme biblical glory Paul could have been talking about in his desire to attain “exanastasis.”

So let’s go to verse 19 where Paul now gives us some more detailed and amazing instruction, saying:

Romans 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

That phrase “the earnest expectation” is an interesting one. It only occurs here and in Philippians 1:20.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 13, we read:

“And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

And that where Paul wrote hope we know that it does not mean wish but it means our expectation.

I strongly suggest that the “earnest expectation” Paul mentions here is Romans 8 is the “expectant hope” talked about in verse 13 of 1st Corinthians 13.

A state of earnestly expectating to see something ultimately realized.

It’s that state we have all experienced when we are sitting at the living room window waiting for someone we can hardly wait to see drive up to the home.

It’s the desirous expectation for a long anticipated day to arrive.

It includes a sort-of intense anxiety, and an ardent vision of what will be.

Paul here applies this state of expectation to express the intense interest with which a Christian looks to their future inheritance and existence with God.

And so, he says,

For the “earnest expectation” of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Of the creature? What the heck is this?

First of all, we need to examine Paul’s use of the Greek word (KTISIS) which here is translated “creature.”

This same Greek word is translated into other words in the New Testament.

Mark 10:6 says:

“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.”

The exact same word KTISIS is used for creation as it is for creature.

Then in Hebrews 9:11, where we read:

“But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;”

The word translated to “building” is KTISIS.

Finally, in the all familiar passage found in
2nd Corinthians 5:17 we read the very same word in the context of:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Putting all of this together we learn something about this Greek word, KTISIS – it is a term that implies original construction or formation, with a brand new form.

Now, in case you are interested, this passage has been the subject of a great deal of controversy in that it has been interpreted in a variety of ways over the centuries. The reason for this comes down to what the word KTISIS means?

I don’t find the passage all that difficult to get when we take the meaning of KTISIS into account, but there are some who believe the word creature (as it has been interpreted in the King James) or “creation” (as it has been interpreted in most other translations) refers to “the carnal individual.”

That is not how I see it.

I would suggest that the main design of the passage is to describe mortal existence – both for all who are literally in the world as creatures or creations of God and then also all who are “new creations or creatures in Christ as well”

And while he speaks of both groups in these passages, his focus is on Christians – those who are literally New Creations in Christ – those who have been born-again – those who have been regenerated – those who fit the description of 2nd Corinthians 5:17 where Paul says,

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,” (kainh ktisis).

Or as Galatians 6:15 says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”

Or Ephesians 2:10 which says:

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”

Or who Romans 8:15 speaks of, saying:

“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity–for to make in himself of twain one new man:”

Therefore, verse 19 tells us that as new creations we find ourselves earnestly expecting, hoping, and waiting for what Paul describes as:

“the manifestation of the sons or daughters of God.”

In other words, all Paul is saying is that once we have been created new in Christ, we will all find ourselves anxiously but hopefully awaiting, yes – even expecting –
to experience the full development of the benefits of being children of God in the eternities yet seen.

We “earnestly” long for the time when we will enter into “the fullness of our adoption as sons and daughters.”

The time when we actually move into the heavenly realm and have an open door to His Kingdom, and are placed at the table of the King, and are able to engage with him directly and do his bidding.

In the meanwhile, we abide in a body and world of sin, and troubles, and pain, and fear. At times we struggle, earnestly awaiting our time to go.

When they first took the breathing tube out of my mother-in-law, she had some difficulty breathing. To see her struggling for breath was hard on our daughters.

I was sitting next to Cassidy and leaned over and said:

“That right there was never God’s way – it’s a product of Man and the Fall which did not produce goodness or growth but only what is right there – death.”

As believers, Paul says here in verse 19 that we anticipate the day when we will shed this fallen container, and fully enter into His light.

Paul goes on however (at verse 20) and says that in this fallen state, we discover ourselves subject to a feeling of futility too, as we read:

20 For the (new) creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Now, as you just heard, the King James uses the word, vanity, which is really an unfortunate choice because it conveys a wholly erroneous idea that the new creature is subject to being vain.

Not so.

The Greek word is matai-o-sis, and it means “frustration, futility.”

The French use the word Ennui (Anwe) that in some ways reflects the Greek matai-o-sis, as it conveys this sort of a listless lack of interest in living and the everyday challenges of life.

Ever experience it as a believer?

Let me suggest something. First, it is almost impossible to NOT experience it as a believer. The presence of the Holy Spirit makes ANWE a certainty in life, proven by the fact that we are housing the living God within corruptible bodies.

The second fact is that as we grow as Christians in this light, the futility (matai-o-sis or ANWE) grows for this world.

It’s highly paradoxical because as the volume of our Joy is increased within the volume on our sense of futility or anwe goes up commensurately too.

In Ecclesiastes Solomon bemoans his ennui, his emotional entropy, his futility and we are able to hear from the heart of a man who had EVERYTHING . . . and how it all amounts to . . . emptiness.

Here, again, the King James uses the word “vanity” to describe a Hebrew word (Hebel) which truly would have better been described as “emptiness.”

Listen to King Solomon, who, being perhaps the wealthiest man to EVER walk the earth (including the prince of Dubai or Bill Gates) said:

Ecclesiastes 1:13-14
“And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”

In his discovering that obtaining knowledge of the world was futile, he goes on in a search for gaining wisdom, and says:

1:17-18 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

In chapter two Solomon turns to pleasure, saying:

Ecclesiastes 2:1 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.
2 I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?
3 I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.
4 I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:
5 I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits:
6 I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:
7 I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:
8 I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
9 So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
10 And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor.
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.”

This is the futility/anwe Paul says the new creations experience.

Hear verse 20 again:

20 For the creature was made subject to futility, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Paul tells us that as new creatures we are made “subject” to these brushes with futility, meaning we are placed in the very position of them while here and in the flesh.

He says this transpires or occurs “not willingly,” meaning that we are not forcing ourselves to feel empty and futile, but, he says,

“ . . . by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.”

What does this wording mean?

I think it is saying that “by the reasons or ways of God” believers have been subjected to anwe in the same way they are subjected to hope.

Hope for what? A better world, a better existence, a better relationship with God and each other – all enhanced, so to speak, but having to exist in a state of ennui until it comes.

Remember the three losses Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount

Blessed are the poor in SPIRIT . . .
Blessed are they that MOURN
Blessed are the MEEK.

All of this is God’s way of transitioning our souls and selves by expectation to His eternal Kingdom. And in this process we are blessed with the internal knowledge of what is real, what is lasting, what is of value, and what will go with us beyond our flesh.

In the presence of this futile world, we know instinctively that because of life by and through Christ a better place awaits.

Listen to what Paul had to say about His own perspective in Philippians 1:21-24:

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Neverthe-less to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”

Interestingly, we have to note, as we will be told by Paul in a few verses from here, that while New Creatures in Christ CERTAINLY experience futility in the world in which we live – so do those who have yet to come to know the Lord!

In fact, the whole world roils to some extent in this state of despair and futility.

So, while we as believers experience and enhanced form of it by comparison of the glory within us, we at least are possessors of a gift that offers a solution, a hope, and a genuine place to look as we sojourn through our lives.

The world does not – and so it experiences existential despair, knowing, like our philosophers have so vividly pointed out, that in the end nothing really matters.

We can fool ourselves, and we can surround ourselves with ornaments and facades, but the fact of the matter is, we know that death is certain, and we cannot take much with us.

Apparently, the Lord allows His children to tarry in this condition because while we do find life at times unbearable, we at least have something real and good and true to look forward to, and this antidote soothes the inward heart while we wait.

I would also suggest that while we continue to experience futility with the world and the things in it as believers, the Lord allows us to remain as a means to keep the world from total corruption.

Recall how the Lord defined His apostles in Matthew 5:13 when he said to them:

“Ye are the salt of the earth.” Salt, of course, is a preservative which serves to stave off corrosion, decay, and disease.

And then in the next verse He added:

(Matthew 5:14 “Ye are the light of the world.”)

Like salt, light keeps the mold, the decay at bay.

So, in His goodness and wisdom, God does not remove believers from this hopeless world in trinkets and amusements but allows us to stay, to hope in expectation, to share this hope with others, and to simultaneously serve as a preservative to an otherwise indifferent and decaying world.

I believe in this hope, this expectation and the value of it. I choose it daily as I too am riddled with anwe – also on a daily basis. In my punk teens, and my religious twenties and thirties, I read the philosophers and deeply related with the meaninglessness of life from a philosophical position. And I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord who shined a light in my heart that pointed straight back to Him.

In verse 21 Paul offers some words of encouragement to this whole idea – actually, it is a promise. Listen to it carefully to what this wonderful passage conveys as he says

21 Because the creature itself (the new creation in Christ) shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

I cannot tell you how I long to be delivered from the bondage of corruption and into the GLORIOUS LIBERTY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

Do you love liberty? The ultimate fountain of such in this life is Christ, for where the Spirit of Christ is there is Liberty, and the ultimate experience of it in the future is Christ and His Kingdom.

There is liberty in love. There is captivity in all of its alternatives. If you want to be truly free and unencumbered, LOVE as Christ loved.

Listen to Paul again at verse 21 where he writes, speaking of the Children of God:

21 Because the creature itself (the new creation in Christ) shall also be delivered . . .from the bondage of corruption . . . and into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Do you believe it?
To believe it means you are living by faith.
Do you expect it?
To expect it means you are living by hope.
Do you live it?
To live it means you are embracing love here as a warm up to the Kingdom there.

Faith, hope, and love.

Now take a minute and listen to verse 22, where Paul says:

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

In verses 19-21 Paul was speaking of believers and their experience as New Creations in Christ.

But in verse 22 he adds something I think is good that we remember as believers . . . that is, we are not alone in feeling empty, futile, and without a purpose. And we have a solution to the anwe that engulfs the world.

Speaking to this almost universal sense of existential angst, Greg Graffin, a favorite singer/songwriter of mine, penned the following words:

desolate and without purpose
radiating from so many septic sources
forming the fabric of a wayward people
disappearing as the vestiges of our past

scratched like tartan into virgin soil
a substrate for progress and disarray
a spreading network of broken dreams
searching for a thoroughfare to take us away

Those of a truly older generation will recall these famous lyrics about the human condition from singer Peggy Lee:

“Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends,
then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is”

Poets and songwriters tap deeply into this self-existent fact Paul brought to the forefront of earthly existence nearly two-thousand years ago writing

“that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

There is, however, an important distinction that needs to be pointed out here.

In verses 19-21 Paul, uses the word creature and is speaking of New Creations in Christ.

Then here in verse 22, he uses the word Creation, and is speaking of the whole world in general.

I mention this because the Greek word is the same.

But we know he is speaking of two very different creations because of the first line of verse 23 where he writes:

23 And not only they, (Paul says) but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit . . .

So back in verse 22 Paul points out that all of creation, because of the fall, “. . . groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

This is an extremely bleak description of human existence.

“that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

Where he says “until now,” it is thought he was just speaking a truth – the whole creation had, up until that point, groaned and travailed in pain together – and that it would continue to groan and travail in the ages to come.

I think that we can read it this way, even though some suggest that the “until” line is somehow inferring that Paul was trying to tell us that world pain and groaning were somehow altered around that point in time (meaning by Christ’s suffering and death) which took care of law but I don’t think this is so.

What is interesting about these passages for me is Paul does not suggest, and neither did Jesus promise, to remove believers from the pain the ennui, or the angst, or the pain of living in their mortal bye.

He did not heal everyone before ascending nor did he fix the problems of poverty, pain, or starvation. He offered a spiritual salvo to a world that would,because of our first material parents, forever writhe in pain.

Anyone that promise a sure remedy from such pangs are drug dealers, or people with something to sell.

But in the records of Christ, He promised peace that was not of this world, and rest from the cares and weight of it – even though we remain in it.

Here, Paul promises something too.

“Hope.”

Yes, the hope floats amidst pain and suffering and in lives of futility. But like Oscar Wilde once wrote:

“We are all in the gutter, but some are looking at the stars.”

Referring to the suffering world, Paul gives us our last verse for the day, saying:

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Not only the creation in general but all of us believers too, who long, and groan, and wait for the reality of our adoption to play out before us in full, which will be realized upon our resurrection from the physical bodies which we inhabit now.

Here, Paul describes us as possessing “the first-fruits of the Spirit.” This is in reference to the believers then being adopted by Him and therefore being His first among many.

In the Old Testament, the very first fruits (like the first born animals) were God’s.

So possessing “the first fruits of the Spirit” is in my opinion possessing that which makes those then His. Today, we are not possessors of the “first fruits of the Spirit,” but we are not one whit less expectant, not one whit less Sons and Daughters, and not one whit less children in His Family.

“even we ourselves,” Paul says, “groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

Groaning, enduring, hoping, we, being His, look “earnestly” – amidst our pains, our ennui, our vision about what this world is all about – we, within ourselves, wait for the full blessings of our adoption to be made clear, which will be complete at the resurrection of our former selves into His kingdom.

Questions/Comments/Prayer