What are believers and all creation looking forward to in Romans 8?
Romans 8 teaches that believers and the whole creation look forward to the day when the curse will be lifted. Creation groans under duress, while believers, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, anxiously await the Lord’s coming, when Christ will intervene in human history and set things straight.
Les explains from Romans 8 that the whole creation—rocks, rivers, trees, birds, fish, and animals—along with believers is looking forward to the day when the curse will be lifted. In verse 22 he points out that creation groans and travails in pain, under constant duress as it searches for food and tries to protect itself from being food, which he calls ecology, not the way God intended it. Then in verse 23, Les notes that the text includes “ourselves also,” meaning believers who have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Only believers can anxiously look forward to the Lord’s coming, while the unbeliever shrinks from it because he is not ready. Les adds that the world is moving faster toward the final moment when Christ will intervene in human history and set things straight.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
More Questions
What does 'whole creation' include in Romans 8:22?
When Paul says 'whole creation' in Romans 8:22, he means everything—flowers, birds, trees, the animal kingdom, and rocks—not just man.