What does the whole creation include in Romans 8?
In Romans 8, the whole creation includes rocks, rivers, trees, birds, fish, and animals, as well as believers. It groans and travails in pain together, awaiting the day when the curse is lifted; believers, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, also look forward to the Lord’s coming.
Les explains that the whole creation in Romans 8 includes the rocks, rivers, trees, birds, fish, and animals, as well as believers. Romans 8:22 says the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Most of creation, like the cottontail, is under constant duress, searching for food and trying to avoid being food—what is called ecology—but that is not how God intended it. Verse 23 adds that not only they, the things of nature, but believers also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, await the Lord’s coming. Only believers can anxiously look forward to it; the unbeliever shrinks from it and is not ready. Les adds that the world is moving faster toward the final moment when Christ will intervene and set things straight.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.