Chapter # 8 Paragraph # 3 Study # 4
April 23, 2017
Humble, Texas

• I. The Entire Creation Is Suffering.
  • A. Paul claims that it is common knowledge (oidamen).
  • B. He casts this "suffering" as two issues.
    • 1. The first is a verb that has only two attested uses in Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon; an apparently rare word.
      • a. The combination of the compiler (sun -- together with) with a verb that arises from the idea of a very narrow (strait) place gives a meaning similar to "tribulation" as a concept of being put under significant pressure. The definitions given imply that there is an accompanying audible, or, at least, a barely restrained audible, reaction to the situation.
      • b. There is the suggestion that the meaning is that all the parts of the whole of creation are in this together and are giving some indication of the pain involved.
      • c. He does not go into any illustration(s) of his claim (how does the creation "groan"?).
    • 2. The second is a verb that uses the same compiler as a prefix to the verb for a woman's painful labor to bring forth her child. This also is a rare word to the New Testament (Paul's use in this text is the only time it is found), and the reason may well be that it is very difficult for a woman to share her travailing so that someone could be said to be "travailing together". But, since his view seems to be that the whole creation with all of its parts is "travailing together", it may well be that he sees the "birth pangs" and "labor" as involving the whole woman, all of her parts, and her baby as well.
      • a. Here Paul intensifies the reality that being in bondage to corruption is greatly and sharply painful.
      • b. There is, in this word, at least the implication that the creation is "laboring with child" to bring forth something worth all the effort. Since Paul has said that the suffering is leading to the freedom of the children (the "born ones") of The God, it seems that his thesis is that the entire creation is working together with God to bring about the ultimate destruction of the chaos of corruption.
  • C. Paul's "until the present time" indicates that this groaning and travailing has been going on for a long time and that process is active even in this present moment.
• II. An Additional Set of Sufferers.
  • A. Paul's "all of creation", apparently, did not mean the human element, or, at least, a segment of the human element.
  • B. He says that "not only" the whole creation, but also... .
    • 1. He seemed to imply that at least some would think that "believers" who are indwelt by the Spirit of God are exempted.
    • 2. He squashes that notion with his emphatic "but also we ourselves".
      • a. The "we ourselves" is defined as "those having The Spirit" as a "first-fruit" of the inheritance.
      • b. Then he emphatically writes "we also ourselves within ourselves".
    • 3. Our groaning, he writes, is caused by the lack of fulfillment of the promise of the "adoption".
      • a. He then defines the "adoption" as "the redemption of the body". This denies what we have often claimed ("we are adopted sons"). We are awaiting that reality.
      • b. This "lack of fulfillment" is undercut in a small way by the actual indwelling presence of The Spirit. The idea of "a small way" is no denigration of the Spirit and His blessing to us by His presence, but it is simply rooted in the declaration that the inheritance to come is so enormously fantastic that no experience in the present is "worthy to be compared" to it. Just as the first fruits of a harvest are a small sampling of the entire harvest, so the gift of the Spirit is an introduction to a massive harvest reality promised in the inheritance, upon which we wait.
• III. The Actual Nature of The Adoption.
  • A. Paul is clear: the adoption is, epexegetically, the redemption of the body.
    • 1. In the Law of Moses, the focus was upon outer man blessings such as health, bountiful harvests, the absence of barrenness both in wives and herds and flocks, plentiful rain, etc.
    • 2. These bountiful blessings did not produce a godly nation. Rather, the nation became arrogant, smug, and idolatrous.
    • 3. Thus, in the New Covenant, the blessings are blessings of The Spirit and the body is pretty much ignored.
    • 4. But, there is a plan to bring redemption to the whole man when the body is redeemed.
  • B. The strong implication is that the fallen body is a major player in the depravity of humanity and stands as a strong adversary to any who would live godly in Christ Jesus. Paul even claimed that he had to beat his body into submission in order to keep from being shelved by God in regard to his apostolic commission. Peter agrees by telling us that the lusts of the body war against the soul.
• IV. The Impact of Hope.
  • A. We were saved.
    • 1. The verb is Aorist, Passive, a past event affecting us.
    • 2. The qualifier is either "by" (Authorized Version) The Hope, or "in" (NASB) The Hope.
      • a. Earlier, in 8:20, Paul had written that the creation was subjected to the bondage to corruption "upon hope". He meant that The Hope was promised before the subjection occurred so that the subjected were to rest "upon Hope" as they deal with the realities of the forces of corruption which, in our current text, are rooted in their unredeemed physical bodies of flesh and blood.
      • b. There are only two texts in the New Testament where "saved" and "hope" are used in the same verse: our current text and Acts 27:20. In neither of these texts is "hope" the effective agent of salvation. In every place in the Bible, it is "faith" that saves and "hope" is the result of that "believing". When we "believe", God justifies and we begin to "hope".
      • c. Thus, Paul is simply going back to his earlier thesis that the creation was given "hope" at the time of its "subjection" to corruption as a way for it to exist "hopefully" in spite of the suffocating corruption. When we were "saved", we were given "The Hope".
  • B. BUT
    • 1. Hope's very essence is the absence of the promised results in the present time.
      • a. No one "hopes" for what is already on site and visible.
      • b. No one "hopes" for what he/she already possesses.
    • 2. If, however, we do not presently possess the promised result, but believe that it is coming, we eagerly await its arrival.