Commentary - Romans 8:18-25

Bird's-eye view

In this majestic portion of Romans 8, the Apostle Paul lifts our chins from the muck and mire of our present afflictions and directs our gaze to the horizon of ultimate glory. He performs a kind of divine accounting, placing all the "sufferings of this present time" on one side of the ledger and the "glory that is to be revealed" on the other, and declares it's no contest. The glory outweighs the suffering so completely as to make it unworthy of comparison. But this is not a pie-in-the-sky escapism. Paul grounds this future hope in the solid reality of the created order itself. The entire cosmos, he argues, is personified as a pregnant woman, groaning in labor pains, eagerly awaiting the birth of a new creation. This cosmic anticipation is fixed upon a singular event: "the revealing of the sons of God." Our final adoption and the redemption of our bodies is the trigger for the liberation of all things. We, who have the Holy Spirit as a down payment, a "first fruits" of that future harvest, join in this universal groaning. Our present experience is one of hopeful, persevering tension, saved, but not yet fully realized; adopted, but waiting for the final paperwork on our bodies to clear. This passage is a profound theology of hope, rooting our personal salvation in the grand, cosmic plan of redemption that God is working out in Christ.

The central theme is the logic of hope in the midst of suffering. Paul doesn't dismiss the reality of pain; he contextualizes it. Our groans are not death rattles but birth pangs. The futility and corruption we see all around us, and feel in our own mortal bodies, is not the final word. It is a temporary condition, imposed by God Himself after the fall, with a built-in expiration date. The whole of creation is leaning forward, craning its neck in anticipation of the day when God's children are finally unveiled in glory, because its own freedom is tied to ours. This is a robust, creation-affirming eschatology that promises not the destruction of the material world, but its glorious renewal.

Outline

Context In Romans

Romans 8 is the absolute pinnacle of Paul's argument in this epistle. Having spent chapters 1-3 establishing the universal sinfulness of man, and chapters 4-5 explaining the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and chapters 6-7 detailing the believer's union with Christ and the struggle with indwelling sin, Paul now erupts into this great chapter of assurance. It begins with "no condemnation" (Rom 8:1) and ends with "no separation" (Rom 8:39). The section we are considering (vv. 18-25) is a crucial hinge in the chapter's argument. It connects the reality of our present suffering as followers of a crucified Lord with the absolute certainty of our future glorification. It answers the implicit question: "If we are truly adopted sons and heirs with Christ, why does our life still involve so much pain and struggle?" Paul's answer is that this suffering is not a sign of God's displeasure, but rather the birth pangs of the glory that is to come, a glory so immense it will renew not just us, but the entire created order.

Key Issues

The Groaning of a Pregnant World

Paul's imagery here is earthy, potent, and impossible to ignore. He tells us that the entire created order is groaning like a woman in labor. This is not the groan of despair or the rattle of a dying patient. It is the groan of anticipation, the painful but purposeful travail that precedes a birth. After Adam's fall, God subjected the creation to "futility" (Gen 3:17-19). Thorns and thistles, decay and death, predators and prey, this is the "bondage to corruption" under which the world now labors. But God did this "in hope." The curse was not the final word. It was a temporary straitjacket placed on creation, with the promise of a future liberation.

And what is the trigger for this liberation? It is the "revealing of the sons of God." At the final resurrection, when we are glorified and receive our redeemed bodies, we will be revealed for who we truly are in Christ. On that day, the curse will be lifted from the earth. The liberation of the sons of God means the liberation of the cosmos. Our destiny is inextricably linked with the destiny of the ground beneath our feet, the stars above our heads, and the animals in the field. This is why the whole creation is on tiptoe, craning its neck, waiting for us to finally come into our inheritance, because it gets to share in the spoils.

Verse by Verse Commentary

18 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.

Paul begins with a verb of accounting, logizomai. He has done the math. He has weighed the assets and liabilities. On one side of the scale, he places all the sufferings of this present age: persecution, sickness, disappointment, betrayal, and death itself. On the other side, he places the glory that is coming. And the scales don't just tip; the side with suffering flies up and bangs against the top. It is not worthy to be brought into the comparison. This future glory is not something we invent; it is a glory that "is to be revealed." It already exists, waiting for the curtain to be pulled back. And it is not just a glory we will see, but one that will be revealed "to us," or as some translations have it, "in us." We are not just spectators of this glory; we are the canvas upon which it will be displayed.

19 For the anxious longing of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

Here is the reason for his confidence. The hope for this glory is not just a private religious sentiment; it is written into the fabric of the cosmos. Paul personifies "the creation," picturing it with its head outstretched, like a crowd waiting for a king to appear. The Greek word for "anxious longing" (apokaradokia) is vivid; it means to watch with a craned neck. And what is it waiting for? The "revealing of the sons of God." Right now, we are sons of God, but it is not yet apparent (1 John 3:2). We look like everyone else. We get sick, we die, we sin. But a day is coming when our true identity as glorified, resurrected heirs of God will be publicly unveiled. The creation knows that its own destiny is tied to this unveiling, and so it waits.

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope

Why is creation in this state of eager waiting? Because it is currently in a state of "futility." This is a direct reference to the curse in Genesis 3. When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. The created order was subjected to a principle of frustration, decay, and death. It did not enter this state "willingly", it was a consequence of man's sin, not its own. It was God Himself who subjected it to this condition. But this subjection was not a final, punitive act. God subjected it "in hope." From the very moment of the curse, the promise of redemption was embedded within it. The futility was a temporary measure, pointing toward a future restoration.

21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

This is the content of the hope. The creation is currently enslaved to "corruption" or "decay." Everything is running down, falling apart, dying. But this slavery will end. The creation itself will be "set free." And what does this freedom look like? It is the "freedom of the glory of the children of God." Notice the tight connection. The creation's liberty is a participation in our liberty. When we are fully and finally glorified, the creation gets to come along for the ride. This is not about escaping the material world to go to a disembodied heaven; this is about the redemption and glorification of the material world, ushered in by the glorification of God's people.

22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Paul drives the point home with another powerful image. The groaning of creation is not a death rattle; it is the cry of a woman in labor. The pain is intense, but it is productive. It is leading to a birth. Every earthquake, every hurricane, every disease, every act of predation in the animal kingdom is, in a sense, a contraction. The world is pregnant with the new heavens and the new earth, and it is groaning in its longing to deliver. This has been the state of things "until now," and it continues.

23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

We are not detached observers of this cosmic groaning; we are participants in it. We also groan. But our groaning is unique because we have the "first fruits of the Spirit." The Holy Spirit dwelling in us is the down payment, the first installment of the future harvest of glory. He is the guarantee that the rest of the inheritance is coming. Having tasted the future, we long for it all the more. We groan "within ourselves," a deep, internal longing. And what are we waiting for? Our "adoption as sons." But didn't Paul just say we were sons? Yes, but our adoption has two stages. We have the legal status of sons now, but we await the full, experiential reality of that sonship, which he defines as "the redemption of our body." Our bodies are still subject to decay and death. The final step of our salvation is when these mortal bodies are raised, glorified, and made immortal, like Christ's glorious body.

24 For in hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees?

This groaning tension is the very essence of our current Christian experience. We "were saved" in hope. Our salvation is a past-tense, accomplished fact. But its full realization is still in the future, and so we grasp it by hope. Paul then gives us a crucial definition of hope. Hope, by its very nature, deals with the unseen. If you can see something, you don't need to hope for it; you have it. You don't hope for the chair you are sitting on. Hope is the confident expectation of a future reality that is not yet visible.

25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we eagerly wait for it.

This is the practical outworking of our hope. Because our ultimate salvation, the redemption of our bodies and the liberation of creation, is not yet seen, our posture must be one of waiting. But this is not a passive, listless waiting. We wait "eagerly," just as creation does. And we wait "with perseverance." The time between the "already" of our justification and the "not yet" of our glorification is filled with the "sufferings of this present time." Hope is the muscle that enables us to persevere through those sufferings, knowing that the glory on the other side is certain and will make all our present troubles seem like a light and momentary affliction.

Application

This passage ought to revolutionize how we think about suffering. Our trials are not random, meaningless events. They are part of the groaning. When your body aches, when your heart breaks, when you look at the news and see a world writhing in futility, you are hearing the birth pangs of the new creation. This perspective does not eliminate the pain, but it infuses it with purpose and hope. We are not to be stoics, pretending it doesn't hurt. We are to groan, but we are to groan in hope, like a woman who knows that the agony of labor will give way to the joy of a child.

Secondly, this gives us a robust, biblical environmentalism. We are not Gnostics who despise the material world and long to escape it. This world is our Father's world, and though it is currently under a curse, it is destined for glorious liberation. Our hope is not for the annihilation of creation, but for its redemption. This should lead us to treat the created order with dignity and care, not as something to be exploited and discarded, but as the future inheritance that we will share with Christ.

Finally, we must learn to live in the tension of hope. We have the first fruits of the Spirit. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. This taste of future glory should make us long for the full feast. It should make us groan for the day when our bodies are redeemed and sin and death are no more. Let us not grow so comfortable in this present age that we forget to groan. Let us live as those who are eagerly waiting for something better, persevering through hardship, confident that the glory to be revealed will make it all worthwhile.