Groaning for Deliverance

We are in the midst of a short aside (vv. 18–25) in which Paul is expanding on the glorious inheritance that awaits God’s people. In the passage we considered yesterday, Paul showed that the deliverance of believers is only one part of God’s overall plan of redemption, and he presented the intriguing image of the universe eagerly waiting for its own deliverance from the corruption of sin. In today’s verses, he adds another image. Creation, he writes, is like a woman in the midst of childbirth. She groans because of her travail, longing for it to end, but she endures because she knows that it will not last forever and that joy will follow the pain.

Believers, Paul adds, are no different. We, too, “groan within ourselves” as we endure the inevitable sufferings that come upon followers of Christ. But it’s not just the end of suffering that we anticipate. We have been given an “earnest” of our divine inheritance, a down payment of sorts that guarantees we will receive the rest—the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit whets our appetites for all the blessings of heaven. And so, like a woman in childbirth, we also groan, awaiting the day when we will be delivered from the corruption of sin. Like creation, we are “eagerly waiting,” Paul writes. He goes on to explain that we are waiting for “the adoption,” which is initially confusing, because Paul has stated that adoption is something that already has happened to us (8:15). However, the context makes clear that Paul is speaking of our final adoption, or the completion of our adoption, which will be “the redemption of our body.” The resurrection and transformation of our physical bodies will be the final step in our redemption, the step we call glorification. “We are our bodies, as well as our spirits. . . Therefore, salvation must include our bodies if it is to be complete,” Dr. James M. Boice notes in his Romans commentary.

“We were saved in this hope,” Paul writes, speaking of the expectation that God will complete the process of redemption. No, we haven’t seen this step in the process yet; God has yet to bring it to pass. Nevertheless, the process has begun and God has promised to finish it (Col. 1:27; Titus 2:13). Thus, we wait for it eagerly, enduring all the hardships that come our way with the perseverance God supplies through His Holy Spirit. Ours is a biblical hope, certain and sure.