Articulating Our Faith
Romans 8 – Part II
“Future Glory”
a. God’s work in Christ reverses the plight of man vividly portrayed in Romans 1-3
i. The downward spiral of human beings: a description of total depravity and the fall (Romans 1:18-32)
ii. The loss of “glory” – All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23, amplified by Romans 3:1-11), and therefore the need to restore the glory that had been lost.
iii. Righteousness is necessary to restore what has been lost: a right relationship with God on account of sin/death coming into the world (Romans 4, Abraham is the model of how a right relationship will be restored, “by faith”)
iv. The notion of Christ coming to restore what was lost in Adam: Romans 5:18-19
v. Reference Colossians 1:27 “Christ in us the hope of glory”.
vi. The suffering of the righteous with glorious vindication is well attested in Jewish thought prior to Paul (for example Daniel 7:17-27)
1. Jewish thought: end time = primal time.
2. Genesis 1 is both a first and last picture.
3. Acts 3:21= God will restore everything.
b. Paul brings together the ideas of present suffering and coming glory in Romans 8:18-38.
i. Paul has in view the entirety of the created order has experienced a fall, and needs to be restored to glory
ii. The creation was subjected to Adam (genesis), Adam fell, and so the creation became subjected to fallen human beings, and so itself was subjected to “futility”. ‘ (Romans 8:18-20)
iii. Creation needs to be redeemed so that redeemed humans will have a fitting place to live.
1. Futility=not functioning as God intended.
2. The creation is to be redeemed, just as the body is to be redeemed. New bodies, new creation.
3. Physical body = decay = death, need for resurrection
4. Creation = decay = death, need for resurrection
Articulating Our Faith
Romans 8 – Part II
“Future Glory” (page 2)
b. What first fruits implies:
1. Harvest has already come because the first fruits were the first sheaves of the harvest
2. The harvest is the whole of which the first fruits are a first small part.
3. The first fruits are a piece of the whole: hence the continuity between the first of the Spirit, his work in the believer, and the final product of resurrection.
4. The harvest begun by Christ’s resurrection is already under way.
c. The Role of Spirit within us as a testimony to the coming glory (Romans 8:26-27):
i. The groaning in our selves is the expression of the overlap of living in the present reality with the hope of what is to come. The experience of living between the now and the not yet.
ii. The Spirit actually intensifies the dichotomy between the now and the not yet. The Spirit evidences that there is a struggle, brings it to our attention, and therefore actually ushers in the great awareness of suffering. It is as if the Spirit brings to our minds the reality of what is actually happening, and thus de-anesthetizes us from the stupor of being in an unredeemed state.
iii. The Spirit shoulders the burden with us while we wait in hope.
iv. The idea is that we do not know what to pray for, not that we don’t know how to pray. The tension created by the experience of living between the now and the not yet is such that we do not know God’s will for this or that. The force of the verbs suggest that we do not know what we need at any given time, and therefore we do not know exactly what to pray for, hence the need for the Spirit’s assistance.
v. The sighs too deep for words do not suggest angelic language, but rather the inability to put into words the reality of our own condition in relationship to God’s will.
vi. The Spirit “uncloaks” us. We are comforted by the fact that though the Spirit we are able to come before God in a completely dependent way.
Romans 8 – Part II
“Future Glory” (page 2)
vii. This passage has to do with the Spirit working in our weakest moment, not our finest hour.
1. The work translated “inarticulate groaning” or “groaning that words cannot express” has to do with reverting to the level of the created order where we do not have the language that differentiates us from animals or other parts of creation that do not have speech.
2. The idea is that we are completely dependent upon God, without anything to recommend ourselves.
viii. Here the Spirit is not enabling “bold” prayer, but rather “being bold for us” in our weakness.
ix. In I Corinthians 2:10-11, the Spirit searches the mind of God. Here, God is searching the mind of the Spirit that is hidden in our heart and known only to God.
x. In accordance with God’s will = in accordance with how God would act in us.
xi. God’s purpose works out in voluntary obedience. Coerced love is not love.
b. God’s purpose: Ephesians 3:11, 1:11, 2 Timothy 1:9 and Romans 9:11-- God’s people have assurance of their place in God’s plan. The view includes all whom God has included in his plan Jew and Gentile.
d. God’s purpose in Christ is in getting us back to where Adam was supposed to be before the fall—reflecting the Glory of God. So we become conformed to the image of God and share in the glory that we lost as sinners where we fell “short” of the glory of God. Christ is the one who shares in the glory of God and as we become conformed to the image of Jesus, we share in the glory of God, which is why we were created in the first place.