◄ What Does Romans 8:22 Mean? ►

What a dismal, desolate, distressing, and despairing world we live in. This sad state of affairs was implemented because Adam, who was the federal head of the very race that was made in God's lovely image, disobeyed his Creator's instructions and wilfully sinned.

But man's sin not only brought a curse upon humanity as a whole, but on the animals, birds, fish, flowers, and fauna alike. The very earth was cursed as God's entire creation, both the animate and the inanimate, was catapulted into catastrophe as the icy fingers of death touched everything in its ruinous path.

The close interconnection of man with the rest of God's creation was established from the beginning, for we read that God made man out of the dust of the earth. But Adam's sin had consequences that reached into every part of God's creation.

But God in His grace had formulated a plan of redemption before Adam's destructive decision to disobey his God, which not only returned man into fellowship with his Creator by faith, but also would one day pour its healing balm over the rest of God's groaning creation.

Just as we who are saved by grace through faith and have been made a new creation in Christ, await the full the final consummation of our new birth (when our mortal bodies put on immortality and corruption is replaced with incorruption), so too the creation itself awaits in eager expectation for that day when God's curse on creation will be finally lifted. Creation itself was brutally subjected to frustration, bondage, corruption, and decay due to man's sinful rebellion, and creation continues to groan and suffer under God's curse until it too is liberated from its bondage to decay. Indeed, Paul reminds us that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until that day.

Although as Christians we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ and made part of the new creation, we continue to live in a fallen, 'earthy' body of flesh and blood and await that day when we will be fully and finally 'adopted' as glorified sons of God with a new body of flesh and bone, made like unto Christ's resurrection body. As such, we await that day when hope will be translated into sight and we shall be clothed in our eternally redeemed bodies.

In the same way, the cursed creation eagerly awaits the day when it will also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. And the Bible tells us that this will happen when we, as God's adopted children, are made manifest to the world.

Until that time, the whole of creation will continue to groan and suffer the increasingly intense 'labour pains' of childbirth. But the day is fast approaching when Christ will come in the clouds of glory to set up His kingdom on earth. On that day all His holy ones will accompany Him in their resurrected bodies, and creation itself will be healed.

Praise God that in eternity past God laid out His plan of redemption for fallen man, which even included the renewal of the cursed earth, such that the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

Heavenly Father, thank You that in Christ, I have been made a new creation. Thank You that the day is coming, when the curse on the whole of Your groaning creation will be lifted. Until that time, I pray that I may live and work to Your praise and glory. In Jesus' name I pray, AMEN.