There Is a Hope…

Our study this evening will be found on page 800 in the pew Bibles. That’s Romans chapter 8. But before we turn to Romans chapter 8, I would like to read from Isaiah 65, which is on page 532 of the pew Bibles. So we’re going to be in Romans chapter 8, which is page 800, but we’re starting on page 532, because it’s there you will find Isaiah 65:17.

And Isaiah 65:17 reads:

“Behold, I will create
 new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
 nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
 in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
 and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
 and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
 will be heard in it no more.

“Never again will there be in it
 an infant who lives but a few days,
 or an old man who does not live out his years;
he who dies at a hundred
 will be thought a mere youth;
he who fails to reach a hundred
 will be considered accursed.
They will build houses and dwell in them;
 they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
 or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
 so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
 the works of their hands.
They will not toil in vain
 or bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
 they and their descendants with them.
Before they call I will answer;
 while they[’re] still speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
 and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
 but dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
 on all my holy mountain,”
 says the Lord.

And then we turn to page [800], to Romans chapter 8, and from verse 22:

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Now, we’re going to stop at verse 25, or sooner, depending on how the time goes, but you will notice that there is a third groaning that begins there and is recorded in verse 26. To that we will come later on. But in this section between 18 and right through 27, Paul is identifying the location of this groaning. To “groan,” says the dictionary, is to utter a deep, mournful sound expressing either pain or desire. A groan is a deep sound expressing pain or desire.

Creation Groans

And so we notice first of all, in verses 20‒22, what he tells us concerning creation itself: “The whole creation,” he says, “has been groaning.” And the reason for this is because it has been “subjected to futility,”[1] or, as it says in the NIV, it has been “subjected,” verse 20, “to frustration.” And this is a reference to what happened in the garden of Eden following the disobedience of Adam. And in Genesis chapter 3, which you can reread for yourselves in following up this study, we read:

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, [you are cursed]” ….

[And] to Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
 through painful toil you will eat of it
 all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
 and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
 you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
 since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
 and to dust you will return.”[2]

And that expression of the curse of God as an expression of judgment on the rebellion and sin of men and women is, says Romans 8, the significance and the reason for the groaning of creation.

And when you think about literature throughout the ages―thoughtful literature, both in books and in plays―this is a recurring theme. The explanation for it varies with the author, but the fact of it is undeniable. And so, for example, and classically in Shakespeare, in act 5 and scene 5 in Hamlet, he refers to the fact that “all our yesterdays have light…” No, he doesn’t. In Macbeth, he highlights the fact that “all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”[3] And the dust of death settles on all of our endeavors—even the best of our endeavors. And when people are honest concerning this, if they are prepared to really face up to it, then it will impinge upon them with almost a paralyzing impact.

I’ve said to you before that Woody Allen is the poster boy for nihilism, for the notion of emptiness without purpose. And in Esquire magazine, May 1977, which is in my file, on pages 75 and following, he says, “The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and against death. It’s absolutely stupefying in its terror, and it renders [every]one’s accomplishments meaningless.”[4] What an amazing expression of futility and of frustration!

That was 1977. Now it’s 2010. Did you read the interview with him in the Wall Street this past week, on the fifteenth, when they were asking him about the release of his latest movie? Forty-two films this man has made, not one of them with a modicum of hope in it at all. Even the humor is the darkest of humor. His latest film, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, is not about what we might think in the notion of romance and a girl finally meeting someone that would embrace her life and make it meaningful and significant. But the tall dark stranger that is to be met in his movie is none other than the tall dark stranger of death.

And this week, in interviewing him, the questioner said, “You’ve often said that you make movies to take your mind off the meaninglessness of existence, yet most of your movies dwell on that very issue. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

Says Allen, “It’s an obsession with me and I can’t keep it out of my films. But the process of making films is so technically demanding that it’s a distraction.”

“But,” says the interviewer, “when you’re sitting in your room writing the script, you have to confront this stuff, no?”

Allen: “There are technical problems to that too, but I do spend a lot of time in morbid introspection.”

Interviewer: “You’ve been very firm in your beliefs about this dead-end life. When did you arrive at that realization and make peace with it?”

Allen:

I’ve never made peace with it. That’s my problem. My mother told me I was a very sweet kid when I was very little. But at 5 or 6, I turned into a nasty kid. I always feel that it was a reaction to becoming aware, and that I have never come to terms with it. I could never just be thankful. I think we’re getting a raw deal and I can’t reconcile myself to it. People say that death is a part of life and there must be something to it, but I just see it as bad news and I want everybody to stop sugarcoating it. Then maybe we can figure out how to deal with the problem.[5]

What are we trying to do? We’re trying to fuse the horizon of a secular mindset―the human context―and the divine content. Every day that you live your life, this is what you’re doing: you’re bringing the Scriptures to bear upon the issues of the day in such a way that you manage to “work out [your] own salvation with fear and trembling.”[6] And when everything appears to be crumbling and disintegrating and just absolutely meaningless in the things you’re reading, you need to go back and say, “Now, wait a minute! Romans 8 actually answered this question for me. I discovered in there that actually, the whole creation is groaning. There is a reason for this. And furthermore, I discovered,” notice, “that God is responsible, and he subjected creation in hope.” “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up [until this promised] time,” and he has done this not that it happened “by its own choice,” verse 20, “but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope.”

In other words, the present circumstance, state of creation, is not the end of the story. And that’s why when you go to the final book of the Bible, you discover that what God is doing then in a new heaven and a new earth is radically different. So Revelation 22:3, as he describes the throne of God, in the middle of this context, he says, “And no longer will there be any curse.” “There’ll not be any more curse! Because I’m making all things new.”[7] Creation therefore, he says, is going to be set free. Set free from what? Notice verse 21: “liberated from its bondage to decay.” Liberated from the endless cycle, the endless tyranny, of change and decay. The hymn writer puts it—and it is sung, amazingly, at the FA Cup Final in England. Since the wartime, they’ve been singing the hymn that has the line in it, “Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me.”[8] That’s the name of the hymn. And why is a man or a woman able to acknowledge that? Because you don’t need a Bible to know it! The Bible will explain it, but life unfolds it.

God, if you like, has imposed upon his creation a temporary restraining order. He can lift it at any moment. I think that’s the significance of Jesus saying to the people, when the Pharisees come and say, “Your disciples are making a dreadful hullabaloo; we would like you to tell them to stop”—remember what he says? “If they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.”[9] The only reason they don’t cry out is because he has imposed a temporary restraining order. When he removes the restraining order, then all will be radically different.

And so, when we look at our world ecologically, as we said this morning, we can share the concerns of others about a creation that is subject to decay. We can share their concerns about pollution and about destruction without sharing their explanation of the problem and not necessarily sharing their solution to the problem.

Creation is going to be set free from its bondage to decay, and it’s going to obtain a special kind of freedom, at the end of verse 21: it’s going to be “brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” That’s why I read Isaiah 65. And when Peter, on the day of Pentecost, preaches concerning all that God has done, he makes a very interesting statement in the application of his sermon. I’ll quote it to you from Acts 3:19: “Repent, then,” he says,

and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you―even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

You see what he’s saying? “If you’ll go back,” he says, “and read what the prophets said, it finds its fulfillment in the work of Christ. And this same Jesus is going to be in heaven until the time comes for him to bring about the restoration that is anticipated in the prophetic word.” And on that occasion, the dwelling of God becomes a reality―a reality to which the temple and the tabernacle had pointed.

And that, I think, is the significance of Revelation chapter 21, where it says in Revelation 21,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, … there was no longer any sea. [And] I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. [And] they will be his people, and … [he] will … be their God. [And] he will wipe every tear from their [eye],”[10]

and so on. All the way through the focus was on the temple; it was on the tabernacle. But on that day, when the dwelling of God is with men, then there will be no need for those things. It will be direct contact. And the reason that there is groaning can only be explained in these terms. Because these groans are not the cries, ultimately, of despair, but they’re the cries of expectation. And that’s why he uses the illustration of childbirth.

I have only been around for four births now, and I’ve been intrigued at every one of them and marvel at the bravery and fortitude of both of the girls involved. And there’s a fair amount of groaning goes on. And apparently, the way that creation groans is akin to the groans that you get in childbirth. I think I heard my wife saying today, this afternoon, in Skyping with our daughter who has the baby in San Francisco, “Well, you know, you can keep those little baby clothes, and you can use them for number two and number three.” I don’t know what Michelle said in response to that, but I think on the evening that she gave birth, she was perfectly content with just one. But I have a sneaking suspicion that all the joy that is wrapped up in this bundle has eradicated all those pains of childbirth. And so it’s perfectly natural that someone might say, “Yes, I think we should do that again.” So the groaning of creation, frustrated as it is, is a groaning that is an expectant groaning.

Creation groans.

The Christian Groans

Secondly, you will notice that the Christian groans: “Not only so,” verse 23, “but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit…” The presence of God’s Spirit within our lives creates a longing for “the redemption of our bodies.” The sighs of anticipation, the longings for consummation, are present not only in creation but also in the new creation: “If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation.”[11] And this anticipation is the eager expectation, groaning inwardly—verse 23—“eagerly [awaiting] our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

“But,” says somebody who’s still awake, “I thought we already noticed that the adoption has taken place, that we have been adopted into God’s family. Wasn’t that the study a Sunday or so ago? How can it be that we’ve been adopted into God’s family, according to verse 15, and yet we’re still awaiting the adoption of sons?” Well, the explanation is straightforward: the present reality also has a future dimension, in the same way that John, for example, in 1 John 3 says, “Now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when we see him, we will be like him.”[12] Our mortal body, which is frail and fallen, is going to be changed.

The groaning of creation, frustrated as it is, is a groaning that is an expectant groaning.

At the funeral service on Tuesday, as Pastor Larison and I stood there at the scene in the graveyard, the words of committal were spoken: “For as much as it pleased Almighty God to receive unto himself the soul of our brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground, ashes to ashes and dust to dust”―and here comes the line―“in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our mortal body,” or our earthly body, “that it may be like unto his glorious body according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.” “For in this tent we groan, longing,” says Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, “to put on our heavenly dwelling.”[13] Not that we wish to be naked, he says. We don’t want to be unclothed; we want to be clothed.[14] Camping’s okay, but nobody really fancies it as a permanent dwelling place. And in 7:24, Paul has been saying, “Who is going to relieve me from this body of death?”[15] And, of course, the answer is, “I will,” says Jesus. “I[’m] the resurrection and the life.”[16]

“But,” someone says, “do we have any proof, any validity to this claim that we’re going to have a new body? What hope do we have of a new body?” Well, the answer is in the resurrection of Jesus. This is why constantly people seek to undermine the truth of the resurrection. Because if you cut the foundation away in relationship to the resurrection, none of us have any basis upon which to have any kind of hope beyond the framework of our time-bound existence.

But there isn’t a single page of the New Testament that has been written apart from the fact of the resurrection. And as we said at Easter time, I think, we said we probably would never have heard of Jesus of Nazareth were it not for the resurrection. And that is why when we recite the creeds, as we do from time to time, part of what we say is, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”[17] “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” You see, there was nothing particularly revolutionary about an eternal soul. Hindus believe in an eternal soul. Buddhists do not believe in an eternal soul. But there’s nothing particularly special about the idea of an eternal soul. What is absolutely beyond comprehension is the fact of a risen Christ.

And if you want to get an inkling of what it’s going to be like to have a new body, then just read the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. And what do you find him doing? Lighting fires, cooking breakfast, eating fish. One moment he’s recognizable; the next minute he’s not. He comes into a room and leaves a room in a way that suggests that the physical boundaries of doors and walls are no longer necessary confinements.

Yes, but is it just a sort of strange and bizarre, a sort of science-fiction existence, you know, where it’s just moved into a strange, pristine, very white world, very clinical world, just like, you know, the cleanest hospital you’ve ever seen in the world and everybody in white and everyone just moving around? ’Cause that doesn’t sound that good, does it? I don’t think it is.

Isn’t it interesting that relationships mattered beyond the grave? Relationships mattered beyond the grave, and relationships will matter beyond the grave. It is after his resurrection that he gets with Peter and says to him, “Hey, Peter, do you love me?”[18] “Do you love me?” The resurrected Christ says, “I want to know if you love me. Your relationship is important to me.”

Chris Wright—of All Souls, erstwhile, in London—writes,

We can rest assured that, for those who are in Christ, anything that has blessed and enriched us in this life will not be lost but rather … infinitely enhanced in the resurrection, and anything we have not been able to enjoy in this life (because of disability, disease, or premature death—or simply through the natural limit[s] of [space] and [time]) will be amply restored or compensated for in the resurrection life.[19]

And it is “in this hope,” he says—verse 24—it is “in this hope we were saved”: the certain anticipation of “the redemption of our bodies.” Our salvation is characterized by hope. It’s one of the distinguishing features of the believer. Once we were without God and without hope.[20] Now we’ve been born again to a “living hope [by] the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”[21]

What we’re actually discovering here is that we’re not completely saved. Now, don’t throw your Bible at me. But we’re not completely saved, in the sense of Bishop Westcott, that we quote all the time, with the Salvation Army girl who asked him, “Hey, Bishop, is you saved?” And he replied, “Have I been saved, will I be saved, or am I being saved?”[22] What was he referencing? He was referencing this dimension of the now and the not yet. Paul has mentioned it himself in Romans 5: “Since [then] we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”[23]—that our justification is secure, our condemnation is removed (Romans 8:1), but our glorification is not yet. We still live in these mortal bodies. We still wage war against the world and the flesh.

Hope is a sure and certain reality not yet enjoyed. It is reserved. It is kept for us.

And verse 24 is straightforward, and we finish at verse 25: “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?”

Many of you travel a lot at the airport. I know, because I see you there. And I see people walking up and down to the desk. And what are they going up to inquire about? They’re going up to inquire about all kinds of things—usually, “Is there a spare seat open next to me, or do I have to sit in the middle of 29B all the way to wherever it is?” And the person says, “Well, there is a chance that, you know, 29C will be open. But just come back and see me just before we board the flight.” And then you just watch the person. He’s like a cat on a hot tin roof: he wants to go up, he doesn’t know if he’s going up, he’s coming back. And if the lady calls his name—“Ferguson, come to the desk!”—oh, he goes up a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. And then I can tell in an instant what’s happened. If it’s thumbs-up, he turns around with a big smile on his face: “Got a free seat next to me.” If it’s thumbs-down, he turns around, and he’s done. But as soon as she gives you that new boarding pass, and then you have it in your hand, you don’t have to hope anymore. Because who hopes for what he already has? There’s nothing to hope for. You’ve got it!

And what he’s saying here is, “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” What do we not yet have? We don’t have the joy of seeing Jesus face-to-face. We don’t have the joy of being set free from the bondage to decay which is part and parcel of our lives―hence our illnesses and our sicknesses and our disappointments and so on. There is a still yet more for us to enjoy in Christ. And that not yet dimension we have been born into. It’s not a hope like waiting for C to open up in row 29. Hope is a sure and certain reality not yet enjoyed. It is reserved. It is kept for us.

And in verse 23, we are “eagerly” awaiting, and in verse 25, we are “patiently” waiting. Some of us are pretty good at the eager waiting, and some of us are a little better at the patient waiting. And as you try and put those two things together, you come across a wonderful sentence like this from the inimitable John Stott, and this is what he says: “We are to wait neither so eagerly that we lose our patience, nor so patiently that we lose our expectation.”[24] Wouldn’t you like to write one sentence like that before you die? The balance is absolutely important, lest in overemphasizing the need for patience we become lethargic and apathetic and pessimistic―and I meet people like that, sadly, with relative frequency―or, in growing impatient, we seek somehow, as if we could, to force God’s hand.

Well, let’s pause and pray:

Gracious God, we humbly pray that you will give to us a patient eagerness and an eager patience as we await the fulfillment of all of your promises. And we pray that even through our experiences of disappointment and defeat and sadness, that because these groanings are a sign of life, that we might testify to the hope into which we have been born afresh, and that it may not only reinforce our walk with you but give us a basis upon which to tell others this glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

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[1] Romans 8:20 (ESV).

[2] Genesis 3:14, 17–19 (NIV 1984).

[3] William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.

[4] Woody Allen, “Woody Allen Wipes the Smile off His Face,” interview by Frank Rich, Esquire, May 1, 1977, https://classic.esquire.com/article/1977/5/1/woody-allen-wipes-the-smile-off-his-face.

[5] John Jurgensen, “Woody Allen on Death, Love and Financial Backing,” interview with Woody Allen, Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2010, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703743504575494033531680568.

[6] Philippians 2:12 (ESV).

[7] See Revelation 21:5.

[8] Henry Francis Lyte, “Abide with Me” (1847).

[9] Luke 19:40 (paraphrased).

[10] Revelation 21:1‒4 (NIV 1984).

[11] 2 Corinthians 5:17 (paraphrased).

[12] 1 John 3:2 (paraphrased).

[13] 2 Corinthians 5:2 (ESV).

[14] See 2 Corinthians 5:3‒4.

[15] Romans 7:24 (paraphrased).

[16] John 11:25 (NIV 1984).

[17] The Apostles’ Creed.

[18] John 21:15 (paraphrased).

[19] Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 211.

[20] See Ephesians 2:12.

[21] 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV 1984).

[22] See, for instance, Joseph Clayton, Bishop Westcott (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1906), 110–111.

[23] Romans 5:9 (NIV 1984).

[24] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1994), 243.