Romans

Take-Aways

How many times have we beheld a beautiful scene in nature and been overcome by a sense of certainty that there must be a creator? The Apostle Paul here states that by reflecting on God’s creation, we are drawn to the Creator. Who among those who profess faith in God can look at the majestic mountains or a radiant sunrise and not see evidence of God’s goodness and grace? If creation is one means by which we come to know God, does that imply any duty or obligation on our part to it? Do we see God in sky scrapers the same way we do in the ocean? Does it do anything to our perception of God, or ourselves, when we see creation despoiled?

New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary

God’s self-revelation has displayed what can be known; this revelation takes place in the created order, rendering all without excuse; humans have refused to honor God in the appropriate way.

These verses have had to bear the weight of debates about “natural theology” (the question of whether, and to what extent, the truth of God is accessible through the created order without the aid of special revelation). As with some other doctrines that have wandered to and fro seeking biblical support, this on has fastened upon certain brief passages, in this case the present one and a few others (notably Acts 17: 22-31, which has other affinities with this passage in Romans), none of which offers a full-dress exposition of the matter, but only an allusion on the way to making some other point. Nevertheless, however brief the statement, Paul clearly does believe that when humans look at creation they are aware, at some level, of the power and divinity of the creator. The problem, of course, is that this knowledge does not save those who possess it, but only renders them guilty. Paul does not say that saving knowledge of God may be had through observing the creation; nor, however, does he say that there is nothing that can be known of God that way. Indeed, granted his belief in the renewal of the human mind by grace, we must assume that in his view the Christian can indeed discern the truth of God by observing creation. But that is not his point here. IN fact, like several of his Jewish contemporaries, he believes – consonant with the Jewish belief that the world was made by a good creator – that signs of the creator are visible within this world (see, e.g., Wis 13:5). But these never permit humans to gain over the creator the kind of power that comes with knowledge. On the contrary, they are simply enough to ensure that when humans rebel – as they do – they are manifestly guilty.

The appropriate response to the divine self-revelation in creation would have been worship and thanksgiving. Instead, however, human thought became futile and foolish, and human hearts (not “minds” as NRSV, though the two ideas are not far apart in Paul) became darkened. This unfolding of the dense v. 18b prepares the way for vv. 22, 24-25 and above all vv. 28 and 32.

The result of refusal to know God through creation is the false boast of humans and the corruption of the worshiping instinct into idolatry. Here Paul is deliberately, though covertly, retelling the story of Genesis 3, on the one hand, and of Israel in the wilderness, on the other. Talk of God the creator has prepared the way for the first of these. When, in Genesis 3, the serpent tempts Eve, what is on offer is fruit that will, supposedly, make humans wise (Gen 3:6). The primal sin was a matter of obeying instructions, or at least suggestions, not from the creator in whose image humans were made, but from an agent within creation itself. Instead of recognizing wisdom as an attribute of the creator, to be gained by worshiping and serving that God, humans boasted in a wisdom that consisted in supposed independence. But this wisdom consisted in the greatest folly possible – namely, giving allegiance instead to images of humans and also of birds, animals, and reptiles.

This “exchange” of God’s glory for an idol echoes Ps 106: 20, which speaks of Israel in the wilderness swapping the living God for the golden calf. Here Paul corrects the implicit narrative of the Wisdom of Solomon, written most likely not long before his own day, by referring back to Scripture: In Wisdom, Israel in the wilderness may commit sins, but it will receive only a mild, correcting rebuke. In general, the people stand out from the pagan Egyptians. For Paul, as for the psalmist, Israel rejected the covenant God and fell away into copying the pagans . . . This not only anticipates the explicit turn in the argument at 2:17, but it also looks ahead to 7:7-12, where once again the narratives of Adam and Israel are woven together.

The first part of Paul’s basic charge is now complete. The human race, called to worship and reflect the image of the creator, has turned to idolatry – and has sought to dignify it by claiming it as the true wisdom. The results follow swiftly (Vol. 10, pg 432-433).

Take-Aways

“Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” When the church prays the Lord’s prayer, it prays that God’s will and restoration may be carried out now on this earth. We are praying for a renewal of the earth that God has given us. And in this passage Paul is clear: creation waits for children of God to live out their prayer and help free creation from decay. Humanity joins creation’s groaning, and together they anticipate God’s redemption. We are involved in creation’s hope. We must remember that God’s redemption is holistic — it is not just for us. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, do we actually believe that God’s kingdom can come on this earth? Do our prayers match our actions?

Calvin’s Commentary on Romans

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom38.xii.vi.html

For the intent expectation of the creation, etc. He teaches us that there is an example of the patience, to which he had exhorted us, even in mute creatures. For, to omit various interpretations, I understand the passage to have this meaning — that there is no element and no part of the world which, being touched, as it were, with a sense of its present misery, does not intensely hope for a resurrection. He indeed lays down two things, — that all are creatures in distress, — and yet that they are sustained by hope. And it hence also appears how immense is the value of eternal glory, that it can excite and draw all things to desire it.

And not only so, etc. There are those who think that the Apostle intended here to exalt the dignity of our future blessedness, and by this proof, because all things look for it with ardent desire; not only the irrational parts of creation, but we also who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God. This view is indeed capable of being defended, but there seems to me to be a comparison here between the greater and the less; as though he said, “The excellency of our glory is of such importance even to the very elements, which are destitute of mind and reason, that they burn with a certain kind of desire for it; how much more it behoves us, who have been illuminated by the Spirit of God, to aspire and strive with firmness of hope and with ardour of desire, after the attainment of so great a benefit.” And he requires that there should be a feeling of two kinds in the faithful: that being burdened with the sense of their present misery, they are to groan; and that notwithstanding they are to wait patiently for their deliverance; for he would have them to be raised up with the expectation of their future blessedness, and by an elevation of mind to overcome all their present miseries, while they consider not what they are now, but what they are to be.

New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary

The reason why present suffering cannot compare with the coming glory is because the whole creation is on tiptoe with excitement, waiting for God’s children to be revealed as who they really are. Suddenly we have turned a corner. Whereas, up until now, it might have been possible to think that Paul was simply talking about God’s salvation in relation to human beings, from here on it is clear that the entire cosmos is in the view. Nor is this a strange oddity, bolted on to the outside of his theology, or of the argument of Romans, as though it were simply a bit of undigested Jewish apocalyptic speculation thrown in here for good measure. No: it is part of the revelation of God’s righteousness, that covenant faithfulness that always aimed at putting the whole world to rights. This is why, as we saw in 4:13, Paul declared that God’s promise to Abraham had the whole world in view.

Paul could hardly express the longing of creation more dramatically. Literally, he writes, “For the eager expectation of the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God,” an obvious pleonasm (use of extra or redundant words for effect) that makes its own point. The whole creation – sun, moon, sea, sky, birds, animals, plants – is longing for the time when God’s people will be revealed as God’s glorious human agents, set in authority over the world. But why? Why should creation be so eager for this? And how does Paul know such a thing?

He answers by explaining the present state of creation, drawing on Genesis 3 and other Jewish traditions. Creation itself is in bondage, in slavery, and needs to have its own exodus. It has been “subjected to futility,” not deliberately (it did not rebel as humankind rebelled), but because God subjected it to corruption and decay, creation’s equivalent of slavery in Egypt (“the slavery which consists of corruption,” v. 21). God did this precisely in order that creation might point forward to the new world that is to be, in which its beauty and power will be enhanced and its corruptibility and futility will be down away. And, if one dare put it like this, as God sent Jesus to rescue the human race, so God will send Jesus’ younger siblings, in the power of the Spirit, to rescue the whole created order, to bring that justice and peace for which the whole creation years. (This cannot be reduced to the old liberal Protestant “social gospel” – from which the resurrection, which Paul here presupposes, was usually bracketed out.)

The basis of Paul’s belief here must be a combination of two things: the biblical promise of new heavens and new earth (Isa 65:17; 66:22), and the creation story in which human beings, made in God’s image, are appointed as God’s steward over creation. Putting the picture together, in the light of the observable way in which the created order is out of joint, and the clear biblical and experiential belief that the human race as a whole is in rebellion against God, Paul, in company with many other Jews, saw the two as intimately related. After the fall, the earth produced thorns and thistles. Humans continued to abuse their environment, so that one of the reasons why God sent Israel into exile, according to the Scriptures, was so that the land could at last enjoy its Sabbaths (Lev 26:34-43 [cf. 25:2-5]; 2 Chr 36:21). But the answer to the problem was not (as in some New Age theories) that humans should keep their hands off creation, should perhaps be removed from the planet altogether so as not to spoil it any further. The answer, if the creator is to be true to the original purpose, is for humans to be redeemed, to take their place at last as God’s imagebearers, the wise steward they were always meant to be. Paul sees that this purpose has already been accomplished in principle in the resurrection of Jesus, and that it will be accomplished fully when all those in Christ are raised and together set in saving authority over the world (see 1 Cor 15:20-28). That is why, Paul says, creation is now waiting with eager longing (Vol. 10, pg 596).

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

19. creation waits with eager expectation for God’s sons to be revealed: Paul discloses his view of the created world, which in its chaotic state manifests its cosmic striving toward the very goal set for humanity itself. He thus affirms a solidarity of the human and the subhuman world in the redemption of Christ. It recalls Yahweh’s promise to Noah of the coveant to bemade “between myself and you and every living creature” (Gen 9:12-13). In this context the noun ktisis denotes “material creation” apart from human beings (see 8:23 . . . ). Created for human beings, it was cursed as a result of Adam’s sin (Gen 3:15-17); since then material creation has been in a state of abnormality or frustration, being subject to corruption or decay itself. Yet Paul sees it sharing in the destiny of humanity, somehow freed of this proclivity to decay (p 824).