33  The Holy Spirit Guarantees Our Glory—part 2 The Inexpressible Groans for Glory (8:19-27)

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (8:19–27)

In his climactic presentation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in securing the no-condemnation status of believers (see 8:1), Paul focuses on His securing us by guaranteeing our future glory (vv. 17–30). In he previous chapter of this volume we studied the incomparable gains that believers possess because of their God-promised glory (vv. 17–18).

In the present chapter Paul focuses our attention on the anticipation of that glory—the incomparable groans—of creation (vv. 19–22), of believers (vv. 23–25), and of the Holy Spirit Himself (vv. 26–27). A groan is an audible expression of anguish due to physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. These groanings bewail a condition that is painful, unsatisfying, and sorrowful—a cry for deliverance from a torturing experience.

THE GROANING OF CREATION

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. (8:19–22)

The first groan is the personified lament coming from the created universe as it now exists in the corrupted condition caused by the Fall.

Apokaradokia (anxious longing) is an especially vivid word that literally refers to watching with outstretched head, and suggests standing on tiptoes with the eyes looking ahead with intent expectancy. The prefix apo adds the idea of fixed absorption and concentration on that which is anticipated. The creation is standing on tiptoes, as it were, as it waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

Jews were familiar with God’s promise of a redeemed world, a renewed creation. On behalf of the Lord, Isaiah predicted, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa. 65:17). Jews anticipated a glorious time when all pain, oppression, slavery, anxiety, sorrow, and persecution would end and the Lord would establish His own perfect kingdom of peace and righteousness.

Even nonbiblical Jewish writings reflect that longing. The Apocalypse of Baruch describes an expected and long-awaited future utopia:

Jewish sections of Sibylline Oracles record similar expectations. “And earth, and all the trees, and the innumerable flocks of sheep shall give their true fruit to mankind, of wine and of sweet honey and of white milk and of corn, which to men is the most excellent gift of all” (3:620–33). Later in the oracles it says,

Creation does not here include the heavenly angels, who, although created beings, are not subject to corruption. The term obviously does not include Satan and his host of fallen angels, the demons. They have no desire for a godly, sinless state and know they are divinely sentenced to eternal torment. Believers are not included in that term either, because they are mentioned separately in verses 23–25. Nor is Paul referring to unbelievers. The only remaining part of creation is the nonrational part, including animals and plants and all inanimate things such as the mountains, rivers, plains, seas, and heavenly bodies.

Jews were familiar with such a personification of nature. Isaiah had used it when he wrote that “The wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom” (Isa. 35:1), and later that “the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (55:12).

Waits eagerly translates a form of the verb apekdechomai, which refers to waiting in great anticipation but with patience. The form of the Greek verb gives the added connotations of readiness, preparedness, and continuance until the expected event occurs.

Revealing translates apohalupsis, which refers to an uncovering, unveiling, or revelation. It is this word from which the English name of the book of Revelation is derived (see Rev. 1:1). The world does not comprehend who Christians really are. In his first epistle, John explained to fellow believers: “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1).

In the present age, the world is unable to distinguish absolutely between Christians and nonbelievers. People who call themselves Christians walk, dress, and talk much like everyone else. Many unbelievers have high standards of behavior. On the other hand, unfortunately, many professing Christians give little evidence of salvation. But at the appointed time God will reveal those who are truly His.

At the revealing of the sons of God, “when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then [believers] also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4). At that time, all believers will be eternally separated from sin and their unredeemed humanness, to be glorified with Christ’s own holiness and splendor.

When Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God’s command, not only mankind but the earth and all the rest of the world was cursed and corrupted. After the Fall, God said to Adam,

Before the Fall, no weeds or poisonous plants, no thorns or thistles or anything else existed that could cause man misery or harm. But after the Fall, the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it. Mataiotēs (futility) carries the idea of being without success, of being unable to achieve a goal or purpose. Because of man’s sin, no part of nature now exists as God intended it to be and as it originally was. The verb was subjected indicates by its form that nature did not curse itself but was cursed by something or someone else. Paul goes on to reveal that the curse on nature was executed by its Creator. God Himself subjected it to futility.

Although various environmental organizations and government agencies today make noble attempts to protect and restore natural resources and regions, they are helpless to turn the tide of corruption that has continually devastated both man and his environment since the Fall. Such is the destructiveness of sin that one man’s disobedience brought corruption to the entire universe. Decay, disease, pain, death, natural disaster, pollution, and all other forms of evil will never cease until the One who sent the curse removes it and creates a new heaven and a new earth (2 Pet.3:13;Rev.21:l).

No less a naturalist than John Muir was in serious error when he wrote that nature is “unfallen and undepraved” and that only man is a “blighting touch.” The sentimental environmentalists of our time advocate living in some relaxed and easy “harmony with nature.” Some are crying for the government to take us back to living in the Dark Ages, when, they assume, people and nature were in harmony. All the corruptions of this fallen environment were different in the past from what technology and industry have wrought—but perhaps even more deadly. Certainly disease and death, as well as exposure to the natural elements and disasters, were much greater in the past. And when people were supposedly living nearer nature, they had less comfort, more pain, harder times, more disease, and died younger. This is not a friendly earth but a violent and dangerous one. It is a ridiculous fantasy to think it is not cursed and that it naturally yields a comfortable life.

In spite of this curse, however, much of the beauty, grandeur, and benefits of the natural world remains. Although they all deteriorate, flowers are still beautiful, mountains are still grand, forests are still magnificent, the heavenly bodies are still majestic, food still brings nourishment and is a pleasure to eat, and water still brings refreshment and sustains life. Despite the terrible curse that He inflicted on the earth, God’s majesty and gracious provision for mankind is still evident wherever one looks. It is for that reason that no person has an excuse for not believing in God: “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

Nature’s destiny is inseparably linked to man’s. Because man sinned, the rest of creation was corrupted with him. Likewise, when man’s glory is divinely restored, the natural world will be restored as well. Therefore, Paul says, there is hope even for the natural creation itself, which will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. In other words, just as man’s sin brought corruption to the universe, so man’s restoration to righteousness will be accompanied by the restoration of the earth and its universe to their divinely-intended perfection and glory.

In physics, the law of entrophy refers to the constant and irreversible degradation of matter and energy in the universe to increasing disorder, that scientific law clearly contradicts the theory of evolution, which is based on the premise that the natural world is inclined to continual self improvement. But it is evident even in a simple garden plot that, when it is untended, it deteriorates. Weeds and other undesirable plants will choke out the good ones. The natural bent of the universe—whether of humans, animals, plants, or the inanimate elements of the earth and heavens—is obviously and demonstrably downward, not upward. It could not be otherwise while the world remains in slavery to the corruption of sin.

Yet despite their continual corruption and degeneration, neither man nor the universe itself will bring about their ultimate destruction. That is in the province of God alone, and there is no need to fear an independently initiated human holocaust. Men need fear only the God whom they rebelliously spurn and oppose. The destiny of earth is entirely in the hands of its Creator, and that destiny includes God’s total destruction of the sin-cursed universe. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). That destruction will be on a scale infinitely more powerful than any man-made devices could achieve.

In his vision on Patmos, John “saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea…. and [God] shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write, for these words are faithful and true’” (Rev. 21:1, 4–5).

It is for that promised time of redemption and restoration that all nature groans in hope and expectation. As with “was subjected” in the previous verse, the verb will be set free is passive, indicating that nature will not restore itself but will be restored by God, who Himself long ago subjected it to corruption and futility.

Jesus referred to that awesome time as “the regeneration,” a time when the old sinful environment will be radically judged and be replaced with God’s new and righteous one. “Truly I say to you,” He told the disciples, “that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28).

The freedom of the glory of the children of God refers to the time when all believers will be liberated from sin, liberated from the flesh, and liberated from their humanness. At that time we will begin to share eternally in God’s own glory, with which God will clothe all His precious children. John reminds us, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). In describing that glorious day, Paul wrote, Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:51–54)

It is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend such divine mysteries. But by God’s own Holy Spirit within us we can believe all of His revealed truth and rejoice with absolute and confident hope that our eternal life with our Father in heaven is secure. We acknowledge with Paul that “our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20–21).

We also acknowledge with the apostle that nature also awaits with hope for our redemption, a redemption it will share with us in its own way. But until that wonderful day and in anticipation of it, the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Stenazō (groans) refers to the utterances of a person who is caught in a dreadful situation and has no immediate prospect of deliverance. The term is used in its noun form by Luke to describe the desperate utterances of the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt (Acts 7:34). The verb is used by the writer of Hebrews to describe the frustration and grief of church leaders caused by immature and unruly members (13:17).

The groaning an suffering of the creation will one day cease, because God will deliver it from its corruption and futility. In the meanwhile, it endures the pains of childbirth. Like Eve, whose sin brought the curse of painful human childbirth (Gen. 3:16), nature endures its own kind of labor pains. But also like Eve and her descendants, nature’s pains of childbirth presage new life.

Paul makes no mention of how or when the world will be made new. Nor does he give the phases of that cosmic regeneration or the sequence of events. Many other passages of Scripture shed light on the details of the curses being lifted (see Isa. 30:23–24; 35:1–7; etc.) and the ultimate creation of a new heaven and a new earth (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1), but Paul’s purpose here is to assure his readers in general terms that God’s master plan of redemption encompasses the entire universe.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote with deep insight:

THE GROANING OF BELIEVERS

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. (8:23–25)

Not only does the natural creation groan for deliverance from the destructive consequences of sin into the promised new universe, but also we ourselves, that is, believers. It is the redemption of believers that is central to God’s ultimate cosmic regeneration, because believers—as His own children, redeemed and adopted into His heavenly family in response to their faith in His beloved Son, Jesus Christ—are the heirs of His glorious, eternal, and righteous kingdom.

Every true believer agonizes at times over the appalling manifestations and consequences of sin—in his own life, in the lives of others, and even in the natural world. Because we have the first fruits of the Spirit, we are spiritually sensitized to the corruption of sin in and around us.

Because the Holy Spirit now indwells us, His work in us and through us is a type of spiritual first fruits. They are a foretaste of the glory that awaits us in heaven, when our corrupted and mortal bodies are exchanged for ones that are incorruptible and immortal. Although we will not be totally free of sin’s power as long as we are in our present bodies, the Lord has given us complete victory over the dominion and bondage of sin. When we experience the Holy Spirit’s empowering us to turn from iniquity and to truly worship, serve, obey, and love God, we have a taste of the future completed and perfected renewal He will work in us at the resurrection.

Because every genuine believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9), every genuine believer will to some degree manifest the fruit of the Spirit that Paul enumerates in Galatians 5:22–23, namely, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Every time we see Him working His righteousness in and through us, we yearn all the more to be freed of our remaining sin and spiritual weakness. Because of our divinely-bestowed sensitivity to sin, we ourselves groan within ourselves over the dreadful curse of sin that is still manifested by our remaining humanness.

Acknowledging his own sinfulness, David cried out, “My iniquities are gone over my head; as a heavy burden they weigh too much for me, … Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my sighing is not hidden from Thee. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; and the light of my eyes, even that has gone from me” (Ps. 38:4, 9–10).

Paul grieved over the remnants of his humanness that clung to him like a rotten garment that could not be cast off. That reality brought him great spiritual frustration and anguish. “Wretched man that I am!” he lamented, “Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). In another epistle he reminds all believers of their same plight: “For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4). As long as we are in the “tent” of our human body, we will never fully escape sin’s corruption in our lives. That truth causes Christians to suffer times of deep inner distress over the debilitating sinfulness that still clings to them.

As believers, we therefore find ourselves waiting eagerly in anticipation of our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body The New Testament speaks of believers as those who are already the adopted children of God, but whose adoption awaits ultimate perfection. Just as there is never salvation that is not completed, neither is there divine adoption that is never completed. A child of God need never fear that he might be cast out of his spiritual family or never enter his heavenly home.

Puritan pastor Thomas Watson said,

Scripture teaches that the believer’s salvation is secured by God the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. Referring to God the Father, Paul assured the Corinthians, “He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2 Cor. 1:21–22; cf. 2 Tim. 2:19). The Father not only grants salvation to those who trust in His Son but also seals their salvation and gives the indwelling Holy Spirit as the guarantor. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Peter declared, “who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:3–5). Although persevering faith is indispensable to salvation, Peter emphasizes that, by God the Father’s own initiative and power, He “caused us to be born again” and in that same power He sustains us toward the inheritance that our new birth brings, an inheritance that is “imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away.” It is divinely “reserved in heaven” for each believer, who is divinely preserved to receive it. Whoever belongs to God belongs to Him forever.

In order to point up the absolute and incontrovertible security of those who trust in Jesus Christ, the writer of Hebrews declared, “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil” (Heb. 6:17–19).

God the Son also secures the believer’s salvation. “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me,” Jesus declared, “and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). Paul assured the Corinthian church, which had more than its share of immature and disobedient believers, that “even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:6–8; cf. Col. 1:22). In other words, their relationship to Christ not only had been confirmed when they were justified but would remain confirmed by the Lord Himself until their glorification at His return (cf. 1 Thess. 3:13). Later in that epistle Paul reminds us that “faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thess. 5:24). The ongoing, mediatorial, intercessory work of Jesus Christ in heaven unalterably secures our eternal reward.

God the Spirit also secures the believer’s salvation, by a work that Scripture sometimes refers to as the Spirit’s sealing. In ancient times, the seal, or signet, was a mark of authenticity or of a completed transaction. The seal of a monarch or other distinguished person represented his authority and power. For example, when Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, King Darius had a large stone placed across the entrance and sealed “with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his nobles, so that nothing might be changed in regard to Daniel” (Dan. 6:17). In an infinitely more significant and spiritual way, the Holy Spirit seals the salvation of every believer, which, by divine promise and protection, can never be altered.

Paul assured the Corinthian believers that “He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2 Cor. 1:21–22). In similar words, he assured the Ephesians that “In Him [Christ], you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13; cf. 4:30).

The ideas of partial or temporary salvation not only are foreign to the teaching of Scripture but completely contradict it. No true believer need ever fear loss of salvation. At the moment of conversion his soul is redeemed, purified, and eternally secured in God’s family and kingdom.

Believers should be concerned about sin in their lives, but not because they might sin themselves out of God’s grace. Because of God’s promise and power, that is impossible. Until we are glorified and fully liberated from sin through the redemption of our body, we still have unredeemed bodies that make it very much possible for sin to harm us and to grieve our Lord. As the term is often used in the New Testament, body is not limited to a person’s physical being but relates to the whole of his unredeemed humanness, in particular to the remaining susceptibility to sin.

It is only the body, the mortal humanness of a believer, that is yet to be redeemed. The inner person is already a completely new creation, a partaker of God’s nature and indwelt by God’s Spirit. “Therefore if any man is in Christ,” Paul says, “he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Peter assures us that God’s “divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust” (2 Pet. 1:3–4).

Because believers are already new creatures possessing the divine nature, their souls are fit for heaven and eternal glory. They love God, hate sin, and have holy longings for obedience to the Word. But while on earth they are kept in bondage by their mortal bodies, which are still corrupted by sin and its consequences. Christians are holy seeds, as it were, encased in an unholy shell. Incarcerated in a prison of flesh and subjected to its weaknesses and imperfections, we therefore eagerly await an event that is divinely guaranteed but is yet to transpire—the redemption of our body.

Paul has already explained that “if we [believers] have become united with Him [Christ] in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:5–6). The old man with his old sinful nature is dead, but the corrupted body in which he dwelt is still present. That is why, a few verses later, Paul admonishes believers not to “let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts” and not to “go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (vv. 12–13). Because we are still capable of sinning, we should be continually on guard to resist and overcome sin in the Spirit’s power (vv. 14–17).

Paul also has already explained “that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate” (Rom. 7:14–15). “But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do,” he continues, “I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (vv. 16–18).

It is encouragingly hopeful for Christians to realize that their falling into sin does not have its source in their deepest inner being, their new and holy nature in Christ. When they sin, they do so because of the desires and promptings of the flesh—that is, their bodies, their remaining humanness—which they cannot escape until they go to be with the Lord. Summing up that vital truth, Paul said, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:25).

As noted above, our souls are already fully redeemed and are fit for heaven. But the fleshly, outer clothing of the old, sinful person is still corrupted and awaits redemption. “For our citizenship is in heaven,” Paul explains, “from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20–21).

It is hardly possible not to wonder what kind of resurrected and redeemed body believers will have in heaven, but it is foolish to speculate about it apart from what Scripture teaches. Anticipating such curiosity, Paul told the Corinthians:

Paul’s point in the first analogy is that a seed bears no resemblance to the plant or tree into which it will grow. As far as size is concerned, some relatively large seeds produce small plants, whereas some smaller seeds produce large trees. Many different kinds of seed look much alike, and the total variety of seeds has yet to be calculated. If given a handful of seeds that were all different and came from various parts of the world, not even an experienced farmer, much less the average person, could identify all of them. Not until it is sown and the resulting plant begins to mature can the kind of seed be accurately identified. The same principle applies in relation to our natural and spiritual bodies. We cannot possibly determine what our future spiritual bodies will be like by looking at our present physical bodies. We will have to wait to see.

Paul also points out the obvious fact that animate creatures vary widely in their appearance and nature, and that, without exception, like produces like. The genetic code of every living species is distinct and unique. No amount of attempted interbreeding or change of diet can turn a fish into a bird, or a horse into a dog or cat.

There is also variety in the heavenly bodies, an immeasurably greater variety than people in Paul’s day were aware of. The apostle’s point in mentioning the animals and heavenly bodies seems to be that of calling attention to the vast magnitude and varation of God’s creation and to the inability of man even to come close to comprehending it.

The Bible discloses very little about the nature of a believer’s resurrected body. Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44).

Because we will ultimately be like Christ, we know that our resurrected bodies will be like His. As noted above, Paul assures us that, “if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). In his epistle to Philippi he explains further that our Lord “will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21).

During the period between His resurrection and ascension, Jesus’ body still bore the physical marks of His crucifixion (John 20:20) and He was able to eat (Luke 24:30). He still looked like Himself, yet even His closest disciples could not recognize Him unless He allowed them to (Luke 24:13–16, 30–31; John 20:14–16). He could be touched and felt (John 20:17, 27), yet He could appear and disappear in an instant and could pass through closed doors (John 20:19, 26).

Although our redeemed bodies will in some way be like Christ’s, we will not know exactly what they will be like until we meet our Savior face to face (1 John 3:2). Paul’s primary purpose in I Corinthians 15 and Romans 8 is to emphasize that our resurrected bodies, regardless of their form, appearance, or capabilities, will be sinless, righteous, and immortal.

He continues to explain that in hope we have been saved. Hope is inseparable from salvation. Our salvation was planned by God in ages past, bestowed in the present, and is now characterized by hope for its future completion.

The believer’s hope is not based on wishful thinking or probability, but on the integrity of the clear promises of the Lord. As already cited above, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me,” Jesus declared, “and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). Our hope is not that we might not lose our salvation but that, by our Lord’s own guarantee, we cannot and will not lose it.

The writer of Hebrews assures us that “God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil” (Heb. 6:17–19). Paul refers to our hope of salvation as a helmet, symbolizing our divine protection from the blows of doubt that Satan sends to crush our hope (1 Thess. 5:8).

As Jesus made clear in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13) and in the story of the fruitless branches (John 15), there will always be some who bear the name of Christ who do not genuinely belong to Him. And, by the same token, there are true believers whose lives sometimes give little evidence of salvation. But as we shall continue to see to the end of this chapter, the Word of God is unequivocal in declaring that everyone who is saved by Jesus Christ will forever belong to Him. Although it is quite possible for a sinful Christian to struggle with the assurance of salvation and with the joy and comfort which that assurance brings, it is not possible for him to lose salvation itself.

It is true, on the other hand, that the completion of our salvation is presently a hope and not yet a reality. Explaining the obvious, Paul states the axiomatic truth that hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? In other words, in this life we cannot expect to experience the reality of our glorification but only the hope of it. But since the believer’s hope is based on God’s promise, the completion of his salvation is more certain by far than anything he sees with his eyes. As we shall see later, the believer’s salvation is so secure that his glorification is spoken of in the past tense (see Rom. 8:30).

Therefore, Paul continues, if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. “For I am confident of this very thing,” Paul assured the Thessalonian believers, “that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). Because salvation is completely God’s work and because He cannot lie, it is absolutely impossible for us to lose what He has given us and promises never to take away. It is in light of that absolute certainty that Peter admonishes: “Gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). It is for their faithfully holding to that hope that Paul commends the Thessalonians, assuring them that he, Silvanus, and Timothy were “constantly bearing in mind [their] work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you” (1 Thess. 1:3–4). In other words, our certainty of salvation does not rest in our choosing God but in His choosing us, even “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

THE GROANING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (8:26–27)

In the same way refers back to the groans of the creation and of believers for redemption from the corruption and defilement of sin. Here Paul reveals the immeasurably comforting truth that the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and all creation in groaning for God’s ultimate day of restoration and His eternal reign of righteousness.

Because of our remaining humanness and susceptibility to sin and doubt, the Holy Spirit also helps us in our weakness. In this context, weakness doubtless refers to our human condition in general, not to specific weaknesses. The point is that, even after salvation, we are characterized by spiritual weakness. Acting morally, speaking the truth, witnessing for the Lord, or doing any other good thing happens only by the power of the Spirit working in and through us despite our human limitations.

Several times in his letter to the Philippians Paul beautifully pictures that divine-human relationship. Speaking of his own needs, he said, “I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:19). The Spirit supplies us with all we need to be faithful, effective, and protected children of God. In the following chapter he admonishes, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12–13). The Spirit of God works unrelentingly in us to do what we could never do alone—bring about the perfect will of God.

To make clear how the Spirit works, Paul turns to the subject of prayer. Although we are redeemed and absolutely secure in our adoption as God’s children, nevertheless we do not know how to pray as we should. Paul does not elaborate on our inability to pray as we ought, but his statement is all-encompassing. Because of our imperfect perspectives, finite minds, human frailties, and spiritual limitations, we are not able to pray in absolute consistency with God’s will. Many times we are not even aware that spiritual needs exist, much less know how best they should be met. Even the Christian who prays sincerely, faithfully, and regularly cannot possibly know God’s purposes concerning all of his own needs or the needs of others for whom he prays.

Jesus told Peter, “Behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31–32). Fortunately for Peter, Jesus kept His word despite the apostle’s foolish bravado. Not only was Peter no match for Satan but he soon proved that his devotion to Christ could not even withstand the taunts of a few strangers (vv. 54–60). How glorious that our spiritual security rests in the Lord’s faithfulness rather than in our vacillating commitment.

Even the apostle Paul, who lived so near to God and so faithfully and sacrificially proclaimed His gospel, did not always know how best to pray. He knew, for example, that God had allowed Satan to inflict him with an unspecified “thorn in the flesh.” That affliction guarded Paul against pride over being “caught up into Paradise.” But after a while Paul became weary of the infirmity, which doubtless was severe, and he prayed earnestly that it might be removed. After three entreaties, the Lord told Paul that he should be satisfied with the abundance of divine grace by which he was already sustained in the trial (see 2 Cor. 12:3–9). Paul’s request did not correspond to the Lord’s will for him at that time. Even when we do not know what God wants, the indwelling Spirit Himself intercedes for us, bringing our needs before God even when we do not know what they are or when we pray about them unwisely.

Paul emphasizes that our help is from the Spirit Himself. His divine help not only is personal but direct. The Spirit does not simply provide our security but is Himself our security. The Spirit intercedes on our behalf in a way, Paul says, that is totally beyond human comprehension, with groanings too deep for words. The Holy Spirit unites with us in our desire to be freed from our corrupted earthly bodies and to be with God forever in our glorified heavenly bodies.

Contrary to the interpretation of most charismatics, the groanings of the Spirit are not utterances in unknown tongues, much less ecstatic gibberish that has no rational content. As Paul says explicitly, the groans are not even audible and are inexpressible in words. Yet those groans carry profound content, namely divine appeals for the spiritual welfare of each believer. In a way infinitely beyond our understanding, these groanings represent what might be called intertrinitarian communication, divine articulations by the Holy Spirit to the Father. Paul affirmed this truth to the Corinthians when he declared, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11).

We remain justified and righteous before God the Father only because the Son and the Holy Spirit, as our constant advocates and intercessors, represent us before Him. It is only because of that joint and unceasing divine work on our behalf that we will enter heaven. Christ “is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). Jesus’ divine work of redemption in a believer’s heart begins at the time of conversion, but it does not end until that saint is in heaven, glorified and made as righteous as God is righteous, because he possesses the full righteousness of Christ. That is guaranteed by the heavenly high priestly work of our Lord and by the earthly indwelling Holy Spirit, which also make secure the divine adoption and heavenly destiny of every believer.

If it were not for the sustaining power of the Spirit within us and Christ’s continual mediation for us as High Priest (Heb. 7:25–26), our remaining humanness would have immediately engulfed us again in sin the moment after we were justified. If for an instant Christ and the Holy Spirit were to stop their sustaining intercession for us, we would, in that instant, fall back into our sinful, damnable state of separation from God.

If such a falling away could happen, faith in Christ would give us only temporary spiritual life, subject at any moment to loss. But Jesus offers no life but eternal life, which, by definition, cannot be lost. To those who believe, Jesus said, “I give eternal life, … and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28; cf. 17:2–3; Acts 13:48). To have faith in Jesus Christ and to have eternal life are scripturally synonymous.

Were it not for the sustaining and intercessory work of the Son and the Spirit on behalf of believers, Satan and his false teachers could easily deceive God’s elect (see Matt. 24:24) and could undermine the completion of their salvation. But if such a thing were possible, God’s election would be meaningless. Satan knows that believers would be helpless apart from the sustaining work of the Son and the Spirit, and in his arrogant pride he vainly wars against those two divine persons of the Godhead. He knows that if somehow he could interrupt that divine protection, once-saved souls would fall from grace and again belong to him. But the never-ending work of Christ and the Holy Spirit make that impossible.

And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, Paul continues. He refers to God the Father, who searches the hearts of men.

In the process of selecting a successor to King Saul, the Lord told Samuel, “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon prayed, “Hear Thou in heaven Thy dwelling place, and forgive and act and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart Thou knowest, for Thou alone dost know the hearts of all the sons of men” (1 Kings 8:39; cf. 1 Chron. 28:9; Ps. 139:1–2; Prov. 15:11). When they were choosing between Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias as a successor for Judas, the eleven apostles prayed, “Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two Thou hast chosen” (Acts 1:24; cf. 1 Cor. 4:5; Heb. 4:13).

If the Father knows the hearts of men, how much more does He know the mind of the Spirit. The Father understands exactly what the Spirit is thinking because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Because the Spirit’s will and the Father’s will are identical, and because God is one, Paul’s statement seems unnecessary. But he is pointing up the truth in order to give encouragement to believers. Because the three persons of the Godhead have always been one in essence and will, the very idea of communication among them seems superfluous to us. It is a great mystery to our finite minds, but it is a divine reality that God expects His children to acknowledge by faith.

In this passage Paul emphasizes the divine intercession that is necessary for the preservation of believers to their eternal hope. We can no more fathom that marvelous truth than we can fathom any other aspect of God’s plan of redemption. But we know that, were not Christ and the Holy Spirit continually on guard in our behalf, our inheritance in heaven would be reserved for us in vain.