Romans 8:27

“For I reckon” opens with a settled conclusion. The verb logízomai means to count, calculate or conclude after careful thought, and Paul uses it as a man who has weighed the matter and reached a firm verdict. He knew what he was weighing. He had been beaten, imprisoned and shipwrecked for the gospel, and he lists those afflictions at length in 2 Corinthians 11:23–28. The believers in Rome were a small and often misunderstood minority who faced suspicion, social exclusion and economic loss for refusing pagan worship and the cult of the emperor, and the persecution under Nero was still to come. Life itself was hard in that world, with little medicine, frequent wars and unsettled times.

The word for sufferings, páthēma, means what a person undergoes, a hardship or pain. It covers persecution for the faith and every affliction common to life in a fallen world, from illness and loss to disappointment and distress of mind. “This present time” joins nŷn, now, with kairós, a season or time, and it means the age we live in before Christ returns and God’s kingdom is fully established. Paul calls the sufferings what they are and names them plainly.

“Not worthy to be compared with” carries the weight of the verse. The word áxios means deserving or of equal worth, and prós, “with”, sets the two side by side. However long and however heavy present suffering is, it has an end and a limit, while the glory is eternal and brings perfect joy, peace and communion with God. Paul says the same in another letter: “our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Peter writes in the same spirit of the trials that test our faith (1 Peter 1:6–7), and at the end of Scripture God wipes away every tear, and death, sorrow and pain have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

Verse 19 widens the view from God’s children to the whole creation. “Earnest expectation” translates apokaradokía, a vivid compound word that pictures watching with the head stretched out, the way someone cranes the neck to see what is coming from a distance. Paul uses it only here and in Philippians 1:20, where he speaks of “my earnest expectation and my hope”. “Waiteth” is apekdéchomai, to wait expecting fully.

“The creature” is ktísis, from ktízō, to build or create. The word means the original formation, first the act of creating and then the thing created, and it can be rendered building, creation, creature or ordinance. In this passage it means the whole created order apart from mankind: the heavens and the earth, the animals and the plants. Humanity stands outside it here, because our redemption is the very thing creation waits for. Paul speaks of creation as a person who longs, waits and groans, a figure of speech that makes its condition vivid, and he keeps it up through these verses.

What creation waits for is “the manifestation of the sons of God”. The word is apokálypsis, from a verb meaning to uncover, and it means a disclosure or unveiling. We are already God’s sons and daughters by adoption, having received “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). What is still hidden is the full glory of that sonship, including the redemption of our bodies, and it will be unveiled before all creation at Christ’s return. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). Our manifestation depends wholly on his.

Creation waits so eagerly because it is in bondage now. “Vanity” is mataiótēs, from a root meaning empty, and it speaks of futility, transience, purposelessness and even depravity. The world God made good now falls short of what he made it for and is caught in decay and frustration. Ecclesiastes sounds the same note: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

“Was made subject” is hypotássō, to put under or place in subjection. “Not willingly” means that creation had no choice in it. The sin was man’s, and creation bears its effects. When Adam sinned, God said, “cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17–19), and from Genesis 3 onward the fate of the earth has been bound up with the fate of man.

Verse 21 gives the content of that hope. “Because”, hóti, ties it to what goes before, and “the creature itself” (ktísis with autós, itself) stresses that creation will truly share the deliverance. “Shall be delivered” is the verb eleutheróō, to set free, in the passive, because God is the one who frees it.

It is freed “from the bondage of corruption”. The word douleía means slavery, and phthorá means decay, ruin and perishing. Creation is enslaved to impermanence, to the round of death and decay, to disease and natural disaster, and it is powerless to free itself. It is brought “into”, eis, a new state of eleuthería, freedom. “Glorious liberty” stands in the Greek as “the liberty of the glory”, with dóxa, so that creation’s freedom is marked by God’s own glory and belongs to the glory of his children. When they are fully revealed, creation is set free with them.

This was a striking thing to say to readers living among Greeks, many of whom looked on the material world as flawed or even evil. Paul stands with the Old Testament, which calls creation good and promises its renewal.

The one who frees creation is the one who made it. “All things were made by him” (John 1:3). He is “the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15), all things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16), and by him all things consist (Colossians 1:17). He is also “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18), and through him God, “having made peace through the blood of his cross,” reconciles all things to himself, “whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:19–20, 1:20). Christ’s resurrection is the firstfruits of the new creation (1 Corinthians 15:20–23), and anyone who is in Christ is already a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). He will finish the work when he comes. We “look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13), the one on the throne says, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5), and in that city “there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3).

“For we know” appeals to a truth believers hold as settled, because God has shown it to them. “The whole creation”, pâs ktísis, takes in every part of the world God made. It “groaneth”, systenázō, a compound of sýn, with or together, and stenázō, to groan or sigh deeply. The word means to moan jointly, to share a common calamity. It “travaileth in pain together”, synōdínō, from sýn and ōdínō, to have labour pains, and so to suffer birth pangs in company with others.

The picture of childbirth gives the groaning its meaning. Labour pains are intense and real, and they come before new life. So creation’s suffering looks forward to a birth, the new creation and the revealing of God’s children. The picture of birth pains was familiar to Jews and Gentiles alike, and Jesus used it for the signs of the end, calling them “the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8). “Until now” marks the groaning as present and ongoing, from the fall to Paul’s day and our own, and it also points to an end still to come.

The groaning runs through the whole passage. Creation groans in verse 22, we groan in verse 23, and the Spirit pleads for us with groanings in verse 26.

“And not only they, but ourselves also” carries the groaning from creation to believers, who “have the firstfruits of the Spirit”. The word aparchḗ means the beginning of a sacrifice, the first part of the harvest offered to God. In Israel the first of the harvest was brought to God, owning that the whole was his and pledging the full harvest still to come (Leviticus 23:10–14). The Spirit within us is that first part of God’s harvest, a foretaste and guarantee of all he will give, including the transformation of our bodies. Paul uses a related picture in Ephesians, where the Holy Spirit of promise is “the earnest of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13–14). The Spirit we have received is the Spirit of Christ, the one who raised Jesus from the dead and will quicken our mortal bodies too.

“Even we ourselves groan within ourselves.” The verb stenázō means to be in straits, and so to sigh, murmur or pray inaudibly. This groan is inward, a deep longing felt within. Paul writes of it elsewhere: “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:2–5).

We are waiting “for the adoption”. Huiothesia, adoption, was a familiar legal act in the Roman world, by which a person received the full rights and inheritance of a son regardless of birth. We have already received the Spirit of adoption, and what we wait for is the full and public display of it, which Paul names at once: “the redemption of our body”. The word apolýtrōsis means a ransom paid in full, a release secured by payment. Our bodies will be freed from sin, decay and death and raised incorruptible, as 1 Corinthians 15 teaches, and Christ’s own resurrection is the firstfruits of that harvest (1 Corinthians 15:20–23). “We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Our adoption is secured by Christ’s work on the cross, which makes us joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17), and its fullness comes at his return.

“For we are saved by hope.” The verb sṓzō, from a root meaning safe, means to deliver or protect. Its tense in Greek is past (aorist), so Paul says we were saved, and he adds that we were saved in hope, because salvation has a part still to come. Scripture speaks of salvation in three tenses. We have been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) and justified by faith (Romans 5:1). We are working out our salvation now as God works in us (Philippians 2:12–13). And we wait for its completion, the redemption of our bodies and our full likeness to Christ, free from both the presence and the power of sin. That last part is what we hope for.

In everyday speech hope is a wish that may or may not come true, as in “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow”, and among the Greeks elpís often carried that uncertainty. In Scripture it is a confident and joyful expectation resting on God’s character and promises. “Hope that is seen is not hope.” The verb for seeing, blépō, means to look at or perceive, with the eyes or with the mind, and Paul’s question settles the point: “for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” Once a thing is in hand, hope has done its work. Faith works the same way: “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), and “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Our hope has a name, for we are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

“Likewise”, hōsaútōs, links the Spirit’s help to the groaning of creation and of believers. Creation groans and we groan, and the Spirit also takes part. “Helpeth” is synantilambánomai, a word that means to take hold together on the opposite side, to help carry a burden with someone. The Spirit comes alongside and lifts the weight with us. The word for infirmities, asthéneia, comes from asthenḗs, weak, and covers feebleness of every kind, of body, of moral strength and here of understanding and spirit in prayer.

The “for” (gár) explains which weakness Paul means: “we know not what we should pray for as we ought”. We often lack the wisdom and foresight to know what agrees with God’s will or what is truly best for us. Our desires can be misdirected, and our words fall short of our real needs. Then “but” (allá) brings in God’s answer. “The Spirit itself” is pneûma with autós, and the Greek uses the neuter “itself” because pneûma is a neuter noun. The KJV follows that grammar, and the Spirit who helps us and pleads for us is a person, as the next verse shows by speaking of his mind.

He “maketh intercession for us”. The verb hyperentynchánō means to intercede on someone’s behalf, to plead for them, and this verse is its only use in the New Testament. He intercedes “with groanings which cannot be uttered”, stenagmós, groaning, with alálētos, unutterable. These are longings too deep for words, and God understands them fully. The Spirit who prays this way knows the depths of God, for “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10–11). He is the same Spirit who bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God (Romans 8:16).

“He that searcheth the hearts” is God the Father. The verb ereunáō means to search diligently and thoroughly, and when God searches, he confirms what he already knows completely, since every heart lies open before him. Scripture often names him this way: “the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7), “I the LORD search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10), and “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me” (Psalm 139:1–4).

He “knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit”. The word phrónēma is a mind’s settled inclination, purpose or aim, and it is the word behind “carnally minded” and “spiritually minded” in Romans 8:6. So the Father knows the Spirit’s whole purpose in the groanings we are unable to put into words.

He knows it “because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God”. Here the verb is entynchánō, which means to chance upon, and so to meet with someone, to confer with them and to plead on another’s behalf. The saints are God’s people, and the Spirit’s pleading for them always agrees with God’s will, so it is always heard and always for their good. John gives the same assurance for our own prayers: “if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14). This is the ground of the promise that follows at once, that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).

When the weight of this present time presses on you, Paul’s reckoning is yours to make. Your sufferings are real, and God calls them sufferings, and they are still small beside the glory he will reveal in you. The ache you feel for a body free of sickness and age, and for a world free of decay, is the groan of the Spirit’s firstfruits within you, and it belongs to hope.

The world around you groans too. Its decay and disasters are marks of the curse, and creation is waiting for the same day you are waiting for. Because God means to set it free, the earth and its creatures deserve our care now, as his handiwork and as a sign of our hope in its renewal.

And when you come to pray and your words fail, the Spirit is already praying. He takes hold of the burden with you and pleads for you according to God’s will, and the Father who searches your heart understands him. You can pray with confidence, imperfect words and all, and wait with patience, because what you hope for rests on the God who promised it.