“For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Things in this world are not the way they should be. That’s something every religion acknowledges in one way or another. It’s not just that we’re broken, though. The problem extends to the whole world. Creation itself is broken. Creation itself needs to be restored and set right again. Believe it or not, this is part of the Gospel. Let’s take a look here as Paul explains that creation is looking forward to our redemption as much as we are.

One of the thornier theological questions coming out of the Genesis creation narrative is just how complete the brokenness coming from the Fall really is. Scholars and theologians debate whether and which aspects of the world as we know it today were part of the experience of Adam and Eve and the rest of creation before the entrance of sin into the world. For example, were natural disasters part of the world before the Fall?

Ultimately, we don’t know the answer to that question with the kind of clarity we would like. But the apostle Paul says something here that must absolutely be considered in the conversation. “For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons [that is, children] to be revealed.” Paul anthropomorphizes creation here by giving the natural world a sense of human longing. His point is that our redemption as adopted sons and daughters of God is not something that will benefit only us. Creation itself will be restored when our final restoration comes.

When God was explaining to Adam and Eve what would be the consequences of their decision to rebel against His rightful authority in favor of a delusion of autonomy, one of the things He said to Adam was that “the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of your painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.”

Again, we aren’t totally sure what this means, but it seems like part of the consequences of our sin was that creation was put under a curse to make our lives harder. It was reduced somehow from its pre-Fall glory to something less than God intended for it when He declared over and over again that it was good. But this curse was not capricious or needlessly malevolent. It was purposeful. It was to remind us of our insufficiency apart from our Creator. It was to remind us of the futility of pursuing life apart from the one who created it. We work hard while the creation itself works against us. We came from the ground and will eventually return there. That’s life apart from God. But it is not the life He intended for us.

As bad as this was, though, this curse was not intended to be something permanent. “For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly, but because of him who subjected it – in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.” The redemption of creation is tied to our redemption. To perhaps put that another way, where those who have been redeemed by Christ are gathered and living like it, creation will tend to flourish more than in those places where the redemption of our God has not so taken hold. There is a difference between environmentalism that is not rooted in the Christian worldview and environmentalism that is.

God’s plan is to redeem all of creation. Not a single part of it will be left out. We will be made new in Christ ourselves. That’s first. After that but before the end, our redemption will see us become the kind of stewards of creation God intended for us to be in the beginning. There is a day yet coming, then, when our redemption will be made complete and when God will fully restore creation. All things will be made new.

For now, though, we wait. “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.” That last part – “until now” – is a reference to the then still recent introduction of the Gospel and the redemption that will set all of these things in motion. Creation’s groaning is made easier when God’s people live as we are called in Christ. One day yet ahead of us it will be removed entirely. So will ours. That will be a very good day.