It’s interesting to study Paul’s teaching about all of creation in Romans 8 as he describes our powerful potential and ultimate hope as Christians. This teaching develops out of what happened in the Garden of Eden. 

 

As a result of man’s disobedience we find in Genesis 3:17-18 the following judgment of God: “To Adam he (God) 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.” 

 

Since that curse was pronounced by God, all of creation has been struggling and groaning, waiting for the day when man’s redemption is ultimately fulfilled. Listen to Romans 8:19-22, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” 

 

The picture is that not only redeemed humankind, but all of creation is excitedly awaiting the blast of the trumpet, the rapture of the church and the closing events of this age that will usher in the millennial reign described by the prophets. What a day that will be!