[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints of God, we consider today the Epistle lesson from Romans chapter 8,
the words of God through the Apostle Paul, talking about our suffering as Christians.
It is, and here’s a way into the text, at least.
This is the text that I will use when I get the question from the compramands,
Pastor, why do animals have to die?
Now, that’s, I think, it seems a little bit silly question at first, but then the
more you think about it, the more it makes sense, right?
It wasn’t like the animals were there behind Adam and Eve, and when Eve ate the fruit,
and then Adam ate the fruit, and then they passed it along to the horse, and the hippopotamus,
and all the animals also ate the fruit so that they would also have to die.
No, they didn’t do any such thing.
They did not sin.
they did not disobey God’s commandment. In fact, I don’t even think they had a command
from God to disobey, so then why do they have to die? Why can’t it just be people, Adam
and Eve and the descendants of Adam and Eve that die? That’s a good question. I think
Paul is addressing that question in this text. It seems like he’s a little bit off topic,
at least at first glance, because here we are in Romans chapter 8, which is a pinnacle
chapter in the scriptures, it’s so beautiful and there’s so many things that culminate
and come together in this chapter.
I heard one person describe Romans chapter 8 as like you’ve been hiking up a mountain
and you’ve gotten to the top, you’re at the peak and you see all the vistas and it’s so
beautiful.
Romans 8 is full of comfort, it’s full of wisdom, it’s full of God’s, the spirit of
God which is, we had a couple of verses already, who’s praying and groaning for us and now
where His children were adopted into His family.
It’s full of gospel, full of God’s kindness,
and it seems like Paul wanders off the track
just a little bit to catch the corruption of creation.
But in this, he’s answering this question.
He says, if you look at verse 19,
for creation waits within, and here he’s talking about,
well, he’s not talking about Adam and Eve,
although maybe he’s talking about our earthly bodies.
He’s talking about the animals.
He’s talking about plants.
He’s talking about the earth.
He’s talking about the sun and the moon and the stars and all the things that the Lord created in the six days of creation
She’s the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God
in other words the corruption of
creation and the reason why the animals died why the trees fall over and why their storms and disasters and
Stars that explode and all this kind of stuff is because creation itself is waiting for the day of the resurrection of all flesh
For, and here’s the punchline of this particular section, verse 20, for creation was subjected
to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation
itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory
of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together.
Now, here’s what I think happened.
This is a little bit my opinion,
but I think it’s informed from the text.
But if you have a different opinion
on what I’m about to say,
in fact, I would really like to hear it.
I think it’d be helpful for me.
But here’s what I think happened.
I think when Adam and Eve fell,
Adam and Eve, who had been given dominion
over the whole creation,
who had been given dominion over all the earth,
over all the beasts of the field,
over the birds of the sky,
and over the fish of the sea,
and even Adam and Eve who God created the sun and the moon
and the stars to serve them in their life.
When Adam and Eve fell, the Lord looks at this
and he says, now this is not right
that Adam and Eve have to die
but that everything else gets to keep living.
So that the Lord took the curse that Adam and Eve
brought on themselves and applied it to everything
that Adam and Eve had dominion over.
So the animals, even though they did not sin
like Adam and Eve sinned? They did not break God’s law like Adam and Eve broke
God’s law? Even though those things did not happen, the Lord now subjects the
creation, not willingly, in other words creation didn’t choose this, but God
subjects creation to futility waiting for the resurrection of the children of
God. Now this means that everything under the dominion of Adam and Eve
Eve was also placed under the curse of death, under the curse of corruption, and that the
suffering that Adam and Eve brought into the world by their own disobedience is not just
shared with us through original sin, those who are descendants of Adam and Eve, but it’s
also shared with the entirety of creation, with the entirety of the created world.
Now, this reminds us, and here we’re getting a little bit closer to what Paul is doing
with this text, because this reminds us that we also suffer, that we also die, that we
also are afflicted in this life, and we might ask the same question that the children ask
about the animals, about ourselves.
The question goes like this, Pastor, if we’re forgiven of our sins, why do we still have
to die?
We know that we die because we’re sinners.
Death is not the result of disease.
Death is not the result of corruption.
Death is not the result of the bad choices that you make.
You and I are dying because we’re sinners.
If you eat of it, dying, you will die.
The wages of sin is death.
Sin shows up in our own lives as dying.
But then the question is, if our sins are forgiven, then why do we still have to die?
Why?
If Christ died in our place, then why don’t we get to live forever?
If Jesus is taking away the curse of Adam and Eve, then why do we still live this life
of suffering?
And this is Paul’s answer, that much like the animals and all the rest of creation that
were subjected to futility and corruption in the expectation of the resurrection, so
now we suffer in this life in the expectation of glory.
Let me explain a little bit more.
Paul explains it this way in verse 17, which is one verse before your reading, but it kind
of sets the pace for what’s going on, and it’s even hard to see in the English because
Paul does something that’s really interesting in the Greek, and you can’t really translate
it.
There’s a word in Greek, it’s really like a littleâ¦you put it at the beginning of
the word, the word sun, and it means with or together.
In fact, the word synod that we have like Lutheran Church, Missouri, synod comes from
the Greek word sun hodos, which means to walk together or to be on the way together.
It’s that word together, and Paul actually uses that little Greek phrase on three words
right in a row in verse 17.
Let me read it for you in English
and then I’ll give you a weird translation
to try to capture it.
In English it goes like this,
starting with verse 16.
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit
that we’re the children of God,
and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God, and here’s the first one,
and fellow heirs with Christ,
provided we suffer with him
in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Now, that word fellow heirs is one word in the Greek, that word suffer with him is one
word in the Greek, and that word glorified with him is one word in the Greek.
In other words, it goes like this.
Paul says we are co-heirs, which means we are co-sufferers before we are co-glorified.
So that God has forgiven our sins, adopted us into His family, given us all the riches
of heaven, thrown open the door to eternal life completely by His grace and mercy, by
by the death of Jesus on the cross,
so that we have all of these things,
but just like Jesus suffered, we also must suffer,
and so that just like Jesus is glorified,
we also will be glorified.
So that our sufferings now are with Christ.
I don’t even, I can’t figure out how to capture this.
It’s not like Jesus is suffering here
and we’re kind of suffering with him.
No, it’s that in our sufferings,
Christ suffers, and in His sufferings we suffer. He’s sympathetic with us. That’s
in fact the word, sympatheo. He feels our own suffering. He’s not
far from it. If someone punches you in the face, Jesus feels it. If
you stub your toe, He crunches His face. If you knock your head, He grinds
his teeth. He’s with you in this suffering. And in this Jesus being with you in the suffering,
it transforms our suffering. Look, apart from Christ, apart from the death and resurrection
of Jesus, apart from his mercy and kindness, all of our sufferings are reminders of the
curse. When you go to a funeral, it reminds you that the person who is there to be buried
is a sinner and they’re suffering the curse. If you eat it, you’ll die. And every bit of
your own suffering, if it’s physical suffering, and I think a lot of the physical suffering
is what the text is actually talking about. If you’re sick, if you’re diseased, if you’re
weak, if you’re tired, if the bad diagnosis came, if you’re just getting older, you feel
the corruption of this world, that’s a sign of the curse, that you’re dying.
And not just the physical suffering but also all the other suffering, the fighting between
people in our homes, out of the homes, the alienation, the frustration of husband and
wife and parents and children and neighbors for one another and wars and all this stuff,
that’s all reminders of the curse that we’re living in a fallen world.
but through the death and resurrection of Jesus,
our suffering has been transformed.
Maybe here’s the picture.
The pain that we feel is not the pain of a deathbed,
but the pain of a birthing room,
and that’s an entirely different kind of pain.
If you’re on the deathbed and you’re writhing,
and you know what’s coming next is death,
but if you’re in the birthing room
and you’re feeling the pain, you know what’s coming next
is life, a child to be born.
And that’s how Paul says it.
He says, not only this, but we know that the whole creation
has been groaning together, I’m looking at verse 22,
can you see it here?
We know that the whole creation has been groaning together
in the pains of childbirth until now.
so that the sufferings of this life for the Christian
are not the throes of death,
but the contractions coming before birth.
And that is an entirely different thing.
Your suffering, the things that you’re suffering now,
and all of us are suffering, some of us have a long list,
some of us just have a few things on it,
but all of us are suffering,
and that suffering is not, listen very carefully,
that suffering that you’re enduring now
is not an indication that God is mad at you
or that God is angry with you
or that you are under the curse.
No, Jesus suffered for that already.
God is not angry with you.
He has not forgotten you.
He has not turned his back on you.
The sufferings that you are enduring now
are creating in you a hope for the life to come.
They’re indicating to you
that something better is on the way.
Every tear that you cry is a reminder that the Lord will wipe away all of your tears.
Every sleepless night is a reminder of the rest that’s on the way for the people of God.
Every night of sorrow, every time of tribulation, all of it is a reminder that glory is to come.
We are we are co-sufferers so that we also will share in his glory. There’s a picture
That Luther preached one time that I think captures this
He says you have to imagine that you’re in the dungeon of a castle remember this I’ve told you this before
I’m just checking to see if you’re nodding if you remember what I preach or not
Maybe it’s good that you forget so then I can use it again
You have to imagine yourself in the dungeon of a prison
prison, which is already a pretty bad spot to be, and it’s even worse because that prison
that’s under a castle and that castle is being bombarded.
The cannonballs are hitting the walls of the castle and you’re down there in the dungeon
and every time the cannonball hits the side of the castle you feel the whole thing rumble
and the dust falls from the ceiling and you think is the castle going to hold up, it’s
going to collapse, this is what this life is like, but Luther says, but it’s a totally
different picture if you have been captured by the king of the castle and
the army that’s bombarding the castle out there well that’s the army of the
king who is also your father who is surrounded the castle and is hitting it
with cannonballs so that he can rescue you and he can get you out of prison so
that every bit of suffering in this life all the tribulation and affliction and
everything that we’re enduring this is reminding us that the Lord is rescuing
us from this life, rescuing us from this fallen world, bringing us to the hope of eternal
life and the joy of the resurrection.
And that our moaning, our affliction, our deep kind of sighing and the pain of this
life, this is a reminder of the life to come.
In fact, so much so that the Holy Spirit takes all of our pain, all of this deep groaning
and affliction, he takes that as his own language to pray.
I was just reading Luther this last week and he was talking about this.
He says that when we start to pray, it’s like the froth on the top of a beer.
It’s just not there yet.
It’s not from the heart.
It’s just something that we want.
And he says that oftentimes the Lord will wait to answer our prayers so that the prayers
Our prayers sink down to the bottom of the glass.
Our prayers through our afflictions sink down to the bottom of our hearts and the Lord hears
them because that’s where He is.
So He waits for the prayers to get down there to where we hardly have any words to use.
It’s just simply a groaning and the Lord hears the prayers, the Holy Spirit takes up those
prayers and then the Lord delivers us. So it’s not just creation but we
ourselves, this is verse 23, who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly
as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies for in this
hope we were saved. So why do the animals have to die? And why do we have to die?
Why does creation suffer? And why do we suffer? These are all the shakings of the
world that’s on the way. Reminders of the resurrection, gifts from God to set
our hope on the life that is to come. That day when Jesus will stand on the
earth and call us up out of the grave and we will stand clothed in glory with
him and see him face to face so may God grant it may God grant it for Christ’s
sake that we would rejoice even in our sufferings and afflictions knowing that
the weight of glory is waiting for us and may we with Paul consider the
sufferings of this present time not even worthy to be compared to the glory
that will be revealed in us. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.
The peace of God passes all understanding. Guard your hearts and
minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
