NOTES for Rom 8:19

Behind these words of the Apostle Paul stands his sense that the process of creation is not yet finished, but that from the moment humanity was created, two creative forces have been active in creation: God’s and human. This is very much in harmony with the description of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis (Gen 1-2), where it is shown that all creation is directed toward the human being, created in the image of God. It is the human being who is entrusted with cultivating and preserving the whole created world, the “garden,” and it is the human being who gives names, that is, gives meaning to the existence of all the other living creatures. But it is also the human being who, falling into sin, brings distortion into creation, which God conceived as the co-creation of God and humanity. Therefore, as Paul says in one of the following verses (v. 22): “the whole creation groans and labors together until now.” But it does not only suffer; it also “waits with hope.” What does it wait for? For what Paul speaks of in the previous verse and here: that glory will be revealed in us, that there will be a revelation, an unveiling of us as sons of God. For when this happens, the two creative forces in creation will begin to act hand in hand, and the grace of God will fill the whole world without hindrance.

Thus Paul’s words give cosmic significance to our turning to God, to our knowledge of His will in Jesus Christ, and to the transformation of our life by the action of the Holy Spirit.