Steve Wallace has been working with the Lord’s church at St. Leon, IN, for most of the last five years. He can be reached at alvincarl@etczone.com.

Writing in reference to Romans 8:20 one author wrote, “The ‘hope’ Paul speaks of is the hope of the cosmic renewal….”[1] Douglas J. Moo wrote that Romans 8:19-22 “is the clearest expression of future hope for the physical world in the NT.”[2] These quotations are just a couple of examples of abuse of this passage by New Creation Theology (NCT) writers. Such teaching has also gained acceptance among some of our brethren. Our text reads as follows:

For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now (Rom. 8:19-22).

Does Romans 8:19-22 teach that the earth is not going to pass away? In answering this question it is, first of all, important to understand the context of this passage. In Romans 7 Paul explains the hopelessness of man seeking acceptance with God under the Law of Moses. In contrast to chapter 7, chapter 8 gives assurance to those following the guidance of the Spirit. Paul’s focus in both chapters is on man seeking acceptance with God. It is this writer’s understanding that Romans 8 is made up of four sections, verses 1-11, 12-17, 18-30, and 31-39. Verses 31-39 contain an exhortation based on what is written in verses 1-30. Each of the first three sections end with the saints being glorified (cf. v. 11, “shall give life to your mortal bodies,” 17, and 30).

Let us now examine the immediate context of the passage under consideration in this article, verses 18-30. In verse 18 Paul picks up where he left off in verse 17, with the suffering and glory of the saints. Verse 18 teaches that, no matter how bad our suffering in this world may be, future glory will greatly exceed it. This leads to an explanation of how great the future glory of saints will be. Verses 19-27 speak of the “groaning” of creation (vv. 19-22), the saints themselves (vv. 23-25), and the Spirit (vv. 26, 27) in pressing toward or helping to bring about the future glory of the saints. Verses 29, 30 give a brief scan, past, present, and future, of God’s plan to bring man to glory. Verses 18-30 begin and end speaking of the glory of the saints (cf. vv. 18, 30).

The key contention NCT teachers make on this passage is based on verse 21, “Creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” Creation, in verse 19, is “usually taken to mean … the whole creation below the human level (animate and inanimate…).”[3] Based on this verse, Moo writes, “Nature … is destined not simply for destruction but for transformation.”[4] This is a bald assertion. The “glory” of which Paul writes in verse 21 is the glory “of” or belonging to “the children of God.” Creation is only spoken of as being delivered into the liberty of that glory. That glory does not belong to creation. Godet correctly writes,

“Paul does not say that nature will participate in the glory, but only in the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Liberty is one of the elements of their glorious state, and it is the only one to which nature can lay claim."[5]

Bondage and liberty are the contrasting states of creation in verse 21. The contrasting states of saints are suffering and glory (vv. 18, 21). The liberation of creation from bondage will take place when saints attain glory, but that liberation stops short of the state into which the saints will enter. Please compare the two following texts, the italicized parts of which are of like construction:

That the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21).

And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus… (Acts 4:33).

The “witness of the resurrection” is not the same as the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. In like manner, “the liberty of the glory of the children of God” is not the same as the glory of the children of God. Further, in leaving the earth Jesus sought "the glory which He had with the Father before the world was" (John 17:5, emph. sw; cf. John 1:1-3; 8:58). Later in John 17 He prays concerning His people: “Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (v. 24, emph. sw). In “bringing many sons unto glory” (Heb. 2:10), Jesus had no plans having to do with the created realm. When the saints are glorified there will be “no place” found for “the earth and the heaven” (Rev. 20:11; cf. Matt. 24:35; 2 Cor. 4:18). Thus, when Christians enter glory, creation will finally be delivered when God causes it to pass away. We must move on.

Not content with the small but significant jump from liberty to glory we have just observed, our NCT take a yet bigger leap. They connect the redemption of man with a so-called redemption of the cosmos. Jack Cottrell writes, “…The day our bodies will be redeemed (Rom. 8:23) will be the day when the universe itself is redeemed.”[6] A chorus of agreement echoes forth from other NCT writers.[7] In the context of Romans 8 we read of “the redemption of our (Christians’, sw) body” (v. 23, emph. sw). We read nothing here or anywhere else of final redemption of the earth or universe. Rather, NCT advocates read it into the text of the Bible. Will all the animals and insects, including bed bugs, be resurrected? Further, we note that adoption also appears in Romans 8:23. Why not argue for the adoption of the universe?

NCT writers ignore the context, the grammar, and add things to the Bible. Romans 8:19-22 provides no support for their belief that the universe has a place in God’s plans for eternity.

Endnotes

1 Strimple, Robert B., et al, Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 104.

2 Moo, Douglas J., “Nature in the New Creation: New Testament Eschatology and the Environment,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49 (2006) 449-88.

3 Bauer, Arndt & Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 2nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 456.

4 Moo, “Nature in the New Creation,” 5.

5 Godet, Frederic, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1977), 315.

6 Cottrell, Jack, The Faith Once For All (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Co., 2002), 564.

7 Moo, “Nature in the New Creation,” 3; J. Richard Middleton, “A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Case for a Holistic Reading of the Biblical Story of Redemption,” Journal for Christian Theological Research 11 (2006) 73-97; Sam Storms, The Restoration of All Things (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 15; N. T. Wright, “Redemption from the New Perspective? Towards a Multi-Layered Pauline Theology of the Cross,” Originally published in Redemption, ed. S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, G. O’Collins (Oxford: OUP) 2006, 69–100.