In Rom. 8.22-27 we have begun to move to the climax of this powerful positive Spirit-filled argument. Here Tom emphasizes that Christians must be prepared to suffer with those who suffer in pain, and with the creation itself which is groaning for liberation, and even the Spirit is groaning within us and on our behalf, with groans too deep for mere words, so great is the longing for liberation. Paul quite rightly speaks of stages of liberation in this passage– we now have the first fruits of the Spirit’s life but we are still awaiting our adoption, the redemption of our bodies, so in the first stage of salvation we were saved in hope. Justification and the new birth are only the beginning of the process of salvation, and the Spirit is only the ‘down payment’ or as the KJV puts it, ‘the earnest’ of what is to come. The Greek word arrabon does not mean guarantee. In fact in modern Greek it is the word for the engagement ring, not the marriage itself, but the promise that a marriage is hopefully coming. Paul does not think the believer who has only experienced the first fruits of the Spirit already has eternal security. This is why in a text like Gal. 5 he warns all the Christians who already are manifesting the fruit of the Spirit that if they continue to pursue the deeds of the flesh, they will be excluded from God’s eschatological Kingdom when it comes fully on earth. In other words, neither here nor later in Rom. 8 is Paul ruling out the possibility, however unlikely, of a Christian committing apostasy. In short they are not eternally secure until they are securely in eternity.
Tom rightly points (p. 142) out that we have a three fold groaning in this segment of Rom. 8.22-23. The world is groaning in labor pains, the believers are groaning longing for the resurrection body, and thirdly, the Spirit is groaning within the believer. This is probably not a reference to speaking in tongues. Tom equates the groaning of creation with earthquakes, natural disasters, etc. with the birth pangs of the new creation. I would say they are reminders that we need the new creation, not that it is part of the process of bringing about the new creation like human labor pains. That’s why Paul also calls these things ‘being subjected to futility’ not to a birthing process.
Paul had a habit of adding the prefix syn to words, and in vs. 26-27 we even have the remarkable mash up of two prefixes— (see also Lk. 10.40)– synantilambanetai — the Spirit acts with us and also in our place to intercede with God. Then Paul adds the compound word hyperentyngchanei a word found nowhere else in Greek literature to make clear that the Spirit is definitely at work within us and also on our behalf. But Tom turns Paul’s remark in vs. 29 into something to equate with what is said in vss. 26-27, and this is over-realized eschatology. Vs. 29 is about being conformed to the image of the Son by means of bodily resurrection, which is not the same as the internal work of the Spirit referred to in vss. 26-27. It’s time to move on to the the crucial Rom. 8.28-30, which needs to be read properly or the whole flow of the argument goes awry.
English (US) · 