Romans Chapter8 Vs. 22

Future Glory

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Rom 8:22

groaneth and travaileth... Groans and toils in labor and hardship. This refers to Adam’s Fall, which has caused misery from then until the present. The present sufferings of creation are the “birth pangs” of the new age to be born, the Millennium. From the Fall until now, creation has been groaning over the pointlessness of having been made subject to a curse. It eagerly looks forward to the time when the curse will be lifted.

Until Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, there was no promise of everlasting life. Mankind died with no hope of everlasting life. The atonement (payment), for sins up until Jesus crucifixion, was just for 1 year at a time. The blood of an animal could not do away with sin, it could only cover it.

In one sense Rom. 8:22 is an appropriate conclusion to the preceding paragraph, summing up the present cursed state of the physical creation. Paul said, We know (oidamen, continuing state of knowledge that grows out of perception) that the whole Creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth (lit., “keeps on groaning together and keeps on travailing together”) right up to the present time. The emphasis on “together” in these verbs does not include believers in Christ, who are specifically mentioned in Rom. 8:23, but involves the various parts of the natural Creation. At the same time Rom. 8:22 introduces this new paragraph, which sets forth the hope of future deliverance from suffering under the curse of sin.

Paul had begun this section by referring to the believers’ “present sufferings” (Rom. 8:18), a subject to which he returned in Rom. 8:23.