Romans 8:19

First testimony to this glorious future: creation sighs for it. In some sense the hope and promise of it is involved in the present constitution of the world. For a fine speculative interpretation see E. Caird's Evolution of Religion, ii., 124 f. In Paul, however, the spirit of the passage is rather poetic than philosophical. Its affinities are with Genesis 3:17, where the ground is cursed for man's sake: he conceives of all creation as involved in the fortunes of humanity. But this, if creation be personified, naturally leads to the idea of a mysterious sympathy between the world and man, and this is what the Apostle expresses. Creation is not inert, utterly unspiritual, alien to our life and its hopes. It is the natural ally of our souls. What rises from it is the music of humanity not apparently so still and sad to Paul as to Wordsworth, but with a note of hope in it rising triumphantly above all the pain of conflict. ἀποκαραδοκία (Philippians 1:20) denotes absorbed, persistent expectation waiting, as it were, with uplifted head. ἡ κτίσις is the world and all that it contains, animate and inanimate, as distinguished from man. τὴν ἀποκ. τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ : cf. 1 John 3:2. With the revelation of the sons of God humanity would attain its end, and nature too.