Romans 8:18-22

On the passage Romans 8:18-22.

In following the exposition of the work of salvation, the apostle touches a domain, that, namely, of nature, where he comes into contact with the labors of science. Is there harmony or variance between his teaching and the results of scientific study? There is a first point on which the harmony is complete. For a century past the study of our globe has proved that the present condition of the earth is only the result of a series of profound and gradual transformations; which leads us naturally to the conclusion that this state is not final, and should only be regarded as a temporary phase destined to pave the way for some other new transformation. So it is precisely that our earth appears to the view of the apostle enlightened by the Holy Spirit. But there is a second point on which the harmony does not seem so complete. The apostle traces the present state of suffering and death to a catastrophe which has intervened, first in the moral world, and which has reacted on external nature. Now modern science seems to prove that the present condition of the earth is a natural result of its whole previous development, and that the miseries belonging to it are rather remains of the primitive imperfection of matter than the effects of a fall which intervened at a given moment. Is death, for example, which reigns over mankind, anything else than the continuation of that to which the animal world was subject in the epochs anterior to man? This is a serious objection. Putting ourselves at the apostle's point of view, we may answer it in two ways. If we apply to man the expression ὁ ὑποτάξας, he who subjected (nature to vanity), it must be held that man placed in a privileged position, exempt from miseries in general and from death, with a body which life in God could raise above the law of dissolution, was called as the king of nature to free this magnificent domain from all the imperfections and miseries which it had inherited from previous ages. After developing all his faculties of knowledge and power in the favored place where he had been put for this purpose, man should have extended this prosperous condition to the whole earth, and changed it into a paradise. Natural history proves that a beneficial influence even on the animal world is not an impossibility. But in proportion as man failed in his civilizing mission to nature, if one may so speak, it fell back under that law of vanity from which it should have been freed by him, and which weighed on it only the more heavily in consequence of man's corruption. Thus the apostle's view may be justified on this explanation. But if the term ὁ ὑποτάξας, he who subjected, refers to Satan, there opens up to our mind a still vaster survey over the development of nature. Satan is called and Jesus Himself gives him the title the prince of this world. He who believes in the personal existence of Satan may therefore also hold that this earth belonged originally to his domain. Has it not been from the first steps of its development the theatre of the struggle between this revolted vassal and his divine liege-lord? The history of humanity is constantly showing us, both in great things and small, God taking the initiative and laying down some good, but that good hasting to alter its character by a progressive deviation, which leads slowly to the most enormous monstrosities. Might not primitive nature have been subject to a similar law, and the crisis of its development have resulted also from conflict between a beneficent force laying down a normal state, and that power of deviation which immediately takes hold of the divine product to guide it to the most abnormal result, till the salutary principle again interpose to establish a new point of departure superior to the former, and which the malignant spirit will corrupt anew? From this unceasing struggle proceeded the constant progress which terminated in man, and in the relatively perfect condition in which he originally appeared. But the power of deviation showed itself immediately anew on the very theatre of paradise, and in the domain of liberty produced sin, which involved all again under the law of death, which is not yet finally vanquished. It belongs to Christ, to the children of God, the seed of the woman, man victorious over the serpent, his temporary victor, to work out a deliverance which would have been the work of the race of mankind had it remained united to God. Perhaps this second point of view explains more fully the thought of the apostle expressed in this passage.

There is a third point on which science seems to us to harmonize readily with St. Paul's view; I mean the close solidarity which exists between man and the whole of nature. The physiologist is forced to see in the human body the intended goal and masterpiece of animal organization which appears as nothing else than a long effort to reach this consummation. As the breaking of the bud renders sterile the branch which bore it, so the fall of man involved that of the world. As Schelling said in one of his admirable lectures on the philosophy of revelation: “Nature, with its melancholy charm, resembles a bride who, at the very moment when she was fully attired for marriage, saw the bridegroom to whom she was to be united die on the very day fixed for the marriage. She still stands with her fresh crown and in her bridal dress, but her eyes are full of tears.” The soul of the poet-philosopher here meets that of the apostle. The ancient thinkers spoke much of a soul of the world. The idea was not a vain dream. The soul of the world is man. The whole Bible, and this important passage in particular, rest on this profound idea.

The groaning of nature, of which the apostle has just spoken, is the expression and proof of the abnormal state to which it is subjected, with all the beings belonging to it. But it is not the only sufferer from this state of imperfection. Other beings of a higher order, and which have already been restored to their normal state, also suffer from the same, and mingle their groaning with that of nature. This is the truth developed in Romans 8:23-25.