Romans 8:20

“ For the creation was made subject to vanity, not voluntarily, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth together and as it were travaileth until now. ”

The vanity to which nature is now subject, is the state of frailty to which all earthly beings are subjected. “Everywhere,” says M. Reuss, “our eyes meet images of death and decay; the scourge of barrenness, the fury of the elements, the destructive instincts of beasts, the very laws which govern vegetation, everything gives nature a sombre hue”...This reign of death which prevails over all that is born cannot be the normal state of a world created by God. Nature suffers from a curse which it cannot have brought upon itself, as it is not morally free. It is not with its goodwill, says the apostle, that it appears in this condition, but because of him who hath subjected it to such a state.

Whom does he mean? According to most modern commentators: God. Was it not He who pronounced the sentence of doom: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Gen 3:17)? Yet if this were the apostle's meaning, it would be strange that he should use the expression: by reason of (διά with the accusative); for God is not the moral cause, but the efficient author of the curse on nature. Then if the expression: not with its goodwill, signifies: not by its own fault, it is natural to seek in the contrasted term a designation of the person on whom the moral responsibility for this catastrophe rests; and we cannot be surprised at the explanation given by Chrysostom, Schneckenburger, Tholuck, who apply the term ὁ ὑποτάξας. he who subjected, to the first man; comp. the expression, Genesis 3:17: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake. ” It cannot be denied, however, that there is something strangely mysterious in the apostle's language, which he might easily have avoided by saying: by reason of the man, or by reason of us; then does the term: he who subjected, apply well to man, who in this event, so far as nature is concerned, played a purely passive part? This consideration has led one critic, Hammond, to apply the term to Satan, the prince of this world (as Jesus calls him), who, either by his own fall or by that of man, dragged the creation into the miserable state here described. The only room for hesitation, as it appears to me, is between the two latter meanings.

The regimen: in hope, can only refer to the term: who hath subjected, if we apply it to God, which, as we have seen, is unnatural. It depends therefore on the principal verb: was made subject to vanity, and signifies that from the first, when this chastisement was inflicted, it was so only with a future restoration in view. This hope, precisely like the expectation, Romans 8:19, is attributed to nature herself; she possesses in the feeling of her unmerited suffering a sort of presentiment of her future deliverance.