MONDAY March 25th
Romans 8:23
‘And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.’
Before we turn to the text, this last weekend marked the 4th anniversary since I started sending out the devotions (March 23rd, 2020) I will comment more in a weeks’ time.
Paul after speaking of the creation groaning as we saw in our previous devotion, then turns to speak of those who are belonging to Christ as also groaning inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. To more easily understand what Paul is saying we can turn to what he has written in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 ‘For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.’
The wonder of being a new creation is, that although the outer man is perishing and will one day die, and not one of us can get out of this, the promise of God is that the day is coming when the body will be redeemed! I know that primarily we think of redemption as being all about the salvation of our souls, being made spiritually alive again, the outworking of salvation also has an eternal effect on our bodies, for as we have already covered in 1 Corinthians 15, there is going to be a resurrection of the dead, more specifically the resurrection of those who have died in Christ, and that resurrection is all about the redemption of the body, and just as we have been made into new creations spiritually, our bodies will be restored, redeemed, resurrected to become new spiritual, glorious, immortal bodies fit to be found in the new heaven and the new earth wherein we will dwell.
So, we all suffer physically, we all grow older and start to creak and stiffen up, we all suffer with various ailments, because sin not only separated us from God, but it caused the human body to falter and frail and eventually fail. So, we groan, longing for and to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.
But the good news for the present is this, that while the outer man is perishing, we can continually know what it is for the inner man, the new creation to be daily renewed! And we live with this confident hope that God who has planned everything out, has given to us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing for us what is to come. And every guarantee that God gives is a rock-solid guarantee, he who raised Jesus from the dead, will also give life to your mortal bodies through (or BECAUSE NIV) of his Spirit who lives in you (Romans 8:11).
So as Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 5:6 because of this future hope, ‘We are always of good courage.’