The story of being a child of God is one of being his heir and his joint heir with Christ. But it is also one of sharing in Jesus’ suffering. Paul tells us to consider it. “Consider” means to add it up. We are to take the pain and anguish we have suffered and add it all together. We should be clear though, suffering for Paul is not the loss of political influence or not getting everything we want in life or not seeing our favorite football team win every game. Suffering here is the way Christ suffered, for the reasons he suffered.

The word glory means “to be heavy”. It was used to describe the weights that were used on a scale to determine the value of a thing. So what we find is that all the suffering we share in this life added up together is not even close to being worthy of the value we are to have in the coming age. This is not a dismissal of the present age because some of what we suffer here is profound. But how much more valuable is the weight of what will be.

And because of this, we have to follow the practice of living by faith and not by sight. We live by faith in the eternal and perfect, not by seeing the temporal and imperfect. This is certainly not blind faith. God never commands us to go blindly. We have millennia upon millennia of God’s work and faithfulness to believe in. If someone ever asks you to take a blind leap of faith, they are probably trying to sell you something.

One of the reasons we know the depth and harm of what sin has done is that even creation waits with eager longing for redemption. All of creation, not just humanity, has suffered and been broken since the fall. To this point, creation actually became useless and futile in regards to God’s original purpose. But even so, God has chosen to work with fallen humanity in a fallen world. So creations waits in hope because nature will be part of eternity. We are told that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah tells us

“The wolf shall live with the lamb,the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together,and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together;and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”


The restoration of all creation, humanity included, will see its original purpose to be fulfilled. God and humanity and creation will once again exist in intimate fellowship. With the fall of Adam, labor pains became a curse. But to Paul, even that will be redeemed as the fulfilled kingdom of God comes. But as we wait, we groan ourselves, like creation. The “already” in tension with the “not yet”. We eagerly await the finalization of our adoption, it’s completion and perfection. This hope of all creation being reconciled someday to God is so important that it is part of our salvation now. We must wait with patience and perseverance as we ripen and mature and show the fruit of the Spirit as it manifests in our lives. The Spirit leads us to groaning for reconciliation and leads us to hope and also helps us in our weakness. And God knows that we are weak. He’s pretty smart. He understands who we are and what we are capable of.

Creation groans in its futility. Believers groan in their fallenness and the Spirit groans in intercession. We think we always need to know the right answer or have to have the right word. Not being fully prepared for every situation is a fear that humans constantly have to strive against. But we have the example of Christ sending the disciples out with only his power and each other. He didn’t let them prepare for every contingency because he knew that it would be futile and he wanted them to rely on him. And we don’t always get it right. We don’t always or maybe even often pray for the right things. But God knows who we are and knows what we need. And there is no guesswork involved because the Spirit itself intercedes for the saints.

For Paul in Romans 8, there are two paths by which we can go and we are obligated to either God or to the flesh. It is a debt that we owe. If we are of God, then we owe a debt of love. If we are of the flesh, the human nature, then we are obligated to live according to that nature. We are a slave to it. We are surprised when those obligated to the flesh act like it but should we be? Why do we find it so shocking when people act exactly like they are obliged to act? We give non-believers a really hard time for acting according to their nature but we should take our cue from Christ’s attitude towards them. An attitude of grace and forgiveness. It was such that even as they nailed him to a tree, he asked his father to forgive them because they know not what they are doing.

Verse 13 tells us that we will die. Through Adam it is true that all of us will die at some point. So we are told to put to death the deeds of the body so that we may live. Christian lifestyle does not assure salvation but it does serve as proof of it. The epistle of James spends a great deal of time explaining this exact thing to us. But we do not have to do this on our own. It is the Spirit that leads us to Christ and then leads us in Christ.

Christianity is more than a decision. It is an ongoing commitment to discipleship. The decision to be disciples has to be daily because in this fallen world, the need to know God is required daily. How strong is the pull of the flesh but how much more so the leading of the Spirit.

The pull of the flesh is strong because fear is the driving characteristic of the old nature. We are taught to fear so many things. We are taught to fear the loss of our possession, our health, our money, our loved ones, even our identity. But we have a new identity. One that cannot be taken away from us. All believers become children of God. We are adopted into his family. We are no longer slaves but we are now family. It is why we can call God “Abba”. This is what you would call your father at home, in a familiar setting. Fallen humanity can now speak to the holy creator of the universe in such a way. The indwelling of the Spirit has replaced the fear of God with family love. And it is our crying out “Abba” that is actually the Spirit testifying to our new standing as God’s children. Our spirit and the Spirit of God are bearing witness together to whom we belong.

What we can’t do is slip into the thinking that assurance is meant to soften holiness. Assurance is based on the Father’s love and mercy, the Son’s sacrificial work and the Spirit’s leading us to Christ and then forming us in his likeness. And the evidence of those things is a change in our worldview, heart, lifestyle and hope. And it is here that Paul tells us that we get to be God’s children- YEA!! That sounds good. And we not only get to be his children but that we are his heirs- DOUBLE YEA!!! That sounds even better. Then we find out that we get to be joint heirs with Christ himself- INFINITE YEA!!!!! Oh, man. How amazing!!! But then there is the next part. Paul tells us that if we are all those things then we will also share in the suffering of Christ. Oh. Well. That doesn’t sound as fun. But it was Christ’s suffering that brought glory. It was his suffering that gave the rest weight and meaning and value. Not that we want suffering or that we should go out looking for suffering for its own sake. But we should have the knowledge of the FACT that being God’s children, being God’s heir, being a joint heir with Christ, is going to bring suffering. But we should also have the knowledge that God can take that suffering and turn it into glory.

Tradition tells us that Peter and Paul were the founders of the church in Rome. Peter seems to have focused, at first at least, on the Jewish population, while Paul tried to persuade the Gentiles. As Paul was a traveling evangelist, Peter was the one who stayed and did the preaching. But Paul always kept these believers in his prayers and thoughts and eventually wrote a letter to them.

Paul sets out two very different perspectives for his audience in the letter. There are two opposing priorities. Two distinct paths. One is the way of the flesh and one is the way of the Spirit. The eighth chapter will try to show where these paths lead. It’s interesting that “Satan” doesn’t appear by name in Romans until the 16th chapter. It seems that Paul is trying to eliminate an excuse people have for choosing the way of the flesh. There is no “the devil made me do it” for Paul. But we will see that Satan does indeed have a role in the chapter.

Paul starts off by telling us that there is, for us, no condemnation. Condemnation is a legal term and it is rarely used outside of Paul’s writing. Even rare inside them. It is the opposite of justification. Condemnation occurs when Satan accuses God’s people of covenant violations. This is what leads to death. But what we see is that the Spirit has set us free from sin and death. What the law couldn’t do and was never designed to do, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus did. That’s why the Father sent the Son. In Christ, the Church is grafted into Christ as his very body. We have been adopted by the Father because we are now part of the son. Having died in Christ, neither the law nor Satan has grounds for accusation against us.

We are now free. But freedom in Christ doesn’t mean political freedom. A representative republic and a free market economy is the highest ideal of Christianity. We are not guaranteed to be free from pain, suffering, trials or even bad luck. In fact, it seems that we are actually promised that those things will befall us.

Paul tells us that the Father sent the Son in “likeness” of sinful flesh. Jesus came with a human body and tempted in every way humanity is tempted but sinless. Blameless. Christ understands us and empathizes with us, therefore God understands us and empathizes with us. And then the blameless life of Christ offered as a sin offering for all of humanity.

This new covenant we enter into has both rights (salvation) and responsibility (Christ likeness). Alone, we could not have either but the Spirit leads and encourages us this new Christlikeness but it never forces our compliance. This work of the Spirit is part of the peace given to us. The work is a binding together that which was broken. That brokenness comes from walking in the flesh. We are slaves to it in both thought and deed. Sin is a powerful force and it is running its course in this world. It is spiritual death that led to physical death but Paul tells us that it is spiritual life that will lead to physical life.