Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit … groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
The firstfruits of the Spirit
I.What they include.
1. Pardon.
2. Regeneration.
3. Communion with God.
II. What they inspire.
1. Hope.
2. Aspiration.
3. Patience.
III. What they promise.
1. Final adoption into the family of heaven.
2. The glorification of the body.
3. The beatific vision. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The groaning believer
If our action upon and relation to the creature cause the creature to be subject to so much travail and pain, so, in return, the creature acts upon us, causing us to groan under a burden which it is hard to bear. The action is reciprocal, and our present life appears, for the time, to be a life of vanity and vexation of spirit, and is only partially mitigated by the prospect of the final redemption. Here, then, we have just the counterpart of the picture presented in Rom_8:22.
I. A description of believers. We who have the Spirit as “the firstfruits,” or “the earnest” of our inheritance. Take man as man; compare his rich endowments with theshortness of his existance and the vanity of his occupation. And if we pass to the Christian man endowed with the fruits of redemption, what we see of hispresent life only still more impresses us with a feeling of its vanity. For only look--
1. At the endowments he possesses--the firstfruits of the Spirit. Not merely high mental powers, but the rudiments of a Divine nature fitting for communion with a holy God and fellowship with the pure intelligences of heaven.
2. At the expenditure by which these endowments have been secured. The wisdom of God, the work of Christ, and the operations of the Holy Spirit, are all involved in lifting any one up from the level of mere humanity to that of the family of God.
3. At the consciousness of the endowment as already possessed by us--awakening within us aspirations to do the work that angels do, having a desire to depart and be with Jesus--a training that seems to unfit for the low occupations of earthly life. Who has not wished always to be employed in some heavenly service when he has found himself tied down by the necessity of labouring for the bread that perisheth.
II. Their present sorrowful condition--“groan within ourselves.”
1. There seems here a kind of retributive action. We have to do with earthly things, and as we have abused them so they seem to press upon us, and so to resent the wrong we have done them. There are sins that God has forgiven, but the effects upon our temporal condition can never be repaired.
2. The discrepancy that seems to exist between the endowment and the service to which it is here devoted. John Howe speaks of a man clothed in scarlet being set to feed swine to express such discrepancy. And, no doubt, if such were the will of God, a loving servant would yield, but then scarlet is not the proper livery for such a service. It may be a discipline for the servant, though it spoil his clothes.
3. It arises from the actual sufferings to be endured, and no affliction for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. We are not Stoics, nor does God wish us to be.
4. There is the liability to temptation and sin. We may, after all, be overtaken by a fault, and whilst we are so exposed we may well groan.
5. There is our proximity to the evil around us. Righteous Lot vexed his soul with the filthy conversation of the wicked.
III. Their coming deliverance.
1. This is called the adoption, because it will be, not the initiation into the family, but the public inauguration of the heir, on reaching his majority, into the inheritance.
2. It is called the redemption of the body. Redemption is, in Christ, already complete. But in us it is progressive--
(1) “There is, therefore, now no condemnation.”
(2) Death, when the soul is emancipated from all pollution.
(3) The resurrection, when the body itself shall be emancipated (Php_3:21).
The subject teaches a lesson--
1. Of patience. It is God’s order. “Ye have need of patience, that after ye have suffered the will of God.”
2. Of hope. Look on. “Seek not your rest here.” (P. Strutt.)
The inward groaning of the saints
Note--
I. Whereunto The Saints Have Attained.
1. “We have,” not “we hope sometimes we have,” nor yet “possibly we may have,” nor we shall have, but “we have.” True, many things are yet in the future, but we have already a heritage which is the beginning of our eternal portion--“the firstfruits of the Spirit,” i.e., the first works of the Spirit in our souls--repentance, faith, love. These are called the firstfruits because--
(1) They come first. As the wave-sheaf was the first of the harvest, so the graces which adorn the spiritual life are the first gifts of theSpirit of God in our souls.
(2) They were the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, they were to him so many proofs that the harvest was already come. So, when God gives us “Faith, hope, charity,” “whatsoever things are pure, lovely,” etc., these are to us the prognostics of the coming glory.
(3) They were always holy to the Lord. The first ears of corn were offered to the Most High, and surely our new nature, with all its powers, must be regarded by us as a consecrated thing.
(4) They were not the harvest. No Jew was ever content with them. So, when we get the first works of theSpirit of God, we are not to say,” I have attained, I am already perfect.” Nay, they should but excite an insatiable thirst after more.
2. What the saint has attained will help us to understand why it is that he groans. Having reaped handfuls, we long for sheaves. For the reason that we are saved, we groan for something beyond. Did you hear that groan? It is a traveller lost in the deep snow on the mountain pass. Hear another. The traveller has reached the hospice, is perfectly safe, and is exceedingly grateful to think that he has been rescued; but yet I hear him groan because he has a wife and children down in yonder plain, and the snow is lying so deep that he cannot pursue his journey. Now, the first groan was deep and dreadful; that is the groan of the ungodly man as he perishes; but the second is more the note of desire than of distress. Such is the groan of the believer, who, though rescued and brought into the hospice of Divine mercy, is longing to seehis Father’s face.
II. Wherein are believers deficient? In those things for which we groan and wait.
1. This body of ours is not delivered. As soon as a man believes in Christ, his soul is translated from death unto life, and the body indeed becomes a temple for the Holy Ghost; but the grace of God makes no change in the body in other respects. The greatest piety cannot preserve a man from growing old, nor deliver his body from corruption, weakness, and dishonour. Nor is this little, for the body has a depressing effect upon the soul, and its appetites have a natural affinity to that which is sinful. The body is redeemed by price, but it has not yet been redeemed by power. Now this is the cause of our groaning. The soul is so married to the body that when it is itself delivered, it sighs to think that its poor friend should still be under the yoke. If you were a free man, and your wife a slave, the more you enjoyed the sweets of freedom, the more would you pine that she should still be in slavery. And so, again, with the saints in heaven. They are free from sin, but a disembodied spirit never can be perfect until it is reunited to its body. They do not groan, but they long with greater intensity than you and I for the “adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.”
2. Our adoption is not manifested (cf. verse 19). Among the Romans a man might adopt a child privately; but there was a second adoption, when the child was brought before the authorities, and its ordinary garments were taken off, and the father put on garments suitable to the condition of life in which it was to live. “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him”; that is, God will dress us all as He dresses His eldest Son. Cannot you imagine a child taken from the lowest ranks of society and adopted by a Roman senator, saying to himself, “I wish the day were come when I shall be publicly revealed, and be robed as becomes my rank.” Happy in what he has received, for that very reason he groans to get the fulness of what is promised him. So it is with us.
3. Our liberty is incomplete. As to our spirits, we have liberty to soar to the heavenly places with Jesus Christ; but as for our bodies, we can only roam about this narrow cell of earth.
4. Our glory is not yet revealed, and that is another subject for sighing. “The glorious liberty” may be translated, “The liberty of glory.” We are like warriors fighting for the victory; we share not as yet in the shout of them that triumph. Even up in heaven they have not their full reward. They are waiting till their Lord shall descend from heaven, and the whole of the blood-washed host, wearing their white robes, and bearing their palms of victory, shall march up to their thrones. After this consummation the believing heart is groaning. Let me show you again the difference between a groan and a groan. Go into yonder house: there is a deep, hollow, awful groan. Go to the next house, and there is another much more painful than the first. How are we to judge between them? We will come again in a few days: aswe are entering the first house we see weeping faces, a coffin, and a hearse. In the next there is a smiling cherub, and a mother who joys that a man is born into the world. There is all the difference between the groan of death and the groan of life. It is not the pain of death we feel, but the pain of life. We are thankful to have such a groaning. The other night two men working very late were groaning in two very different ways, one of them saying, “Ah, there’s a poor Christmas day in store for me.” He had been a drunkard, a spendthrift. Now, his fellow workman also groaned. On being asked why, he said, “I want to get home to my dear wife and children. I have such a happy house, I do not like to be out of it.” So the Christian has a good Father, a blessed home, and groans to get to it, and there is more joy in the groan of a Christian than in all the mirth of the ungodly.
III. What our state of mind is. A Christian’s experience is like the rainbow, made up of drops of the griefs of earth, and beams of the bliss of heaven.
1. “We groan within ourselves.” It is not the hypocrite’s groan, who wants people to believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. Our sighs are sacred things. We keep our longings to our Lord.
2. We are “waiting,” by which I understand that we are not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah, when they said, “Let me die,” nor are we tosit still and look for the end of the day because we are tired of work. We are to groan after perfection, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to open it and take us away to Himself.
3. We are hoping (verse 24). Conclusion: Here is a test for us all. You may judge of a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth, some because of their great losses or sufferings. But the man that yearns after more holiness, that is the man who is blessed indeed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christian experience and aspiration
That this passage is a magnificent one few would deny. The complaint we are likely to make of it is that it is too magnificent; that it transports us into an atmosphere which scarcely any one but a saint or apostle can be expected to breathe. We need, we think, not grand anticipations of a future, but some help in combating the petty temptations of each day. But if we look at these words again we perceive that the man who wrote them must have been more, not less, conversant than we are with the sufferings which common men are experiencing. He had shut himself in no cloister. He hears arising from all creation a groan coming from the sense of actual misery; and the clearest, fullest interpretation of these words may be found in our daily walks. The streets of London can tell us more about the sense of them than all the folios of commentators.
I. St. Paul tells the Roman Church that he and they were waiting for their adoption, or their full recognition as sons of God. There has been a proclamation to men that God has claimed them, without respect of race or circumstances, as His children in His only-begotten Son. And any message less than this has been powerless to satisfy the necessities of men, and has produced no permanent moral effect upon them. If we use all arguments of fear, all arts of rhetoric to convince men that they ought to take care of their souls, a few may be startled out of a sleep to which they will return again. But the mere part will feel that you are bidding them forget the real earth for the sake of a heaven which they can only dream of. But if we will recur to the old and simple scriptural phraseology of the hearth and home--if we will bear witness to men of a Father who has sent the elder Brother of the household to bring them into it, to endow them with the highest rights of children, we shall find that it can bring forth as clear a response from the men of the nineteenth century as from the men of the first.
II. The question how this condition of sonship is consistent with sorrow could be answered by those who believed the Son of God to be the Man of sorrows. In the light of Christ’s passion all suffering became transfigured. It was the filial token (Heb_13:8). But St. Paul did not intend that they should hug pain and sickness, because a deep truth might be learnt from them. He admits them in themselves to be discords and anomalies. He could not bear to contemplate it, if he were not sure that they were no parts of its original order; and that not being parts of it they were to cease. The revelation of the Son of God in weakness and pain and death, had vindicated the title of sons of God for creatures enduring weakness, pain, and death. The revelation of the Son of God in the glory of His Father would reveal them in the glory for which they had been created.
III. But the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Not simply that no sufferings are worthy to be compared with final rewards. The sufferings of the present time are those of the whole creation, of which man is the head, to be excluded from which would be to be excluded from human sympathy, from fellowship with the great Sufferer. So far from being exempt from them, Paul knew more of them than any, but the blessing of the firstfruits of the Spirit; is the possession of a clearer, stronger hope than others. Yet that hope is not a hope for himself, but for his kind.
IV. “for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who subjected the same.” Here is the apostle’s explanation of the puzzle which has tormented men ever since evil entered into the universe. That the guilty will be punished is reasonable, in this our consciences acquiesce. But there is a guiltless part of creation which endures misery. How can that be just? St. Paul feels the difficulty, and this is the refuge. The creation has been made subject to vanity; a very fitting phrase to express the apparent frustration of the end for which it has been called into existence. He frankly admits that the bondage which the mere animal undergoes is not its own fault, and that it has a Divine origin. But in doing so he affirms two mighty propositions--
1. That the innocent, involuntary creature is made the victim of vanity and death for the sake of that higher being who has broken loose from that will which he was created to serve.
2. That this subjection is temporary, and contains the promise of a future emancipation, when the end for which it was ordained has been accomplished. Less than this such language (verses 20, 21) cannot mean--that all the sufferings to which the earth and those that inhabit it are liable, are permitted and designed for the education of those who bear the nature which the Son of God bore; and that no suffering which contributes to this end is, in the judgment of the All-good and the All-wise, excessive or wasted, not even the sufferings and death of the Innocent, the Holy One. But this end being attained, all the forms of physical evil will also be overcome; the involuntary creation will be delivered from its fetters and its shame; the whole regenerated world, in its primal order and harmony, will offer up its sacrifices, through its High Priest and Restorer, to His Father.
V. His teaching, taken fully and literally, involves a renewal of the whole animal creation. If there is to be a restitution of all things, such as God, who cannot lie, promised by His holy prophets since the world began, I cannot understand how that element should be wanting to it. Must the creatures which have ministered to man’s wants and delights be shut out from the renovation of our race, by whose degeneracy they are so deeply affected? From these thoughts others are nearly inseparable. The idea of a redemption of nature as consequent upon a redemption of man has often dawned upon the man of science and upon the artist. The one has seen that the laws of the universe can only be fully vindicated when the self-will which has set those laws at defiance has been extirpated; the other, from his deep sense of the sympathy between man and the forms which he contemplates, has been certain that such a revelation of loveliness awaits the purified vision as the highest prophet has only guessed of.
VI. The redemption of the body which St. Paul waited for, must include the removal of whatever hinders the senses from receiving clear and satisfactory impressions of the world with which they are intended to converse. But there is a more obvious force in the expression. The body is enslaved to disease and pain. These are the signs that Death has rights over the body, and that he will assert his rights. St. Paul says that there is another who has an elder, stronger right over it; that Christ by going into the grave and rising out of it has asserted and made good His right; that He will fully exert it. This redemption St. Paul felt that he was sent to proclaim to men because he was sent to proclaim their sonship to God. And so his teaching assumed a profoundly practical character. Fully believing in this redemption men are never to confess Death as a master. Our homage to Christ, our faith in our Divine sonship, implies that we expect a victory for the body; that it was not made so fearfully and wonderfully for nothing; that it shall at last he made like to the glorious body of Him who will subdue all to Himself. (F. D. Maurice M.A.)
The aspirations of a Christian soul
It is impossible to deny the splendour of the idea contained in this passage. But we are tempted to question the possibility of ever realising it. We fancy that such lofty yearnings rise too far above the common highways to give us any strength in meeting the temptations and work of the everyday world. Such aspirations might thrill the spirit of an apostle or a lonely saint, but they are too unearthly to be realised by us. We need some more homely teaching to enable us to meet the temptations of their career. But Paul was no solitary saint, and the men to whom he wrote were surrounded by earthly temptations of the fiercest kind. And yet this practical apostle tells those tempted men that both they and he were praying for the redemption of the body, And in our day such aspirations, instead of being too lofty for our common life, are the only safeguards against its prevalent snares. Note--
I. Their nature. In illustrating this we must dwell on the two phrases on which this nature depends. “Firstfruits” manifestly refers to the Jewish custom of presenting to God the earliest ears of corn or fruit as a thanksgiving and a prayer. The influences of the Spirit therefore are not merely a promise of the future, they are the actual commencements of the golden harvest of eternal glory. The other phrase, “groaning for the adoption, even so far as unto the redemption of the body,” means that we are adopted now, but that the body in the bondage of corruption stands in the way of the full realisation of our sonship, and therefore “the firstfruits of the Spirit” are a cry for its perfect deliverance. Note then--
1. That the “firstfruits of the Spirit” are a prayer for perfect adoption. We know that”now we are sons of God”; but the more we realise that fact, the more profoundly do we feet that the full manifestation has not yet come. Let us illustrate this by looking at three great “firstfruits of the Spirit,” experimentally. The Spirit reveals to us our adoption--
(1) By revealing the love of God. There are times when we feel that He loves us; and this feeling clothes life in splendour, and brings into the heart the balm and music of heaven, making poverty, toil, sorrow, endurable things. But is not that always a longing, a prayer? The very greatness of that love--the very feebleness of our emotion in responding to it, make us pray to feel it more.
(2) By the gift of spiritual power. The sign of a son of God is that he is no more in bondage to the passions and habits of the old life. But are we ever kings over ourselves as supremely as we would be? And there, again, “the firstfruits of the Spirit” are a longing for a perfected adoption.
(3) By the gift of Divine peace. But because that so soon fades, who does not long for the sabbath of eternity?
2. We can now see how these aspirations rise, as Paul says, into a prayer for the redemption of the body. Our present body is the grand hindrance to the attainment of perfect sonship: thought wears out its energies; deep emotion exhausts its vigour; its infirmities, sicknesses, decays, hinder the prayers and aspirations of the soul. And then, above all, the power of the body to perpetuate the influences of past sin renders it a hindrance to the man who feels the firstfruits of the Spirit. And thus it is that we who have the “firstfruits” must cry for the redemption of the body, because we know that until then we can never reach the love, power, and blessedness, which belong to us as sons of God.
II. Their prophetic hopes. We hope--
1. For the redeemed body; not for the departure of the present body, but for its redemption. We pray not for the death of our present powers of sight and hearing, but for their purified and intensified life. And now mark the prophetic cries which lie hid in that hope. Because it is a firstfruit of the Spirit, it foretells that every bodily power shall come forth, not crushed, but made stronger and brighter from the touch of death.
2. For the redeemed world. This world with all its beauty is fitted rather for a school of discipline than a home of purified spirits, and hence we hope for another and purer world for our final abode. Now mark again how this hope is prophetic of what shall be. Paul, in the context, affirms that the pain and death of the creature form one loud prophetic wail for redemption, i.e., the whole creation joins the Christian cry for a world in which suffering and evil shall have vanished.
III. Their present lessons.
1. We need them all. Let a man lower his hopes and limit his aspirings, and he will easily decline into a low spiritual life in which he will be “like a reed shaken by the wind,” before temptation. Only he who daily claims the whole eternity of hope as his own is guarded against the snares and pollutions of the world.
2. We must live them all. (E. L. Hull, B.A.)
Christian privileges and prospects
I. The description which is given of Christians by their present privileges. In this chapter we have a remarkable distinction of character. Those in a state of nature are described as in the flesh, aa carnally minded, etc. Those in a state of grace are said to be of the Spirit, to mind the things of the Spirit, to be spiritually-minded, to be led by and to walk in the Spirit.
1. Their character, therefore, is formed by the influences of the Spirit (Eze_36:26-27). Our Saviour stated the necessity of being born of the Spirit, and he told His disciples that He would send them the Spirit of truth, etc. The apostle says that we are to “be washed by the renewing of the Holy Ghost,” etc. By this the earthliness of the affections is refined, and the whole soul is changed into the image of God. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
2. Those who have the Spirit are placed in a high and beautiful relationship. They have adoption into the family of God (verse 14-16; Gal_4:4-6 : 1Jn_4:1-2). The heir of God has to remember that much of his good is future, and he must sketch out to himself those prospects where faith will be lost in sight, and hope in endless praise. “We have the firstfruits of the Spirit.” Whatever blessings the Spirit has bestowed, or whatever characters He has impressed, are pledges of the future possession. Has the Spirit destroyed the love of sin, induced a desire for purity--inspired faith, hope, love? These are all to be regarded as pledges of what you shall be in the future; your heaven begun upon earth. These are the seeds of the harvest of glory; the roots of the future tree of blessedness; the embryo of the perfect man; the outline of the picture which shall be finished in eternity; the first streaks of light; the first gleams of that dawn which shall brighten into the splendour of meridian glory.
II. The state of mind in which they are confessed to exist. “We groan within ourselves,” etc. These emotions are to be considered in connection with similar emotions through the creation. The whole creation is represented as longing for the glorious period when all its misery shall be over, as if in the throes of a new birth. Yes! and man and brute, hills and valleys, earth and ocean, times and seasons, are passing onwards to a glorious deliverance. Yes! and every cloud that darkens, and every affliction that troubles, and every injury which brute sustains from brute, and the rolling of the storm, and the belchings of the volcano, and the commotions of the deep, and the tremblings of the earthquake, are to be all considered as the pangs of nature passing onwards to that end. Oh, when shall these pangs cease! Then the apostle speaks of the children of God, and he declares that they are not in a higher sphere. We are all in this respect in one mass, “we also groan,” etc.
1. Our state of mind is one which involves--
(1) Pungent sorrow on account of present imperfection.
(a) Sorrow on account of what we see in the world around us. I look on the world around me; it came from the hand of God; it abounds with beautiful views; but still it affords cause for mourning. Look at its sinfulness. It is a world of wickedness. See its misery. Because there is sin there is sorrow. We witness the groanings of poverty, the wasting of disease, the scorn of contumely, the oppressions of power, etc.
(b) Sorrow when we consider our own characters, and our individual experience. Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am free from sin”? Who has not cause to exclaim with Paul, “I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members,” etc. Again, we are not only sinners but sufferers. We have much to enjoy, but we have also much to endure; and who among you is not ready to say, “we ourselves groan within ourselves,” and long for wings, “that we might flee away and be at rest”?
(2) Earnest desire asto the future. “We wait for the adoption,” etc. Civil adoption was private and public. Now every child of God is adopted privately at the time of conversion; but there is a day appointed for his public adoption when he will be declared as a son of God. We as Christians wait for this. The time when this shall be is not revealed. But the time shall come when all the redeemed shall appear with Christ in glory.
2. The emotion in reference to this fact, “we wait for it.” We stand like men on the summit of a lofty mountain, taking a transient view of the intermediate landscape and looking to the distant horizon for our intended dwelling. We wait for it, our minds are fixed upon it, our desires are influenced by it. Prove that you wait for it--
(1) By avoiding the pollutions of the world.
(2) By refusing to place your affections on the world. “If ye then be risen with Christ,” etc.
(3) By showing in constant and active exertion all the principles of the vocation by which you are called. Are you called to love? then love; are you called to vigilance? then be vigilant; to zeal? then be zealous.
(4) By anticipating with joy the time of your departure from the world. (J. Parsons.)
The yearning of the good for deliverance
1.That is groaning, which is here again considerable two manner of ways.
(1) For the simple passion: we groan. Where that which we may observe from it is this, that even the children of God themselves do groan while they abide here in the world.
(2) There are two things especially which are the ground and occasion of this groaning, whereof we now speak, in the children of God; and that is, first, the burden of sin. The stain and defilement of sin. The proneness and inclination to evil which is in the heart. As proneness to evil, so on the other side indisposedness to good. Distraction in duty and weakness and imperfection of performance. The sins of daily incursion, as we commonly call them for distinction sake, in opposition to greater miscarriages; these slips and failings which we fall into before we are aware in every business.
2. Seeing God’s children do thus groan under their sins, let then all men take heed how they do at any time upbraid therewith them. This serves to confute that opinion which prevails with some kind of people, as if a justified person were exempted from all grief for sin. But secondly, as the servants of God groan under sin in the stain of it, and so far forth as it defiles, so likewise under the guilt of it, and so far forth as it exposes to punishment. The second is taken from misery and the affliction which they meet with here likewise. This proceeds, first, from the consideration of their common nature. Secondly, it proceeds also from grace, forasmuch as they have a real apprehension of deliverance which belongs unto them. This is that which puts them upon groaning to be delivered, because by faith they know that there is One that hears their groans and takes notice of them. Thirdly, it is sometimes also from weakness and want of faith, especially there where it is in the excess and extremity of it. This teaches them accordingly what to expect while they live here below. This world is a vale of tears, wherein the best that are are subject to fighting and groaning. The second is in the additional illustration. And that is in ourselves. Under which phrase and manner of expression we have divers things intimated to us as concerning this sighing and groaning of the children of God, three things especially. First, that it is secret and hidden, it is not always discerned; we groan in ourselves, that is we groan to ourselves. This groaning, it is such as all men are not sensible or apprehensive of nor do take notice of it. That which is done within a man, it is done without the privacy of another, because no man knows the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is within him. This is the dispensation of God’s children to be mourning and humbling of themselves for the sins and miscarriages of others, while the parties themselves that occasion it are little sensible or apprehensive of it. Thus does many a godly parent groan for the miscarriages of his children. This, it proceeds from a kind of modesty in them, as in all things else as suitable to the principles of religion. They pray in secret, and give in secret, andgrieve in secret, The second is hearty and serious. In ourselves, that is from ourselves. The groanings of God’s children they are not slight, or perfunctory, or superficial; but such as proceed from a deep sense and apprehension of their misery, and the condition in which they are. The third thing implied in this expression is the propriety or peculiarity of their grief. In ourselves, that is by ourselves. We groan within ourselves; that is within our own compass and in our own capacity. We groan not only as beasts do, which are acted only by common sense; nor we do not groan only as men do, which are acted only by natural reason; but we groan moreover as Christians, which are acted by religion and grace, and so have a grief in that respect which is proper unto them. This peculiarity of grief, and so consequently of groaning in God’s children, is founded in these considerations. First, their peculiarity of employment; they have such businesses wherein they are exercised, as none have but they. Peculiar employments breed peculiar distractions and cumbrances which are attendant upon them, because they have still some miscarriage which these are liable unto, and miscarriage is a cause of grief. Now God’s children they have other businesses and employments than other men have, and which they seriously give themselves to. Secondly, peculiarity of contentment; every different comfort has a different grief annexed unto it, either in the deprival or straitening of it. The more delights that any man has in any condition, the more crosses is he likewise subject unto from that condition when these delights shall be suspended. The children of God they therefore grieve by themselves because indeed they joy by themselves. Thirdly, peculiarity of design; they have proper and peculiar ends and aims which they propound to themselves. Look, as any men’s desires are, the more oftentimes are their griefs, because desire and hope disappointed it makes the heart sad. Now God’s children they have their peculiar desires and aims and ends: as the glory of God, the good of the Church. The crossing of which unto them is an occasion of greater grief in them. Not so neither. For, first of all, as a Christian has peculiar grief, so he has peculiar joy and comfort which attends it. Secondly, this proper grief of a Christian is a cause of greater comfort to him. His joy is not only joined with his sorrow, but flows from it, according to that of the apostle (2Co_7:1-16; 2Co_8:1-24; 2Co_9:1-15; 2Co_10:1-18). And so now I have done with the first action attributed to believers in this text, and that is groaning, with the amplification of it; “We ourselves groan within ourselves.” The second thing here attributed to the godly and true Christians is waiting, in these words, “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.” Where we have two things exhibited to us. First, it is an expression of their patience. They wait, that is, they stay (2Co_4:8). The ground hereof is first of all this in the text, because they have received the firstfruits of the Spirit, which though they do not altogether satisfy them, yet they do at least very much qualify them, and occasion this patience to them. Secondly, because they have a spirit of faith whereby they see all those things which do at present befall them working good unto them. The second is earnest expectation. God’s children they do wait for their redemption, that is they do look and long for it (thus Tit_2:13). First, their present evils and afflictions. They wait because they groan, as it is said before of the creature in verses 19, 20 of this chapter. Secondly, their present feelings and pre-apprehensions. They have received the firstfruits of the Spirit, and these beginnings do so much the more increase these desires in them. Thirdly, love to Christ. They desire it and long for it as a bride does for the coming of her beloved. Lastly, from the condition of a believer in regard of grace, which is here very weak and imperfect. This waiting of the saints thus declared, it is useful to sundry purposes to us: First, for the intent to which it is brought here in the text, and that it is to assure us that there is such a thing indeed as this is, namely, a time for Christian redemption from their present bondage, and enjoyment of a glorious liberty which shall be bestowed upon them. This it does appear from hence because the children of God themselves do desire it. Secondly, here is a discovery of men’s conditions what they are. Those who are indeed God’s children, they do not only groan, but wait; not only mourn under present misery, but also pant after future glory, etc. A worldling is all for the present and to have his contentments here; but a Christian is not so satisfied. Thirdly, Let this quicken us to this groaning and heavenly disposition, and make us labour to find it in ourselves. First, for the object propounded, and that is adoption. Adoption in Scripture-language is of a various consideration, and is taken three manner of ways. First, for the adoption of election, whereby God, before ever the foundations of the world were laid, did appoint us, and set us out to be in the number of His sons and daughters. The second is the adoptionof vocation, whereby we being effectually called by the preaching of the gospel, and justified by faith, are by the spirit of adoption incorporated into Jesus Christ and confirmed in the inheritance of sons. The third is the adoption of glory, whereby we shall fully at last obtain the glorious inheritance of children together with Christ. The second is the particular exposition, to wit, the redemption of our body. The redemption. This likewise, as well as that other term of adoption, does admit of a different signification, either namely, as taken for the paying and laying down of the price, or else for the receiving of the thing itself for which the price is paid. Of our body. This is expressed, rather than of our souls. First, because our souls are in their actual redemption already before that time. Secondly, it is here said of the body, because all miseries and afflictions in this life are conveyed to the whole man by the body, so that the redemption of the body is in effect the redemption of the whole person. That which we may more particularly observe here is this, that there is a day coming wherein the bodies of all the saints as well as their souls shall be freed from bondage and corruption. Thus it follows upon these special considerations: First, as they are the instruments of a sanctified and regenerate soul, whereunto also they have been companions in duty. Secondly, as members of Christ, who is the Head and redeemed before them; “Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1Co_15:20). Thirdly, as they are the temples of the Holy Ghost, who still abides and dwells in them as His own, and accordingly will raise them (Rom_8:11). Lastly, as together with the soul they do make up the whole person which God hath taken into court with Himself (Mat_22:32). The consideration of this truth is very comfortable to the servants of God. First, in all corporal infirmities and disparagements which are incident to the body here in this life, of sickness and distempers, and restraint and persecution, and the like. Secondly, as to the horror of the grave, and the dreadful apprehensions of that from rottenness and putrefaction, our bodies shall at last be freed from all corruption (Hos_13:14). (Thomas Horton, D.D.)
Adoption still future
1.As embracing the whole man.
2. As consisting in absolute deliverance from bondage.
3. As including manifestation and public acknowledgment.
4. As belonging not merely to individuals, but to the Church as a body. (T. Robinson, D.D.)
The redemption of the body
I. The Christian is a man gathering “firstfruits.” The harvest is not come. He looks out upon the beauty of nature, and he sees a “firstfruit” of a renewed and perfect creation. He has a happy thought, it is a “firstfruit” of an endless and universal joy. He tastes the delights of a pure affection, it is the “firstfruit”of a world where all is love. He catches a glimpse of Christ, it is a “firstfruit” of an eternal presence. He plucks from the tree of truth a holy feeling, it is the “firstfruit” of the rich abundance of a matured saintliness. To him, everything is a “firstfruit.” If it is not the full glow of summer yet, it is not winter, “If the early grapes be so sweet, what shall the vintage be?”
II. A man untaught might say, “surely those who gather firstfruits at least will have an immunity from sorrow?” St. Paul said, “We which have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves.” I do not find that the Church has less suffering than the world without, only I find it more “inward.” This “inward groaning,” what is it, and whence? As soon as a man really receives one of the “firstfruits” of the Holy Ghost, immediately a very great change takes place in that soul. But how with the body? Is it altered? Some little degree of physical refinement may grow out of the spiritual change; but in the main the body is the same. It prompts the same desires, it leads on to the same sins. Sometimes it inflames us, sometimes it drags us. And so it will be to death, the changed soul in the unchanged body, the redeemed in the unredeemed. Now here is all the con-flict. Of all our misery this is the painful element, the inability of the body to carry out the higher aspirations of the soul. Other things may bring the sigh, the tear, but this brings the groan, “When shall I be holy? When will the contest cease?” “O wretched man that I am,” etc. So--
III. Because we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, “we groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The moment of death comes, the body and the soul are parted for a while. From that date the redemption of the body begins. It dies, it dissolves, it lies hidden, God works in it as He pleases. Presently, it comes forth; it is another, and yet the same, identical to be known, to be loved, to be embraced, and yet how changed! It is in sweetest harmony with the soul; it is not a whit less spiritual and heavenly than that which once it thwarted. It has taken the image of God; it perfectly reflects Christ. And then, and not till then, its redemption is complete. Hero is the great result of the travail of the believer. Conclusion;
1. All you have to do now with the body is to hold it down and keep it under. And that effort will be your “groaning.” But only” till He comes.” His second advent will perfect the reformation of your body, as His first did your soul.
2. There is probably a very close analogy between the redemption of the soul and that of the body. The seed of life sown in death, the long hidden process, the dying first before there is life indeed, the maintenance of the original character, where, nevertheless, all is new, the likeness to Christ in both, the intention of all to serve, in all the perfect sovereignty of God.
3. The focus of faith and hope to all is the coming of Christ. The groaning soul of the believer, carrying the burden of the flesh, looks there. The emancipated spirits of the departed “longing to be clothed upon with their house which is from heaven,” look there. Even while they wait in paradise the redemption of that body, still perfect, is going on, and they stretch on with ardent desire for the moment when He shall bring forth the whole man in the integrity of his being. And in those at this moment who lie in the grave, out of our sight, it is that holy, blessed work which is going on. For that reason we gave them up. “We ourselves groan within ourselves” till we see them again. But we shall see them lovelier than before, but still the same, more ours, more His, the needful absence for the needful work done, no absence more, all ours and all one for ever. Wait on; He hears the groans of the waiting. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
Insufficiencies accessories of beauty
Heaven does not take perfect beings and make them more perfect. It takes fallible and incomplete ones, and glorifies them. Even time and the discipline of pain are beforehand in this, turning the very defects of Christians into graces. It is a paradox of art that our glassmakers can only reproduce now the perfection of the ancient “stained glass” by reproducing its imperfections:--“Singularly enough, examinations made of the painted windows, so celebrated as works of artistic genius and skill, of the old cathedrals of England and continental Europe, show that their superiority really consists in the inferiority of the glass, its richness in the poverty of its constituents, in the very perfection of its uneven thickness, and in the imperfections of its surface and its body, all covered, as they are, by the accumulating dust of ages, and honey-combed by the corroding effect of time. Like the facets of a diamond or ruby, each little wave and thread and blister becomes, by interference, refraction and reflection of the light which plays upon it, a new source of the gem-like brilliance, harmony, and beauty which distinguish the painted glass of former centuries.” So the inferiorities and insufficiencies of God’s children become accessories of beauty when the rays of His heavenly glory play upon them. The culture of eternity must complement the trial and wear of this lifetime to bring out every charm that here layin disguise.
