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The apostle Peter, speaking of the Epistles of our apostle, in 2Pe_3:16, saith, that there are some things in them hard to be understood; and some think, by reflecting upon some particular passages in that chapter, he doth more especially respect this context; there is indeed a great deal of obscurity in it.
The creature: this word is four times used in this and the three following verses, only in Rom_8:22 it is rendered creation; that is the subject of which all that followeth is predicated. One main question therefore is this: Of what creature the apostle here speaks? Divers answers are or may be given; I will fix upon two only.
1. By the creature, or the creation, ,{ and, Rom_8:22, the whole creation, or every creature} is meant all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, and especially the latter: see Mar_16:15; there Christ gives it in commission to preach the gospel to every creature; it is the same word. And in 1Pe_2:13, they are commanded to submit themselves to every ordinance of man: in the original it is, to every human creature, the same word which is in the text before us: he means the Gentile or heathen magistrates in authority over them. In the Scripture the Gentiles are sometimes called the world, Rom_11:12,15, and sometimes the creature, or the creation.
2. By the creature is meant the whole world with all the creatures therein, or the whole frame and body of the creation.
The creature in this sense, by a prosopopoeia, is here spoken of as a rational person; it is usual with the Spirit of God, in Scripture, to fasten upon unreasonable creatures such expressions as are proper only to those that are reasonable: see Psa_96:11,12 Heb 2:11 Jam_5:4. So here the creature (in this sense) is said to expect, wait, &c.
Waiteth; the expectation of the creature expecteth: a Hebrew pleonasm: it expecteth with the head lift up or stretched out, Phi_1:20.
The manifestation of the sons of God; i.e. the time when the sons of God shall be manifested. The Arabic interpreter puts the word glory into the text, and reads the word thus, The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the glory of the sons of God; their glory for the present is hidden, but it shall be discovered and manifested, 2Co_3:18.
The creature, in the sense of the word as above, waiteth for this, because then it shall be restored to its primitive liberty and lustre, at that time there will be a restitution of all things, Act_3:21. But those who understand the creature in the first sense, do put a quite different interpretation upon this last clause; and that is, that the Gentile world are now earnestly expecting and waiting to see what the Jews will do, whether they will discover themselves to be the sons of God, or not, by their receiving or rejecting Christ.