In defense of Romans 8 from its critics in the Spiritual Sword. The current issue of Spiritual Sword has attempted to disprove renewed earth resurrection theology, mentioning myself and John Mark Hicks by name. I felt the article in the SS was incredibly weak honestly. I have read far stronger challenges. In spite of the claim in the SS renewed earth theology is hardly an aberration in the history of Christianity nor does the position have only Romans 8. But Romans 8 is essentially dismissed in the Spiritual Sword as an inconvenient truth. Resurrection, not only of Christ but of ourselves, matters!
Romans 8 is an amazing and profound text in Scripture. Romans 8 is not however a “difficult” text in the sense that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison or Gog and Magog and others. What do these texts actually mean is up for debate.
Yet Profound does not imply unclear. Romans 8 is quite clear. Romans 11 is difficult but Romans 8 is not. I say this because some want to dismiss the chapter with a wave of the magic wand on the grounds that it is “difficult” in the sense that it is unclear. It is only unclear because it so blatantly contradicts their Platonic doctrines.
In fact, I have long believed that Romans 8.18-24 is one of the most important texts in the bible (a conviction shared by most Church Fathers and other luminaries down thru the centuries). As John Calvin noted during the Reformation …
“I understand this passage to have this meaning—that there is no element and no part of the world which, being touched, as it were, with a sense of its present misery, does not intensely hope for a resurrection. He indeed lays down two things,–that all are creatures in distress, and yet they are sustained by hope … [Creation] shall be participators of a better condition; for God will restore to a perfect state the world, now fallen, together with mankind” (John Calvin, Epistle of Paul to the Romans, pp. 303, 305)
The Text
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Messiah from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit that dwells in you …
I consider that the sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits in eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope, that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our BODIES. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not not see, we wait for it with patience …”
This text is as clear as Acts 2.38 beloved. The problem comes when some have drunk from the poisoned well of platonic dualism and neo-gnosticism while claiming to read only the Bible. However as Paul notes here in Romans 8.20-21 God has tied creation to humanity from the beginning in the hope of salvation of all he has made. Creation and Redemption are tied from Genesis to Revelation in the biblical narrative like the North Pole is connected to the South Pole … they are two ends of same axis. Chopping the Bible up into proof texts, while simply ignoring the narrative as a whole, and splitting hairs over nonsense has facilitated many imagining that instrumental music was the “heart and soul” of the Bible. What is surprising however so many imagine that Romans 8 is the only text that speaks of the redemption of creation along with humanity. I will quote a few texts …
Creation Connected to Humanity in Suffering and Redemption
“The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers;
the heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth is polluted
under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed laws,
violated statutes,
broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a CURSE devours the earth,
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth
dwindled, and few people are left”
(Isaiah 24.4-6, the whole chapter is relevant)
Redemption is pictured as coming with a King and the outpouring of the Spirit which results in new life for both humans and God’s creation in Isaiah 32.
“See, a king will reign in righteousness …
a Spirit from on high is poured out on us,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
The effect of righteousness will be shalom,
and the result of righteousness will be quietness
and trust forever.
My people will abide in shalomful habitation
in secure dwelling …
(Isaiah 32.1, 15-18)
Hosea speaks directly to both creation suffering because of human sin but then speaks of God redeeming Israel because of his covenant with the animals! There is a direct connection between the salvation of the people and the world.
“Hear the word of the LORD, O people
of Israel;
for the LORD has an indictment
against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or love/loyalty,
and no knowledge of God in the land.
Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.
THEREFORE THE LAND MOURNS,
and all who live in it languish;
TOGETHER with the wild animals
and the birds of the air,
even the fish of the sea are perishing”
(Hosea 4.1-3)
“Therefore, I will now allure her [Israel]
and bring her into the wilderness and
speak tenderly to her.
From there I will give her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope …
On that day, says the LORD, you will call me,
My Husband,” and no longer will you call me
‘My Master.” … I will make FOR YOU a
covenant on that day WITH THE WILD
ANIMALS, the birds of the air, and the
creeping things on the ground; and I will
abolish the bow, the sword, and war
from the land; and I will make you lie
down in safety. And I will take you for
my wife in righteousness and in justice,
in HESED and in mercy. I will take you
for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall
know the LORD”
(Hosea 2.14-20)
Numerous other texts could be offered. The most comprehensive of all takes up the book of Joel almost in its entirety. I have already discussed it in considerable detail here: Do Not Fear, O Earth, Animals, People: Hope of Cosmic Redemption in Joel’s Liturgy. Redemption in the Bible is specifically the redemption of creation. God is Redeemer because God is the Creator.
Embracing Creation explores the entire biblical canon revealing the centrality of creation and God’s aim to redeem all of it.
Reflections
After several years of reading the whole biblical narrative beginning to end several times a year, being “schooled” by the narrative Psalms and intense study … and reading Irenaeus, Athenagoras, J. Christian Becker, N. T. Wright, Christopher Wright, Alexander Campbell, Robert Milligan, David Lipscomb, James A. Harding, and many more, I have come to some firm exegetical conclusions about Romans 8.18ff that, despite claims to the contrary, are shared across the ecumenical divide in the history of Christianity.
Some have thrown out biblical renewed earth theology by claiming it is “denominational” or “millennial” or worse the “Jehovah Witnesses.” This is the worst kind of sophomoric fallacy beloved and betrays a gross misunderstanding of both the premillennial position and resurrection and the new heavens and new earth. Irenaeus was not a Jehovah Witness! But just because a “denominational” person also believes in the deity of Christ does not mean I should run away from it.
I have asked, many times, and have received nothing but silence in reply, the name of a single Christian writer that did not believe in the literal, bodily, resurrection in the flesh of humanity and a renewed earth as our place of living with Christ that was NOT A GNOSTIC in the first 500 years of Christianity … I have not been given the name nor passage of such a leader.
In this text, Paul offers a concise version of the canonical biblical “grand narrative” in Romans 8. It is a brief, brilliant, and crystal clear statement of how the bodily resurrection of Jesus is paradigmatic for OUR personal bodily resurrection and the “resurrection” (redemption) of all creation as the GOAL of salvation. Paul explicitly does not speak of the redemption of spirits or souls but claims that the Holy Spirit will raise our “mortal body” on the pattern of the resurrection of the Messiah and that we live in the hope of the redemption of our bodies … which takes place when our physical body is raised on the pattern of the first fruit. Our bodies are part of creation itself and our resurrection is the hope of all God’s good but suffering creation.
Romans 8 contains the three primary characters of the grand narrative:
God
Humanity
Creation.
As in the grand narrative there is human and nonhuman groaning. And just as in the grand narrative the nonhuman is “subjected” to this agony by the Creator, binding it to the ones meant to guard it (humans). Just as in the grand narrative, so here God has moved to bring about redemption that results in the glorification of all thru the work of the Messiah (whom Paul identifies as the second Adam in ch.5!). The groaning or mourning of the creation is something Paul picks up from numerous prophetic texts in the grand narrative (Isaiah 24; Joel 1.10-12, 17-20 just a couple quick examples).
So I believe that Romans 8.18-23 offers a hermeneutical lens for reading the whole Story (especially eschatologically) and at the same time the whole story is revealed in what it is “about” by Paul.
The Goal of the narrative is the goal of Romans 8. The Spiritual Sword can try to dismiss this as “carnal” or taking our minds off of “heavenly” things for “earthly” things … all of which is an abuse of the terms “heavenly” and “earthly” by defining them in pagan dualistic terms.
Romans 8 is hardly alone as we have seen. It is in fact just one of a whole sweep of Scriptural texts that are swept away by ignoring them. I believe in salvation! I just do not believe in Gnostic salvation beloved. As the apostle that wrote Romans 8 says, God reconciled ALL things things in heaven and earth uniting them in the Messiah (Ephesians 1.8-10) and that the Messiah created all things visible and invisible and through his death in the flesh reconciled all things visible and invisible to God (Col 1.15-20. On Colossians 1 see Christ the Creator, Conqueror and Reconciler of Creation). The book Embracing Creation: God’s Forgotten Mission by John Mark Hicks, Mark Wilson and myself gives a Bible wide overview of this entire subject.
Romans 8 is the goal of the Gospel of Christ … God, in Christ, heals the world he has made and it become the inheritance that the resurrected Christ and Resurrected people will share communion with the Father thru the Holy Spirit. If some one wants to call that “carnal” than I gladly embrace it … it beats gnosticism beloved.
This is not some minor or peripheral matter. It is endemic to the meaning of redemption, the cross and resurrection of Jesus itself. The Resurrection of the flesh matters. I will let James A. Harding have the last word, not because he is inspired but because he is correct.
Just food for thought.
