Introduction
Romans 8.18–25 has justly been recognised as a crucial passage for understanding Paul's views concerning the present condition and eschatological hope of creation, and, indeed, as a climactic point of the entire epistle.Footnote 1 Yet widespread acknowledgement of the passage's significance has not birthed consensus regarding its interpretation, as a number of questions concerning vv. 19–20 in particular continue to generate lively scholarly debate. Among these, we may particularly note the following:
• What does Paul mean by κτίσις? Is he thinking of the totality of creation (including humanity) or of the non-human creation?
• What does Paul mean by the assertion that creation was subjected to futility οὐκ ἑκοῦσα?
• Is the agent who subjected creation to futility God or Adam?
• What is the nature of the grammatical and logical connections between the phrase ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι and what precedes it? Does Paul have in view a hope that was exercised by the one who subjected creation, or a hope that remains present within creation despite its subjection?
My particular concern in this paper is to offer a fresh proposal concerning the last of these issues, the significance of the prepositional phrase ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι (typically rendered ‘in hope’) in 8.20c.Footnote 2 However, owing to the numerous contested elements of these verses and the way in which one's judgement concerning any one interpretative quandary necessarily impinges on one's conclusions regarding the others, it will be necessary to preface my discussion of this phrase by working through the preceding material in 8.18–20b in some detail. Having laid this foundation, I will proceed to survey the various ways in which ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι in 8.20c has conventionally been construed. Finally, I will argue for an alternative manner of punctuating vv. 19–21 that makes it easier to recognise creation itself as the agent that acts ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι. The reading I will propose obviates a number of difficulties that arise on the view that it is God who acts ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι, while also creating a closer connection between Paul's statements about the hope of creation in vv. 19–21 and the hope of believers in vv. 24–5.
1. Romans 8.18–20b: Presuppositions and Preliminary Questions
In Rom 8.1–17, Paul offers an extended description of the situation that now obtains for those who are ‘in Christ Jesus’ (8.1): they have been freed from the law of sin and death (8.2), walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (8.4), set their minds on the things of the Spirit (8.5), are not ‘in the flesh’, but are indwelt by the Spirit (8.9; cf. 8.11), are led by the Spirit and thereby identified as ‘children of God’ (υἱοὶ θεοῦ, 8.14; cf. τέκνα θεοῦ in 8.16–17) who have received a ‘spirit of adoption’ (πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας, 8.16), and are indeed not only children of God but also ‘heirs of God and coheirs with Christ’ (8.17), inasmuch as they currently share in his suffering in order that they might also share in his glory.
The apostle then opines in v. 18 that the suffering that God's children and heirs presently undergo in solidarity with Christ pales in comparison to ‘the glory that is going to be revealed εἰς ἡμᾶς’. In context, the ἡμᾶς seems to refer to believers, those whose standing ‘in Christ’ the apostle has highlighted in 8.1–17 (cf. ἡμῖν in 8.4). As for the preposition εἰς, I am persuaded by the contention of Susan Eastman that it here likely conveys not merely the directional sense ‘to’, but also the locative sense ‘in’. As she explains, ‘“in” because those who are presently led by the Spirit will reveal the glory of God in their transformed bodies, and “to” because they themselves have yet to see all that the glory of God entails’.Footnote 3 Stated differently, the glorified children of God will serve as a conduit through which God's glory, having been bestowed upon them, is made manifest.
Verse 19 makes clear that this manifestation of glory on the part of believers has profound implications for the rest of the created order, for, ‘the earnest expectation of creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God’ (ἡ γὰρ ἀποκαραδοκία τῆς κτίσεως τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἀπεκδέχεται).Footnote 4 While some have argued that κτίσις refers throughout this passage to the totality of God's created works (human and non-human),Footnote 5 three factors persuade me that Paul intends κτίσις as a reference to the non-human creation in distinction from believing humanity:Footnote 6 (1) the statement in 8.19 that the creation's eager anticipation is directed towards the revelation of the children of God; (2) the statement in 8.21 that ‘creation itself’ (αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις) will enjoy freedom that is connected with the glory of the children of God; and (3) the statement in 8.23 that ‘not only (does creation groan), but we ourselves also (ἡμεῖς καὶ αὐτοί) groan’.Footnote 7 Such differentiation, however, should not be taken as indicating radical separation. Rather, Paul is here distinguishing between believers and the rest of creation precisely in the interest of stressing their solidarity both in suffering and in hope and highlighting the ways in which their current situations and future destinies are inextricably intertwined (inasmuch as they are both constituent elements of God's κτίσις more broadly defined).Footnote 8 Yet the decisive importance assigned to the ‘revelation of the children of God’ suggests a certain degree of difference beyond the similarity.Footnote 9
In light of 8.18, I understand τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ θεοῦ as an elliptical reference to ‘the revelation of God's glory to/in the children of God’.Footnote 10 If this is the intended sense, the emphasis is not so much on the public uncovering of the previously veiled identity or status of the ‘children of God’Footnote 11 as on the decisive eschatological manifestation of the divine glory that triumphs over Sin and Death through the appearance of glorified believers in their resurrected bodies alongside Christ at the παρουσία.Footnote 12 Here, again, believers are the conduit for the revelation of divine glory rather than the objects of revelation as such,Footnote 13 and the rest of creation waits in breathless anticipation for this apocalyptic event.
Why? Because, according to v. 20, creation was ‘subjected to futility’ (ὑπετάγη τῇ ματαιότητι). Ὑπετάγη here is most naturally taken as a divine passive expressing an authoritative act of GodFootnote 14 (as in Ps 8.7 LXX; 1 Cor 15.27–8; Eph 1.22; Heb 2.5, 8; 1 Pet 3.22; similarly Phil 3.21 with Christ as subject).Footnote 15 Moreover, the use of the aorist tense may well point towards a decisive instance of subjection – presumably the Fall of Gen 3, as a result of which Sin and Death entered the world (Rom 5.12).Footnote 16 Indeed, Gen 3.17 records that God placed the earth under a curse as a result of Adam and Eve's disobedience, thereby subjecting it to ‘futility’, in the sense of an inability to fully enjoy the blessings or perform the functions for which God designed it.Footnote 17 Later Jewish literature bears witness to the tenacity of the conviction that humanity's primal sin had negative consequences for the rest of the natural order.Footnote 18
I take Rom 8.20b – οὐκ ἑκοῦσα ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα – to be a further explanation of the circumstances surrounding creation's subjection.Footnote 19 A number of interpreters have contended that οὐκ ἑκοῦσα indicates that creation (in contrast to humanity) was subjected to futility ‘not through its own fault’.Footnote 20 Such a claim has sometimes been combined with the view that τὸν ὑποτάξαντα is a reference to Adam. As Fréderic Godet explains, ‘[if οὐκ ἑκοῦσα] signifies: not by its own fault, it is natural to seek in the contrasted term a designation of the person on whom the moral responsibility for this catastrophe rests’.Footnote 21 But while Paul might well affirm that creation was subjected to futility not as a result of its own sin, but as a result of Adam's sin, it is dubious to assume that this is the point he is making here, since the normal meaning of ἑκῶν is ‘willingly, voluntarily’,Footnote 22 which is precisely the sense it has in its only other NT occurrence (1 Cor 9.17).Footnote 23 I thus understand οὐκ ἑκοῦσα to mean not ‘through no fault of its own’, but rather ‘not by its own choice’. As Robert Jewett puts it, ‘Here Paul continues the personified manner of speaking about nature, as if it would have preferred not to participate in the sinful futility caused by Adam and Eve and their descendants.’Footnote 24
This reading preserves a comprehensible contrast between ἑκοῦσα and διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, while supporting the notion that the latter phrase refers to God rather than Adam. Creation was subjected ‘not voluntarily’, but because of the divine decree of God, who determined that Sin and Death, having gained entry to the world through human disobedience, should be permitted to hold sway for a time not merely over the descendants of Adam, but over the entire created order.Footnote 25 Thus, the proximate cause of creation's subjection was the divine decision and action of ‘the one who subjected it’, while the remote cause was human sinfulness, through which the entire creation was implicated in a nexus of futility and corruption.Footnote 26
Having thus explained that creation's eager anticipation of the revelation of the children of God stems from its present subjection to futility, Paul turns his attention in 8.21 to the prospect of creation's liberation, whereby it will be enabled to share in the ‘freedom of the glory of the children of God’. Here we encounter the question that will concern us for the remainder of this study: what is the meaning and function of the phrase ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι in 8.20c, by means of which the present reality of creation's subjection is linked to the future prospect of its liberation?
2. Romans 8.20c: The Meaning of ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι
The scholarly literature on Rom 8 reflects a striking diversity of opinion concerning the precise way in which the phrase ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι (often rendered ‘in hope’) is to be understood.Footnote 27 Grammatically, interpreters are divided as to whether it should be taken as modifying the finite verb ὑπετάγηFootnote 28 or the substantival participle τὸν ὑποτάξαντα.Footnote 29 Provided, however, that one understands both forms of ὑποτάσσω as pointing towards God's action (rather than seeing Adam as τὸν ὑποτάξαντα), this decision becomes somewhat less significant, as the underlying claim that ‘God subjected creation ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι’ remains the same in either case.Footnote 30
As for the ways in which the meaning of the phrase has been understood, constructing an exhaustive catalogue is made difficult both by the extreme ambiguity inherent in interpreters’ frequent recourse to the polyvalent English phrases ‘in hope’ and ‘with hope’, and by the fact that some scholars appear to espouse more than one view at various points in their exegesis. Nevertheless, we may tentatively identify three basic possible construals:
(1) ‘Hope’ is that which underlay God's act of subjecting creation (grounds/basis);
(2) ‘Hope’ is that which God aimed to produce in creation by subjecting it (purpose/aim);
(3) ‘Hope’ is that which inhered in creation in the wake of, and in spite of, its subjection (attendant circumstance).
In what follows, I will examine the grammatical basis for each of these interpretations and their implications for the meaning of Rom 8.19–21 before offering an alternative proposal that I believe alleviates some of the difficulties that have attended the interpretation of this phrase.
2.1 Option 1: ‘Hope’ Is That Which Underlay and Motivated God's Act of Subjecting Creation
Of the three options just mentioned, the first appears to have the most secure grammatical basis. BDF §235.2 notes that ἐπί with the dative ‘most frequently denotes the basis for a state of being, action, or result’ and thus takes ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι in Rom 8.20 (and elsewhere in the NT) to mean ‘on the basis of hope’. Similarly, BDAG (s.v. ἐπί 6.a) renders the phrase as ‘on the basis of hope, supporting itself on hope’. A survey of other instances of ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι in the NT reveals that this construal of the phrase's meaning appears well founded:Footnote 31
• Acts 26.6: καὶ νῦν ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι τὴς εἰς τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν ἐπαγγελίας γενομένης ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἕστηκα κρινόμενος (‘Now I stand on trial on the basis of [my] hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors’);
• Rom 4.18: ὃς παρ’ ἐλπίδα ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ἐπίστευσεν … (‘[Abraham] … who believed against hope on the basis of hope …’);
• Rom 5.2: καυχώμεθα ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ (‘We boast on the basis of [our] hope of the glory of God’);
• 1 Cor 9.10: ὀφείλει ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ὁ ἀροτριῶν ἀροτριᾶν καὶ ὁ ἀλοῶν ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι τοῦ μετέχειν (‘The one who ploughs should plough on the basis of hope and the one who threshes [should thresh] on the basis of hope of sharing [the crop]’);
• Titus 1.2: ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι ζωῆς αἰωνίου (‘[Paul serves God as an apostle of Christ] on the basis of hope for eternal life’).
Broadening the scope of our inquiry, we find that several of the relatively few instances of ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι that predate Paul appear to bear this same sense:Footnote 32
• Thucydides 6.31.6: ἐπὶ μεγίστῃ ἐλπίδι τῶν μελλόντων … ἐπεχειρήθη (‘[The voyage] was undertaken on the basis of the greatest hope for the future’);
• Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 10.9.2: οἱ παρειληφότες τὸ δεύτερον τὴν δημαρχίαν ἐπὶ τῇ ἐλπίδι τοῦ κυρώσειν τὸν νόμον (‘Those who had assumed the tribuneship for the second time on the basis of [their] hope of securing the ratification of the law’);
• Diodorus Siculus 13.21.7: οἱ γὰρ ἐν ταῖς μάχαις τοῖς ἐναντίοις τὰ σώματα ἐγχειρίζοντες, ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι σωτηρίας τοῦτο πράττουσιν (‘For those who in battle hand their bodies over to their opponents do this on the basis of the hope of deliverance’);
• Philo, Mos. 1.193: ἐπ’ ἐλευθερίας ἐλπίδι μεταναστάντες … (‘Having departed on the basis of [our] hope of freedom …’).
It thus seems that there is clear grammatical warrant for understanding ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι in Rom 8.20 as identifying hope as the grounds or basis underlying God's act of subjecting creation. This meaning is clearly presupposed by the NJB, which reads, ‘It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it – with the intention that (i.e. ‘on the basis of God's hope that’) the whole creation itself might be freed.’ Among commentators, Leon Morris provides perhaps the clearest articulation of this view: ‘[T]here is no reason to think of Adam or of Satan acting in hope for the future of the race, but hope is characteristic of God.’Footnote 33
Arland Hultgren has argued, however, that while it is true that Paul could not plausibly have intended to ascribe a motivation of hope to Adam, neither is it self-evidently appropriate for Paul to speak of God as acting ‘on the basis of hope’. Hultgren is particularly concerned that interpreting ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι ὅτι to mean that God acted in the hope that the creation itself would be set free ‘leaves the matter less certain, for the hope expressed in that rendering can signify little more than a wish’.Footnote 34 His solution is to interpret the ὅτι causally instead, thus taking the sense to be, ‘[God subjected the creation] in hope, because the creation itself will be set free’. Hultgren believes that this rendering links God's hope-driven subjection of creation with ‘an expectation that is certain’, which he insists is ‘the only mode of hope that is fitting for God’.Footnote 35
While some might well take issue with Hultgren's implicit reduction of many other instances of biblical hope to ‘little more than a wish’, his reticence to see Paul depicting God as ‘hoping that something will happen’ is fully comprehensible given Paul's language elsewhere in Rom 8. In 8.24, the apostle opines that ‘hope that is seen is not hope’ (ἐλπὶς δὲ βλεπομένη οὐκ ἔστιν ἐλπίς) and poses the rhetorical question, ‘for who hopes for what one sees?’ (ὃ γὰρ βλέπει τίς ἐλπίζει;). Thus, for Paul, genuine hope apparently entails a certain inability to verify in advance that the object of one's hope will be realised. In defence of Hultgren's position, there does appear to be a certain incongruity between this description of hope as an attitude of expectant watchfulness directed towards what is currently unseen (and therefore unverifiable) and Paul's subsequent depiction of God in 8.27–9 as the one who searches hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit, who foreknows and predetermines in accordance with the divine purpose.
The notion that one should not too quickly ascribe the ‘hope’ of Rom 8.20 to God finds further support in the fact that, of the 314 occurrences of the ελπ- stem in the LXX and NT, there are, so far as I have been able to determine, no other instances in which God is portrayed as the subject of the act of hoping. Importantly, this finding also tells against Hultgren's view that God does in fact exercise here a certain ‘mode of hope’ (albeit one that Hultgren finds more ‘fitting’). If the LXX and NT nowhere depict God as hoping that something will happen, neither do they ever describe God as exercising hope because of divine certainty that something will happen. Both parts of the Greek Bible consistently portray God as the appropriate object of hope, never as its subject.Footnote 36 Thus, while this construal of ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι is unimpeachable grammatically, it is not without problems in terms of biblical usage and theology.
2.2 Option 2: ‘Hope’ Is That Which God Aimed to Produce in Creation by Subjecting It
The second option continues to see ‘hope’ as closely linked with God's act of subjecting, but takes hope to be the purpose/aim rather than the basis/grounds of this action.Footnote 37 While ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι is never used in this way in the NT, this use of ἐπί + the dative may be reflected in such texts as Gal 5.13 (ἐπ’ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἐκλήθητε, ‘you were called for the purpose of [experiencing] freedom’) and Eph 2.10 (κτισθέντες ἐν Χριστῷ ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς, ‘created in Christ for the purpose of [performing] good works’). Thus, the sense in Rom 8.20 would be ‘creation was subjected to futility for the purpose of [experiencing] hope’.
Something like this may be the view of John Murray, who says, ‘neither Satan nor man could have subjected [creation] in hope; only God could have subjected it with such a design’.Footnote 38 It is often difficult in practice, however, to differentiate between this sense and the previous one in the remarks of commentators. Gieniusz, for example, argues that ἐπί should be taken as indicating ‘purpose, goal’, but then says that God's actions ‘have a purpose, are not without hope’, in which statement ‘hope’ appears to be that which undergirds God's purposeful actions rather than that which they aim to produce.Footnote 39
The chief shortcoming of this view is that it seems rather unnatural for Paul to suggest that the purpose of creation's subjection to futility was to bring about hope. To be sure, suffering can contribute to the growth of hope (Rom 5.3–4), but to concede this is not the same as to say that the answer to the question ‘Why is there suffering?’ is ‘so that there might be hope’. As Heinrich Meyer has argued, the purpose behind the subjection, strictly speaking, was ‘the implication of the κτίσις in the entrance of sin among [hu]mankind’.Footnote 40 Hope aims at the liberation that lies beyond this lamentable subjection to futility, but it is more difficult to see hope as that which was aimed at by the act of subjection.
2.3 Option 3: ‘Hope’ Is That Which Inhered in Creation in Spite of its Subjection
A number of interpreters have advanced comments reflecting the conviction that ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι is to be understood not primarily in relation to God's action, but rather in relation to creation's state resulting from that action, such that the sense is that creation was subjected ‘in a condition of hopefulness’ or ‘while nevertheless retaining hope’.Footnote 41 Thus, one reads that creation ‘was never without hope’,Footnote 42 ‘still retains the hope’,Footnote 43 ‘continued to cherish a hope’,Footnote 44 ‘still has hope for redemption’,Footnote 45 is ‘marked by “hope”’,Footnote 46 ‘was not subjected to frustration without any hope’,Footnote 47 was ‘in Hoffnung (belassen)’,Footnote 48 and ‘als in der Hoffnung aktiv geschildert wird’.Footnote 49
Surprisingly, such remarks are frequently advanced even by those who elsewhere imply that the ‘hope’ in view is God's. Thus, Joseph Fitzmyer first concludes that it is God ‘to whom Paul now ascribes this “hope”’, yet goes on to say that ‘God, though he cursed the ground because of Adam's sin, still gave it a hope of sharing in human redemption’.Footnote 50 Similarly, Douglas Moo first says that God's decree of subjection ‘was issued “in hope”’, yet proceeds to claim that Paul ‘attribute[s] hope to the creation’.Footnote 51 Finally, Robert Jewett contends, ‘It is implausible to suggest that either Adam or Satan may be identified as the “one subjecting it in hope”, because neither can be understood as acting “in hope”’Footnote 52 – the implication being that it is God who acts ‘in hope’. Yet Jewett proceeds to say that Paul presents creation as ‘marked by “hope”’.Footnote 53
The tension inherent in such comments seems to reflect interpreters’ recognition that the logic of the passage presses us to see the ‘hope’ in 8.20–1 as intimately bound up with the ἀποκαραδοκία of creation in 8.19 (a nuance that is obscured when the stress is put on hope as an attribute of God). Scholars have largely neglected, however, to identify explicitly a specific grammatical function of the preposition that would support this reading. Admittedly, ἐπί with the dative can occasionally convey ‘the condition or circumstances in which one is’ (LSJ s.v. ἐπί B.i.i). Indeed, it is just possible that this is the sense of the phrase in Acts 2.26 (quoting Ps 15.9 LXX), where ἡ σάρξ μου κατασκηνώσει ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι might mean ‘my flesh will live in a state of hope(fulness)’, though the meaning might equally well be ‘my flesh will live on the basis of hope’. Deciding between these two options is further complicated by the fact that we are dealing with a quotation of the LXX, which elsewhere uses ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι rather idiosyncratically.Footnote 54 Regardless of the way in which one understands the function of ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι in Acts 2.26, however, it is doubtful that Paul's point in Rom 8.20c is that creation's involuntary subjection to futility occurred while it was in a pre-existing condition of hope. Indeed, against such a construal, we may recall that in Rom 5.3–4 Paul presents hope as a product of endurance through suffering. Thus, it would appear that those interpreters who take creation, rather than God, to be the agent of hope must posit that the preposition conveys a relatively elliptical thought, so that the meaning is, ‘Creation was subjected to futility by God in such a way as to enable it nevertheless to emerge into a state marked by hope.’ It is at least questionable, however, whether the ἐπί can bear quite so much weight.
2.4 An Alternative Proposal: ‘Creation Waits Expectantly on the Basis of Hope’
Having now surveyed the most common ways of understanding the meaning of ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι and found them each wanting to various degrees, I wish to suggest that there is an alternative way of punctuating and construing vv. 19–21 that allows ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι to retain its normal meaning of ‘on the basis of hope’ while still attributing hope to the creation rather than to God. My proposal is this: ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι should not be taken as directly modifying either ὑπετάγη or τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, but rather should be taken with ἀπεκδέχεται at the end of 8.19.Footnote 55 On this reading, v. 20ab functions as a parenthesis (or, more precisely, a double parenthesis, with 20b subordinated to 20a) in which Paul pauses to describe the current plight of creation (resulting from God's act of subjection) that motivates its eager anticipation of the revealing of the children of God. Thus, the English text of Rom 8.19–21 might be translated and punctuated as follows:
19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God – 20 for the creation was subjected to futility (not voluntarily, but because of the one who subjected it) – in hope 21 that the creation itself might be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
To be sure, this reading requires positing a significant aside in v. 20a–b. But those familiar with Paul's writings will know that extemporaneous digressions, parenthetical remarks and anacolutha are recurrent features of his letters.Footnote 56 Indeed, as BDF notes, ‘the Epistles of Paul … [contain] a variety of … parentheses, harsher than a careful stylist would allow. Since Paul's train of thought in general includes many and long digressions … it is not surprising that his sentence structure even in narrower contexts is not uninterrupted.’
As for the content of creation's hope outlined in v. 21, I understand the phrase εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ to mean ‘into the freedom that will result from the glory experienced by/revealed through the children of God’ (taking δόξης as a genitive of source/production). Thus, creation experiences fervent expectation (ἀποκαραδοκία) as it eagerly awaits the eschatological revelation of which Paul spoke in 8.18–19, precisely because creation hopes that the glorification of God's children will mean liberation for creation as well – liberation from the decay and corruption that has been its lot since human rebellion ushered Sin and Death into the world. It is this hope that functions as the basis/grounds of creation's breathless anticipation.
Apart from allowing ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι to retain its usual sense of ‘on the basis of hope’, another distinct advantage of this proposal is that it throws into sharper relief the close parallels that Paul draws between the respective experiences of creation (vv. 19–22) and of believers (vv. 23–5):
• Creation waits expectantly (ἀπεκδέχεται) on the basis of its hope (ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι) (vv. 19, 20c);
• Creation looks forward to liberation/redemption (ἐλευθερίαν) from slavery (v. 21);
• In the interim, creation groans (συστενάζει) and experiences birth pangs (v. 22).
• Believers also groan (στενάζομεν) (v. 23);
• Believers wait expectantly (ἀπεκδεχόμενοι) for the liberation/redemption (ἀπολύτρωσιν) of their bodies (v. 23);
• Believers hope (ἐλπίζομεν) and wait expectantly (ἀπεκδεχόμεθα) through patient endurance (v. 25).
When one understands God to be the agent who acts ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι, by contrast, this striking parallelism is less obvious.
A few concluding observations concerning vv. 22–5 will help to clarify how I envision the logic of the entire section holding together. I understand the groans that are uttered οὐ μόνον by creation but also by believers to be expressions of lamentation and longing, cries born of the sufferings of τοῦ νῦν καιροῦ, yet imbued with hope.Footnote 57 As Conrad Gempf and Beverly Gaventa have noted, while the groans of creation are linked with birth pangs (συνωδίνει), its anguish will not come to an end through the imminent arrival of any ‘natural offspring’, for in its travail creation remains subject to futility.Footnote 58
Rather, the groaning of creation will cease only through the adoption (υἱοθεσίαν) that believers eagerly await (ἀπεκδεχόμενοι) (8.23).Footnote 59 Paul identifies this adoption with ‘the redemption of our bodies’Footnote 60 (τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν), which is still to be experienced by those who already have the ‘first fruits which is the Spirit’Footnote 61 – that is, those who have received the ‘Spirit of adoption’ that already bears witness (in advance of the consummation of the adoptive process) that they are children of God (8.15–16). I take this ‘redemption’ as a reference to the eschatological resurrection that will be accomplished through the Spirit (8.11),Footnote 62 in conjunction with which the revelation of God's glory for which creation yearns will be accomplished.
Finally, with vv. 24–5 we return to the theme of hope, as Paul asserts, τῇ γὰρ ἐλπίδι ἐσώθημεν. The shift from ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι (8.20) to τῇ ἐλπίδι (v. 24) is significant, for Paul does not mean to assert here that believers are saved on the basis of their hope. Rather, given Paul's unusual use of the aorist tense to refer to salvation,Footnote 63 and in light of the context of partial fulfilment and on-going expectation, the most plausible interpretation seems to be that advocated by C. E. B. Cranfield, James Dunn and Joseph Fitzmyer, among others, which is to take τῇ ἐλπίδι as a modal dative of manner. On this view, Paul envisions a proleptic ‘salvation’ that has already occurred through Christ's death and resurrection and the bestowal of the Spirit, but that still anticipates God's ultimate victory over Sin and Death, and that is thus characterised by hope. As Dunn expresses it, ‘So far as hope is concerned we are already saved; but hope itself is not the completion of salvation.’Footnote 64 Such a full and final salvation cannot yet be seen or attained – indeed, if it could, there would be no need for hope (8.24–5). The groaning and travailing must continue. Yet both believers and creation continue to wait – eagerly, expectantly, hopefully – for liberation, for redemption, for the revelation of God's glory.
3. Conclusion
If my reading of Rom 8.18–25 is correct in its broad outlines, Paul here paints an evocative picture of reality wherein the past subjection, present suffering and future glory of creation and believing humanity are tightly bound up together. Moreover, if my understanding of ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι in 8.20c has merit, then Paul says that creation itself, in solidarity with believers, continues to nurture a hope for liberation from its enslavement to futility and corruption. Paul's attribution of deep yearning and agonised groans to the personified creation reflects his conviction that the incursion of Sin and Death into the world in the wake of Adam's transgression has had catastrophic consequences not only for humanity, but for the rest of the Creator's handiwork as well. Yet this grim present reality is held in tension with the vision of a glorious future in which the revelation of God's redeemed children will result in creation's attainment of its long-awaited freedom. It is for this climactic transformation that the κτίσις waits ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι.
