ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
restored-with a plus, with sinners saved by grace as trophies of God's undying love. That is why Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, saying: "The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the unveiling of the sons of God (Revised Version) ... Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (verses 19, 21~23). You see, my friend, the physical creation is waiting for the time when Christ shall return, not only to change our bodies of humiliation, fashioning them like unto His own glorious body (Phil. 3:21), but also to deliver "the whole crea~ tion" from "the bondage of corruption." And what a glorious deliverance that will be! Then there shall be no more curse. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (Isa. 55: 13). "The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose" (Isa. 35: 1 ) . "The Lord shall ... make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord" (Isa. 51 :3). "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord" (Isa. 65:25). "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (lsa.11:9). Thus you see, my Christian friend, we are linked with the groaning creation, insofar as our bodies are concerned. They have not been redeemed, though our spirits are already redeemed. We are "waiting for the redemption of our body" (verse 23). That is why we have aches and pains and wrinkles and grey hairs. I know some people who have known no freedom from pain for months and years. It is because our bodies are not yet redeemed; we are waiting for that deliverance. Pa9e 150]
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