Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

20. “For the creature was made subject to mortality, not willingly, but through him that
subordinated it” Nothing loves to die. Hence the body is unwillingly tied up in mortality. We must
bear it patiently for the One who put us here will soon make it all right.
21. “Therefore, indeed, pursuant to hope, the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” The plain meaning of this verse
is that my body is to be gloriously delivered from all the humiliation and suffering of this mortal life,
rendered imponderable so it can fly with angelic velocity, transfigured into the unutterable similitude
of my Savior’s glorious body. This is the inspiring hope thrilling my poor, mortal body, and
rendering it felicitously oblivious to all my toils, cares and disappointments.
22. “For we know that all creation groaneth together and travaileth in pain till now.” This
metaphor vividly describes all creation, even the earth itself, as groaning in great anguish and
suffering like a woman in the throes of childbirth, till the new creation is born (Revelation 21), “new
firmament and new earth,” thus lucidly portraying the fulfillment of prophecy appertaining to the
glorious restitution in Christ, ultimating not only in the glorification of the soul, mind and body after
the similitude of Christ, but the glorification of earth and firmament after the fiery sanctification,
when Omnipotence will again come in and create it anew, celestializing and adding it back to the
heavenly universe, where it belonged in halcyon days of Eden.
23. “And not only so, but we ourselves, having the earnest of the Spirit,” i.e., the heavenly
prelibation we enjoy in the regeneration and sanctification of the Holy Spirit, which is a foretaste of
the heavenly felicity which awaits us, “and we ourselves also groan among ourselves, awaiting the
sonship,” i.e., the “redemption of the body.” Even these bodies of ours are to become the sons of
God in the coming glorification, where they will be transfigured into the similitude of our Savior’s
glorious body, which ascended up from Mt. Olivet. The vivid conception of Paul here portrays the
body holding in electrical anticipation its own coming glory and groaning to enter into the heavenly
splendors of the transfiguration.
24. “For we are saved by hope.” He here means the salvation of the body from mortality. Hope
spies out and appropriates in anticipation. Therefore, while shut up in these tenements of clay, we
lay hold of the glorious hope of the transfiguration, thus rising superior to our pains, toils and
persecutions, and virtually living in the glorious heavenly future, rather than the suffering and
sorrowing present.
25. “For that which is seen is not hope; for that which one sees, why does he also hope for it? But
if we hope for that which we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Glorification is purely a matter
of hope, as none can receive it in this life. Hence the fanaticism of those who profess it. We see here
it is not a matter of possession, but of hope. Hence, through hope, we enjoy it in anticipation. The
hackneyed testimony, “I hope I am a Christian,” is incorrect. Paul here says we do not hope for what
we have, but what we have not. If you are a Christian, you have present salvation, attested by the
Holy Spirit. The very fact that it is with you a matter of hope is prima facie evidence against you,
i.e., that you do not possess it. Justification and sanctification are, for this life, and a matter of
conscious possession, while glorification is for the future state, and a matter of hope. This Epistle
is beautifully climacteric in the development of the gracious economy; conviction, Chapters 1, 2 and