Our Earnest Expectation

The Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Barnabas Anglican Church
June 28, 2010

“Our Earnest Expectation…”
4th Sunday After Trinity 2010

Rom 8:18-19 “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”


Our epistle selection for the day comes from one of the most vibrant, most triumphant sections of the New Testament, St. Paul glorious eighth chapter of The Epistle to the Romans. This one chapter proclaims the believer’s great claim of salvation in Christ, his justification of the same, and the ultimate fulfillment of that justification. One would hard pressed to find a greater collection of affirmations of the Christian Faith in one place and in such a succinct manner.

One point, however, concerns us today. It is one that is central to the entire selection and one that is supported by the following statements in the passage. That one central point is our “earnest expectation” of “the glory which shall be revealed in us.” As we begin to examine this, please notice one very important point that is central to the whole discussion. That is simply the statement “the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Note please, that the Apostle Paul doesn’t say, “the glory which shall be revealed” to us, but in us. This is an important distinction. Why is this? Let us compare and contrast the two.

When one thinks of the Glory of God, we would surmise that most people in the Church think of some glory they see, as in “mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…”, which of course, concerns the glory of the great and terrible Day of the Lord. Additionally, this glory may take the form of some great miracle, where God’s glory is revealed in some mighty act. An excellent example would be the parting of the Red Sea from the Old Testament. This would have been a simply stunning sight as one witnessed the great walls of water on both sides the company of the Israelites as they fled from the Egyptian host. While this is indeed indicative of the Glory of God, it is not the same as what St. Paul envisions in today’s Epistle.

Rather, St. Paul speaks of the glory that is to revealed in us. This glory is evidently so remarkable, so transformational that it creates an “earnest expectation” in us, (the sons and daughters) of God, as we await our ultimate manifestation.
What is this earnest manifestation for which St. Paul’s says we await so eagerly? It is our long-awaited change, our perfection in righteousness, for which the believer longs for all his life.

Wait just a minute. That may sound a bit funny to us. We daresay that if one asked most people what they long for, it’s a pretty good bet that they wouldn’t say anything about perfection in righteousness! Most folks want a lot of stuff, but probably not that.

On the other hand, why would St. Paul say something like that if it didn’t have real significance for our lives? The fact is, he wouldn’t. The fact is, all of us, deep down, know that all is not perfect with our soul. Deep down, in our inner recesses, there is a part of us that longs for completion. That doesn’t mean that we are not happy or don’t have some sense of contentment. If one does possess that, it is wonderful, perhaps even combined with a healthy amount of self-esteem. That is totally acceptable, as long as it is Christ-centered and not merely anchored in the love of self. Yet, one can have this contentment, this joy in Christ, while still knowing that there is more…

That “more” is that to which St. Paul is referring. He tells us in Rom 8:20-21: “For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” In other words, God has created in us an expectation of perfection. Paul terms it as an escape from “corruption”, i.e. decay, into “the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” We will become something better, something eternal, even perfect, when our change comes. Thus, St. Paul calls it the “liberty of the glory of the children of God”

Here we have two key concepts that feed directly into our wonderful expectation. The first is liberty, which seems to be a key concept in Christianity. We Christians are free to do as we will. We may even use our free will to sin, although that is certainly not what the Lord wants for us. Liberty does not mean license, although many mistaken believers have sometimes strayed down that path. No, the liberty of God is the liberty to be free of sin, to escape its power over us and to enjoy the heady air of true freedom. When we have God’s liberty, we can have the freeing force of virtue in our lives that refuses to be taken in by the cloying deceits of sin. Just like virtue, sin has its recompence. Unlike virtue, which always pays dividends, sin always takes a negative toll on us in some way or another. We all know that sin is slavery, whereas virtue is freedom.

Perhaps this weight of sin and the desire to be perfected from it is the reason that St. Paul says in Rom 8:22: “ For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. “ Most of the World really doesn’t know it or even realize it, but it really wants to be delivered from this weight. The weight of sin comes from the original curse laid on it by the sin of Adam, from the Fall. This will all be set right someday, when the Creation is ultimately presented as a spotless bride to God the Father by God the Son. When that happens, all creation, man, animal and mineral, will be freed from their prehistoric curse. The pain will be erased and then the whole Creation will no longer “groan” and “travail” as it does now.

“That sounds great”, one might say, “but how does it concern me?” First of all, it may not be of any concern whatsoever to those to whom the spiritual life means nothing. That is, it takes seeing life through the eyes of Christ for this passage to have its full significance. The whole idea of sin, righteousness, redemption and perfection must have some meaning to us. As we are all painfully aware, there are many people to whom this makes no sense at all. It is simply not a concern to them.

Yet it does to us. What then, does my own “perfection in righteousness” mean to me? First, as we’ve mentioned, is the ability to avoid sin. This ability will enable us to attain to the complete and blessed nature of a Child of God. It means that once and for all, we will not have the heavy mass of sin around us. We will be “light in the Lord.” While we can always make progress towards that goal while we are in the body here on Earth, we know we cannot be completely victorious. Not yet. Someday, however, we can and we will…

That’s why the “groaning” of the Christian is not unheard by God. St. Paul notes that even we Christians, who have the “firstfruits” of the Spirit, do groan also. Perhaps he means that those of us who have experienced a little “taste” of the Holy Spirit in our lives are left wanting more. The Image of God that was imprinted on us by our baptism and the still greater sense of the ultimate that worship in Christ brings are only hints of the glory to come. Thus, the groanings and yearnings of the Christian have more poignancy than those of the World. Whereas the World groans within itself because it senses somehow that it has pain and incompleteness, we Christians are cognizant of our goal and that for which we look earnestly heavenward. We are looking for the manifestation of the Sons of God in order to achieve our fullest glory. We are simply looking forward to the adoption of our body. Paul goes further and terms this as our “redemption.”

What does this mean? We all know what it means to redeem something. It means to “buy back.” Of course this is what Christ did for us. He literally bought back our souls and bodies from their original disposition, that of hell and eternal death.
Now, because of Christ, St. Paul is able to confidently affirm “our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” This is the beginning our our glory, “the glory which will be revealed in us.”

It begins with the glorification of our body. Although we are not exactly sure what this will entail, we can take the plain words of Scripture at their face value. They tell us that we will have a glorified body. If it is anything like that of Christ’s, and we assume that it will, it will be beautiful and glistening white. It may not be bound by physical constraints. It will certainly not be subject to hunger, thirst, pain, or ordinary human desire. It will be a body of freedom. As Christ is, so shall we be. Not that we shall be divine, for that is impossible. Yet, we shall share in his Glory in such a way as to make pale the most wonderful of human experiences. We shall take part in the wonderful “manifestation of the sons of God.”

That is our wonderful destiny as Christians. We are indeed blessed in that we have the chance now, in this life, to grow in holiness and to experience the first fruits of that growth. Virtue does have its rewards. Yet, these rewards are small in comparison to the real ones, the ones that can only occur when we are in the presence of God. These can never pass away. Only then will we truly understand our true potential, our true nature, and our true joy.

Rom 8:18 “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.“ AMEN