Scriptural text: Romans 8:18-30
Present Suffering (Romans 8:18-25).
The suffering of the saints strikes no deeper than the things of time, are light afflictions, last no longer than that of the present time, are light afflictions, and but for a moment. How vastly different are the sentence of the world, and the sentiment of the world, concerning the sufferings of this present time! Indeed the whole creation seems to wait with earnest expectation for the period when the children of God shall be manifested in the glory prepared for them. There is an impurity, deformity, and infirmity, which has become upon the creature by the fall of man. There is an enmity of one creature to another. And they are used, or abused rather, by men as instruments of sin. Yet this deplorable state of the creation is in hope. God will deliver it thus from thus being held in bondage from man’s depravity. The miseries of the human race, through their own and each other’s wickedness, declare that the world is not always to continue as it. Our having received the first fruits of the Spirit, quickens our desires, encourages our hopes, and raises our expectations. Sin has been , and is, the guilty cause of all the suffering that exists in the creation of God.
Present God (Romans 8:26-30).
“And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Even the darkest night of the soul does not mean we are cut off from God. Paul had an unshakable faith, that all things are under the control of God, that all things work together for good to them that love God. Faith in the sovereign God means believing that He is in control of all things. Even the evil in our world that causes the suffering of righteousness people is not beyond His control.
For them he did foreknow, he also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn amog many brethren. While doctrines of foreknowledge and predestination to consider, Paul’s letter precedes by centuries debates about these terms and does not address the arguments that future Christians would engage in. Rather, Paul’s point is that God is working within a plan, not haphazardly throwing people or events together in some sort of cosmic or salvific experiment. Though chaos or chance may seem to rule the day, we take comfort that the Lord knew us long before we accepted the call to join Him in His ultimate purpose for people: to be conformed to the image of his Son (Psalm 139:13). This is both a new creation and a re-creation, for to be made in the image of Christ is to be restored to our unsullied state of having been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
References: Matthew Henry Commentary, 2021-2022 KJV Standard Lesson Commentary