Romans 8:20-21 - Exposition

For the creature (or, creation , as before) was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope. Because (or, that; i.e. in hope that ) the creature (or, creation ) also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God . The aorist ὑπετάγη ("was subjected") seems to imply that the present "vanity" and "bondage of corruption" were not inherent in the original Creation, or of necessity to last for ever. Thus the assertions of Genesis 1:1-31 : and 31, stand unshaken, viz. that in the beginning God created all things, and that all at first was "very good." The ideas, resorted to in order to account for existing evil, of matter ( ὕλη ) being essentially evil, and of a δημιουργός , other than the Supreme God, having made the world, are alike precluded. It might serve as an answer to the argument of Lucretius against a Divine origin of things-

" Nequaquam nobis divinius esse paratam

Naturam rerum, tanta star praedita culpa "

Why the "creature" was thus "subjected" is not here explained. No solution of the old insoluble problem of τοθὲν τὸ κακὸν is given. All that is, or could be, said is that it was διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα , meaning God. It was his will that it should be so; this is all we know; except that we find the beginning of evil, so far as it affects man, attributed in Scripture to human sin. But he so subjected his creation in hope. This expression may refer to the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 , or to the never-dying hope in the human heart; to either or to both. The latter idea is expressed in the myth of Pandora's box. Further, the creature is said to have been so subjected "not willingly" ( οὐχ ἑκοῦσα ) . No sentient beings acquiesce in suffering; they resent evil, and would fain flee from it. Man especially unwillingly submits to his present bondage. When in Genesis 3:21 the hope is expressed of the creature (or creation) itself being eventually freed from the present bondage of corruption, it may be that the human part of creation only is in the writer's eye; but it may be also (there being still no expressed limitation of the word κτίσις ) that he conceives a final emancipation of the whole creation from evil (cf. Ephesians 1:10 ; 1 Corinthians 15:23-27 ; 2 Peter 3:13 ). But if so, it is not said that the peculiar glory of the sons of God will extend to all creation, but only that all will be freed into the freedom of their glory; which may mean that the day of the revelation of the sons of God in glory will bring with it a general emancipation of all creation from its present bondage. Such a great final hope finds expression in the verse—

"That God, which ever lives and loves,

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off Divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

('In Memoriam.')

The present condition of things is in Genesis 3:20 denoted by ματαιότης , and in Genesis 3:21 by τῆς δουλειάς τῆς φθορᾶς . The first of these words is the equivalent in the LXX . of the Hebrew לכֶהֶ , which means properly "breath," or "vapour," and is used metaphorically for anything frail, fruitless, evanescent, vain. It is often applied to idols, and it is the word in Ecclesiastes where it is said that "all is vanity" (cf. also Psalms 39:5 , Psalms 39:6 ). It seems here to denote the frailty, incompleteness, transitoriness, to which all things are now subject. " ΄αταιότης sonat frustatio, quod creatura interim non assequatur quod utcunque contendit efficere" (Erasmus). φθορᾶς intimates corruption and decay.