Commentary on Romans 8:12-25

Paul uses many striking metaphors in this passage (for example, flesh, slavery, redemption, adoption, inheritance, labor pains), and the composite picture that emerges contains a number of jarring juxtapositions that are worth noticing. In this middle section of Romans 8, Paul first explains the significance of receiving the Spirit (8:12–17) and then sets the community’s life in the Spirit against a cosmic and eschatological backdrop (12:18–25). The tone of the passage is one of defiant hope: a hope with its eyes wide open to the suffering and brokenness of the world, but a hope that is rooted in Christ’s own solidarity with creation (8:17) and that bears witness to God’s promise of redemption (8:21–23). 

Life in the Spirit

In 8:11, Paul identifies the Spirit as “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead,” which underscores God’s power to bring eschatological life from death and anchors the Roman believers’ hope for their own redemption in the creative work of God. The flesh (8:12–13), which is one of Paul’s terms for the supra-human anti-god powers (along with sin and death; see also Romans 5:12–21), stands opposed to God’s life-giving work in Christ and seeks to keep creation enslaved to death and decay. Those who align themselves with the death-dealing and enslaving work of the flesh can only bring death to themselves and others, but those who turn toward the Spirit’s leading bear witness with the Spirit to God’s plan of redemption—these are the children of God. 

The Spirit of adoption

Paul speaks of these children (Greek huioi; sons) as those who have received the Spirit of adoption. Verse 15 is the first mention of adoption in the passage, and Paul uses the same word in verse 23 for those who are eagerly awaiting the redemption of their bodies. 

It is important for preachers to know that the practice Paul calls “adoption” in this passage bears little resemblance to modern, Western practices of adoption. In the Roman world, adoption was a social institution that Roman fathers used to secure a suitable adult male heir in order to pass on their household and inheritance. Preachers who use Paul’s adoption language here as a theological underpinning for Western adoption practices unwittingly perpetuate an “adoption as salvation” narrative that many adoptees and first families/birth families find very painful.

In the context of Romans, the triune act of adoption secures the inheritance of the children and enables them to participate in Jesus’s own Abba cry (8:15). However, Paul also makes clear that the children of God will experience the suffering of the Son as they wait for God’s final act of redemption (8:17). The picture that emerges is one of deep eschatological and existential tension for those who have received the Spirit of adoption. 

Groaning for redemption

In 8:18 Paul turns his gaze from “the sufferings of the present time” as he casts his eye toward the eschatological horizon and anchors his hope in “the glory about to be revealed to us.” However, having set his sights on God’s act of final redemption, Paul immediately becomes aware that the groans of the children of God are joined with the groans of all of creation. Those who are led by the Spirit ought to be attuned to the plight of creation. In this era of climate crisis, the leading of God’s Spirit calls the children of God to bear witness to creation’s plight because our redemption is inextricably tied to the redemption of the whole creation (8:21–23).

Paul uses the language of “groaning in childbirth” to describe the groans of creation and our creaturely groans of redemption. Many male commentators on Romans think that Paul is emphasizing the pain and futility of labor pain in childbirth, but I am convinced that Paul uses this language to underscore the visceral, powerful connection between creation and the Spirit-filled believers as they groan in solidarity, and to highlight the sense of expectation that God will bring redemption. 

In childbirth, labor pain is productive pain, after all. In labor, a woman’s mind and body work together, looking ahead to an end goal. Labor pain points beyond itself. Those who groan in labor for God’s redemption are not suffering in agonizing futility; they are laboring in the Spirit, straining their eyes toward the horizon for signs of God’s final redemption. 

We ought to notice Paul’s jarring juxtaposition of images in 8:22–23. Creation is laboring in childbirth, but creation’s laboring is not what secures redemption. Instead, redemption comes through God’s act of powerful grace and adoption. This paradoxical picture ought to caution us against triumphally interpreting technological, economic, or national progress as signs of God’s blessing or redemption. Instead, groaning in solidarity with creation necessitates that those who have the Spirit testify prophetically against the forces of death, slavery, and decay that are at work in the world. 

This is not to say that Christians may absolve themselves from working toward justice for those affected by climate catastrophe, by modern forms of slavery, or by the myriad kinds of violence that are increasingly enabled by modern weapons technology. Christians must continue to stand against these works of the flesh, but we do so because our faithful witness to God’s justice points forward to God’s act of redemption. For Paul, redemption comes only from the God who gives life to the dead, so those with the Spirit wait with patience for God to act decisively to bring life from death.