# How was the rest of creation subjected to futility? Rom. 8:20



## chuckd (Jan 22, 2013)

_19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now._ Rom. 8:19-22

I've searched a few commentaries and even several threads here. I'm wondering how creation was subjected to futility after the fall of Adam. I can see how humanity was, as the guilt was imputed to us since he is our federal head. Our nature is corrupt as: how can anything corrupt bear something other than corrupt?

But, other than the provision given to Adam and Eve, why did creation fall into misery and death and in need of salvation (v.21)? Is creation "not willingly" punished due to Adam being the king of creation? (I guess it's the individualism in me that makes it seem unjust)


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## GulfCoast Presbyterian (Jan 22, 2013)

I believe that this is directly related to Genesis 3:16-19, wherein God "cursed the ground (creation)" as a result of the fall of Adam. 

To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
(Genesis 3:16-19 ESV)

It probably also repeats the theme of Romans 5:12 that sin/death entered the world through one man (Adam). The death which entered was for more than mankind. 

I hope that helped.


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## chuckd (Jan 22, 2013)

Thanks for the response. I'm not necessarily wanting an explanation that it _did_ happen and that by the hand of God, but more looking for the connection between Adam's sin and the curse upon the rest of creation. I can find it between Adam and the rest of humanity (WCF 6.3), but struggling with the rest of creation itself. How is it that the sin that entered the world through Adam had it's curse (e.g. animal death) upon creation? Maybe I'm not wording it correctly.

a side question: I see in Jesus' ministry that there is a picture of a future restored humanity through the healings. Since I presume that there will no longer be animal death in the new world, why did he not restrict our diet to vegetables as in the garden, but rather went the other way and proclaimed all things (including pigs) good to eat? Since it encourages further death of animals. I'm not a vegetarian, but wondered this when looking at this passage along with Isa. 11:6-9.


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## NB3K (Jan 22, 2013)

Well look around. I would say that the rest of creation is under the curse of sin because of Adam's fall.


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## Peairtach (Jan 22, 2013)

It's only animals that suffer, because minerals and vegetables are not sentient.

They'll be different views on this, particularly between Old Earth and Young Earth Creationists.

C.S. Lewis speaks about animal suffering in his "The Problem of Pain".

The whole creation is spoilt by God's curse in order to remind Man that he has sinned, and encourage him to look to God for salvation and seek a better world.

Adam was prophet, priest and king, applying God's word to the creation (prophet), representing the creation unto God (priest), and ruling over the creation by God's word (king).


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## Contra_Mundum (Jan 22, 2013)

The answer lies in the principles of Representation (federalism) and Imputation (of value).

In the first place, Representation is much bigger than a derivative connection, in this case the passing along of the corrupt human nature. The doctrine of Original Sin includes as its _first part_ the collective assignation of the *guilt* of Adam's first sin to all his posterity descended from him by ordinary generation. Those men who are properly found to be "in Adam" judicially (and that not a pure derivation genetically) were found guilty and condemned on the day of the fall. Such would include you and me.

This doctrine is resented by most men. Nevermind that everyone has added his own guilt to the mix, and the only people who have the nearest right to complain are the infants and the unborn. Paul is pretty clear, by the evidence adduced in Rom.5:14--that whomsoever you may find who has not sinned by a similitude to Adam, who nevertheless has *died*--must have been found guilty. Infants do not die, they are not condemned, on account of their sorry state wherein they begin to exist. They are condemned because they were found guilty when Adam was.

Men, because they are so inconsistent and because the pride of only a few is greater than their avarice, are perfectly willing to take the benefits of representation when it is presented. The *spoils* should be distributed, 1Sam.30:21-25. Ah, but when the demerits are to be distributed, where are the many lining up for their share? Think of all the patriotic fanatics who want a share of the glory (chanting "USA! USA!") when the Olympic gold is hung about the neck of a single man, who's eyes well up with tears as "WE" just won and "OUR" anthem is played. If "WE" lost a war, and sanctions are imposed through unconditional surrender, how many of "US" would be resigned to the justice of the God-like decisions of the victors?

There's a perverse kind of inversion of this tendency in the machinations of the powerful, who enjoy privatizing (to themselves) the benefits of public policy, and socializing the demerits of the same.

To play with examples some more: when our elected secular representatives at every level conduct business in our name, we are party to their decisions. It would be true also to some extent in a monarchy or some other form of government; but it is supremely true in a nation of elections. Unless one "changes allegiance," by repudiating what he can or emigrating, sometimes turning traitor or embracing a "change" imposed by a new authority, without such a possibility he is a party (in some degree) to his government's acts. This is true even when the "opposition" is in power; he is a member of "the loyal opposition." He consents to the constitution by remaining engaged. The nation might go to war, and unless you are a dissident you also are at war, like it or not. If the war, or the law, is unjust; and you are not willing to divide yourself from the constitution that binds you to the creators and enforcers; then you have no right to claim an exemption from the consequences.

To come to Christ is to change spiritual allegiance. It is to accept his death in your place, and his Kingship in life everlasting. It is to repudiate your old identity in Adam, and such autonomy as you assert for yourself; and embrace a new identity and Mediator. It is to accept God's scales of value. Imputation is a vital concept, because it not only transfers guilt away, and righteousness toward the believer. It also explains and expresses the value God assigns to his Son, and to those who are aligned with him. 

Understanding that God values everything he associates with his Son helps us to understand how creation has its value through its association with Man, the crown of creation. The "redemption" of creation happens only through the redemption of man; and it is of a different nature than man's redemption. Creation awaits a renovation. It was cleansed once, briefly and superficially in the flood. It will be made over the next time by fire, 2Pet.3:5-7,10-11.

Man has a soul that was of a different quality than the physical stuff. To fix it demanded a moral revivification. Man's body still dies. The flesh is still the repository of the sin that remains with him after his personal Regeneration. The body must go into the ground and die, that it might be raised incorruptible, 1Cor.15:35ff. Material creation in every form is "this corruptible," and its only route to the new heavens and earth is through death. Because the entirety of that which was created "good" was made defective by that which was "very good," or most good about it, becoming bad. The whole picture was ruined by Adam.

Good is the "value" God imputed to creation at creation. It had only such value as he said it had. It retains value only as he sets it, and he removed anything that even approached absolute value to it in the day sin entered the picture. Death came by sin, Rom.5:12, and death is Bad. Even among the animals carnivorous and parasitical existence (as opposed to good and helpful symbiosis) came about because of sin, if we are to take Gen.1:30 at face-value.

The effects of sin were seen immediately in creation through the curse on the serpent qua serpent (as a creaturely thing), "above every beast" implying effects throughout the beastly-world; through the thorns and thistles (Gen.3:18) and the very earth that resists man; through the sacrifice of animals to atone and to clothe Adam and Eve (Gen.3:21); through the fear of the creatures (Gen.9:2) which were, in a sense, put into exemplary awareness by the flood of just what perilous condition they were all made because of their putative overlords.

It is God who evidently imputes greater value to humankind than to the rest of creation distinctly. This is how he has chosen to reveal the magnitude of Man's rebellion. Will man value what God values, on his scale of value? It is not that God thinks so little of creation that he inflicts it generally with the punishment man earns. It is man who treats it triflingly, as if being made its ruler and beneficiary was insufficient as an endowment; but he would rather assert independence from God and from it. Man made creation nothing but a thing to be used, and taken for granted. God left it (made it) to still be subject in some sense to the Rebel, for his own higher purpose. But that could not possibly be a wholly pleasant condition for the creation.


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## py3ak (Jan 22, 2013)

Chuck, the short answer is in Psalm 8. God placed man over the (visible) works of his hands. The self-destruction of man involved also damage to his kingdom. While one could certainly imagine (say) an elephant or whale experiencing some hostility towards man if the connection were explained to them, the fact that it is God himself who has performed this subjection should quiet any thoughts about its being unjust.


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