“The earnest expectation of the creature [or creation] waits for the manifestation of the sons of God…. The whole creation groans and travails in pain together unto now…. We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body…. The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:22,23,26).

      All creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Then shall its deliverance come. We who have the Spirit know that all creation groans in its estrangement from God, as a woman in labor, yet in hope. When the glory shall set the children free, creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and partake in the liberty of the glory.

      The Holy Spirit, who makes us know that we are children and heirs of glory, teaches us by the same means to understand all the misery of creation; through our bodies we are in connection with it, so that there is sympathy. Thus we also wait for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body. For as to possession of the full result, it is in hope that we are saved. Meanwhile we groan, as well as understand, according to the Spirit and our new nature, that all creation groans.

      It is not creation only that groans, being in bondage to corruption in consequence of the sin of man; but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit—which God has given in anticipation of the accomplishment of His promises in the last days, and which connects us with heaven—we also groan, while waiting for the redemption of our body to take possession of the glory prepared for us. But it is because the Holy Spirit who is in us takes part in our sorrow and helps us in our infirmities. Dwelling in us, He pleads in the midst of this misery by groans that do not express themselves in words. We have a sense of the evil that oppresses us and that is all around us, and the more conscious we are of the blessing and liberty of the glory, the more aware are we of the weight of the misery brought in by sin. We do not know what to ask for as a remedy; but the heart expresses its sorrow as Jesus did at the grave of Lazarus—at least in our little measure. Now this is not the selfishness of the flesh which does not like to suffer; it is the affection of the Spirit.

      We have here a striking proof of the way in which the Spirit and the life in us are identified in practice: God searches our hearts and finds there the affection of the Spirit, for He, the Spirit, intercedes. It is my heart—it is a spiritual affection—but it is the Spirit Himself who intercedes. United to the creation by the body and to heaven by the Spirit, the sense that I have of the pain and misery of things around us is not the selfishness of the flesh, but the sympathy of the Spirit, who feels it according to God.

      (From Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, Vol. 4.)