Sons of God and the Waiting Creation

…with righteousness. For in this way we are partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), since Christ makes his dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit.

But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you (Romans 8:11).

Our Lord Jesus Christ was raised by the Father, life being worked in his flesh through the Holy Spirit, who is his own.

For he himself gave life to his own temple, as he shows when he says to the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).

So even if he is said to have been raised by the Father, it was nonetheless he himself who raised it up through the Holy Spirit; for every work befitting God is worked by the Father through the Son in the Spirit.

Christ, then, will also raise our bodies from the dead.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:14).

Those who live by the spirit are the ones who are also led by the Spirit, because they have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13), set free from the slavery that lies in law and letter, and passed over instead into freedom, and because the Spirit of adoption bears them witness that they are sons of God and that in that same Spirit of adoption they have cried out, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15-16).

If indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him (Romans 8:17).

The good is not achieved without toil, but for the saints the toil rests on great hopes. For nothing earthly has been promised them, but glory without measure and a share in what lies beyond mind and speech.

For those who disdain the things of earth are worthy of the highest rewards, and those who have first toiled with courage and endurance will enjoy crowns of a preeminence beyond compare; for the toil spent on virtue falls short of the honors that follow.

He speaks of the glory of the saints because in due time the righteous will shine like the sun (Matthew 13:43), having come into honor, glory and incorruption when their bodies are changed, just as Christ was transfigured on the mountain (Matthew 17:2).

For the eager expectation of creation awaits the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:19).

“Eager expectation” means hope: the looking for and watching out for how events will turn out.

Creation does await the revealing of the children of God, not because it knows in any way what is to come—how could it, or from where?—but because, by the hidden dispensations of God, who reshapes all things for the better, matters will come to this end.

For when the children of God—that is, those who have achieved a life of good repute—are refashioned, as it were, from dishonor into glory and from corruption into incorruption, creation itself too will surely be changed for the better.

On this point the inspired Peter does not let us doubt, when he says, “We await new heavens and a new earth, and the things he has promised” (2 Peter 3:13).

For creation was subjected to vanity (Romans 8:20).

Here he calls “vanity” those who live in vanity, that is, in a fleshly mind. Of them it might be said quite fittingly, “Man has become like vanity” (Psalm 144:4), and indeed also that…