Suffering and Glory
Lesson 14 Notes: Romans 8:18-27
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)
When was the last time you experienced the truth of Jesus’s words, “In this world you will have trouble”?1 Everyone suffers. People disappoint us, illness strikes, and jobs are lost. Prejudice and injustice leave deep wounds. Not only do God’s children experience physical pain, emotional heartache, and mental anguish, but persecution and spiritual attacks continually disrupt their lives. We groan under pain, poverty, and temptation. Suffering is something we try to avoid but cannot escape.
Paul’s pastoral concern for God’s people compelled him to explain the glorious future believers await, even while they suffer. Pain on this earth does not threaten a believer’s secure salvation and position as God’s child. Paul now deepened the assurances he had just proclaimed in Romans 8:14-17. This world’s trouble cannot compare with something that remains unseen yet certain: God’s glory revealed in His children. God's promise to believers of a glorious future brings resilient hope that steadies them through life’s challenges. While creation groans in fervent expectancy, God’s children inwardly groan as they anticipate God fulfilling His promises—their future adoption into God’s family and the redemption of their bodies. Believers eagerly await God’s promised eternal glory. Certain hope in what remains unseen propels God’s children forward as they patiently wait for God to do what only He can.
1. World’s trouble: John 16:33
Creation Groans – Romans 8:18-22
Paul continued from verse 17, where he stated the incredible reality for all believers: “We are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we might also share in His glory.” Paul reminded his readers that sharing God’s glory requires sharing Christ’s suffering. Suffering afflicts not just people but all of creation. Nature also suffers the effects of sin: decay and death. Even so, creation’s groans do not merely express a painful struggle but also anticipate future glory.
In verse 18, Paul compared believers’ present sufferings with the glory they anticipate. The two do not come remotely close. Paul explained that “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” This promise of future glory includes the following:
Every believer will know the joy of standing before God clothed in Christ, accepted as His child and welcomed into His presence. As Christ’s co-heirs, all who believe and receive His salvation by grace through faith will share in the splendor and radiance of His eternal glory.6 That God would choose to honor sinful people this way should bring us to our knees in gratitude.
While Paul endured severe suffering,7 he also glimpsed heaven’s glory.8 Reflecting on all he had suffered, Paul concluded that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”9 Our troubles seldom feel either light or momentary! Paul’s perspective on suffering collides with the seemingly endless agony all around us. The perpetual weightiness of life’s challenges feels heavy.
However, the intense suffering Paul experienced invites us to lean in and learn from him. Steeped in the Old Testament, Paul knew that “glory” in Hebrew denotes something weighty: the totality of God’s perfect honor, beauty, and goodness. The weight of future glory in Christ surpasses the burden of current suffering in every possible way, making it light by comparison. Paul probably used the word “momentary” to underscore that believers’ suffering belongs only to this present age—our time on earth. While God does not insulate believers from suffering, He works through it to reveal His glory and will one day end suffering forever.10
Paul simultaneously linked God’s children to and set them apart from creation in verse 19. He wrote: “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” Creation often refers to all God has made in the heavens and on the earth. Here, Paul likely means nature—the world of animals, plants, and inanimate matter. Paul did not include God’s angels in creation’s anticipation. They already understand the future heavenly glory that believers await. Paul also did not speak of fallen angels—Satan and demons. They shrink from the future because God’s children’s glorious victory will bring their judgment and ruin.11
Though imperfect, fallen creation reveals visible evidence of God’s eternal power and divine character.12 All creation belongs to God, the Creator. Creation’s beauty stuns us as we view towering mountains or magnificent oceans. Yet creation eagerly awaits a glorious fulfillment to come. “Waits in eager expectation” reminds us of a child anticipating their birthday. Paul speaks as if the entire universe stretches to see the “freedom and glory of the children of God.” Why would the universe go through such lengths? Because creation will participate in the victory of the saints as it is redeemed to unspoiled perfection.
God’s judgment on humanity impacted the perfect world He created for people.13 Adam, not nature, had sinned. Even so, creation suffered under God’s curse. Not by its own choice, creation was subjected to frustration—always striving but never able to reach its ultimate purpose. Creation exists in bondage to decay. Flowers bloom and wither. Fish lay eggs and die. Physical death comes to everything that has physical life.14 Even mighty mountains erode.
Yet creation will not remain in bondage forever. God’s plan to redeem His people includes the glorious renewal of all creation. At Jesus’s return, believers will receive perfect, imperishable bodies. Like plants and the seeds from which they grow, our new, glorious bodies will be linked somehow with our present, imperfect bodies, yet will be so much better.15 Creation will enjoy a similar experience—in continuity with what came before but altogether different and gloriously new.16
Like an infant child groans and cries to communicate discomfort, creation expresses suffering through groans. Paul revealed that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Paul’s image of childbirth points to joyful fulfillment beyond the cause of grief. Birth pains are real but not endless; they last only for a time. A woman groaning in labor endures great pain but looks forward in hope, knowing her struggles will fade once her child is born. Creation groans in suffering now but looks forward in hope to the day of God’s fulfilled promise.
Believers Groan – Romans 8:23-25
God’s judgment of Adam and Eve’s sin brought unavoidable consequences to all humanity today. No one is exempt. Along with creation, God’s people groan—but not without hope.17 Scripture promises renewed life in Christ that continues and gains momentum for all eternity.
Those “who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” Just as farmers eagerly distribute the first produce from the crops they planted and stewarded, the Holy Spirit produces spiritual fruit within believers18 as they await their future glory. God’s tangible, transformative work offers a foretaste of the full glory His people anticipate in eternity. The Holy Spirit indwells believers,19 producing God-honoring righteousness in their daily lives. As God’s children experience the Spirit’s redemptive work in practical ways, they inwardly groan for the full glorification God has promised.
Daily struggles can cause excruciating pain. A believer’s ongoing battle with personal sin causes confusion and angst.20 Outside forces beyond our control trigger anguish. Real suffering creates heartache. Though we groan in pain, we have a helper. The Holy Spirit works within believers and walks alongside them. He brings needed hope as He guarantees God’s promised inheritance of redemption.21 In life’s darkest moments, believers can look ahead to a joy-filled eternity in God’s glorious presence forever.
Earlier in this chapter, Paul proclaimed God’s great promise of adoption.22 Here, he reveals that adoption’s full experience is yet to come—an event believers eagerly await. Adoption has both a present and future reality. In the present, believers live as God’s adopted children—a part of His family. God immediately moves believers from Adam’s family23 into His own family when they are saved. He is their Father. Nothing and no one can ever change this relationship. At the same time, believers await a future adoption that comes with “the redemption of our bodies,” which has not yet happened. Believers anticipate the day they exchange their sin-tainted human bodies for new, glorified, heavenly bodies like Jesus’s body.24
Paul continued his point regarding believers’ hope for adoption and redemption, saying, “In this hope we were saved.” Christian hope is not merely wishful thinking. A believer’s hope in Jesus and His return is sure and certain. God keeps His promises, assuring our present hope and future expectations. Paul expressed his hopeful attitude this way: “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Believers patiently await their bodily resurrection and their fulfilled adoption as God’s children.
God, who cannot lie, promised great, yet future, realities.25 Because hope rests on the sure Word of God, Paul encouraged believers to reject confidence in personal strength, emotional stability, or spiritual accomplishments. Instead, God provides a reasonable and safe place for His people’s hope to rest—through faith in His Word and trust in His promises.
Eagerly awaiting Christ’s return requires patience. Though eagerness and patience do not seem to pair well, patience grows as we share God’s priorities and care for others. Believers receive the privilege of working with God to reach the lost and serve His people.26 What a grand picture of what this waiting looks like! In his other letters, Paul wrote about our proper perspective as we live on earth. In Colossians 3:2, he said, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Second Corinthians 4:17-18 encourages us: “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Filled with thanksgiving for God’s deliverance from hell and sin’s punishment, we face the future focused on life’s next steps and opportunities. This future focus enables heavenly minded people to make a real and lasting difference in the present world.
A Believer’s Path to Glory
Paul knew suffering well. He had been shipwrecked, nearly beaten to death, imprisoned, and flogged, and lived in constant danger.1 Suffering is inevitable for all people, including Christians. Jesus said that whoever wants to be His disciple “must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”2 Jesus suffered intense temptation and endured the cross.3 Paul recognized that God powerfully uses suffering to shape a believer’s character. Suffering invites believers to know Christ, their suffering Savior, and the power of His resurrection through experience rather than only intellectual knowledge.4
Suffering entered the world through Adam and Eve’s first sin. Sin opened the door to physical sickness, decay, and death. Directly or indirectly, sin causes pain through mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering. Some people suffer as a natural consequence of their own sins or those committed against them. Others suffer harmful persecution for their faith in Christ. In some circumstances, we can offer no visible or overt reason or explanation for the suffering we see or experience—famine, natural disasters, and accidents. Regardless, we can be certain that no suffering is outside God’s sovereign and protective rule. In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.” God uses suffering for good in the lives of His people.5
To suffer apart from Christ is to suffer without enduring hope. Despite our every effort to avoid suffering, looming burdens and troubles come crashing in. We seek mere human solutions that provide momentary control but never really offer escape; struggles continually arise. When people refuse to turn to Christ in suffering, brokenness, and weakness, despair or empty resignation can set in. The world’s disappointing solutions and suggestions leave us empty, bitter, fearful, and frustrated.
Christ’s followers can expect to suffer as a part of life on earth. God provides a path to glory when hardships enter believers’ lives. The Holy Spirit’s comforting presence within the hearts of God’s children helps them endure in ways they simply could not on their own. God’s living Word proclaims His great and abiding love, reminding us we are not alone. He sees us and loves us with an everlasting love. Jesus reminds us to take heart because He has overcome this world.6 Paul proclaimed something amazing—God’s glory will be revealed in us! How can this be? Our God never ceases to do greater work than we can imagine—even in times of great suffering.
The Spirit Groans – Romans 8:26-27
Suffering brings weariness. While creation and believers groan in their sufferings, God does not leave them stranded or alone. Instead, He comes alongside them through His Holy Spirit. God’s abiding Holy Spirit not only groans with us, He also groans for us in prayer when we are not sure how to pray.
The Holy Spirit comes alongside believers in many ways. In addition to the Holy Spirit’s powerful work we witnessed in Lesson 13,27 Scripture shows us that He teaches God’s people in challenging situations28 and gives power to those who witness on Jesus’s behalf.29 Through the Holy Spirit, God’s people grow in unity with one another.30 God’s Spirit speaks through God’s Word and helps people understand truth.31 In fact, Paul refers to God’s Word as the “sword of the Spirit” in His letter to the Ephesians.32
Every person lives in a perpetual state of weakness—physically, spiritually, and emotionally—as we await glory. The Spirit’s continual indwelling presence provides believers with ongoing help. Paul taught that the Holy Spirit helps believers by joining in bearing our burdens. Jesus taught this when He promised to ask His Father to send the Spirit to live within His people.33 The Greek word parakletos means helper, counselor, advocate, or comforter. The Holy Spirit comes alongside God’s children to offer exactly these functions and bring about an increasingly abundant life even while suffering remains.
Prayer offers believers a ready channel to communicate with God. However, life’s difficulties can make words of prayer challenging to voice. Our weakness often causes us to wrestle so deeply that we cannot begin to pray. Sometimes our limited insight skews our prayers toward our very narrow, time-oriented perspective. The Holy Spirit comes alongside believers to help shoulder the load that can seem crushing. The Holy Spirit groans as a real burden-bearer who stands with and for God’s children. What does God’s Spirit do on behalf of His beloved children? The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in lockstep with God’s will, which we struggle to discern in seasons of suffering. He needs no words to express our earthly burdens perfectly to our heavenly Father.
Our Father understands the Spirit’s wordless groans. Our triune, omniscient God tenderly works with intimate understanding of our plight. Being one with the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit knows God’s will and our hearts and intercedes accordingly with divine perfection.34 The Spirit’s intercession on the Christian’s behalf points to a day in eternity when there will be no barrier between God and believers. Uninterrupted fellowship awaits anyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ. Positioned at God’s right hand, Jesus also continually intercedes for believers.35
The realities of life on earth present ongoing challenges for God’s children. Saved by God’s grace, steadied by God’s promises, and sustained by the Holy Spirit’s help, we can face our daily struggles with a long-term perspective. Temporary travail exists while certain triumph awaits. Believers eagerly await God’s promised eternal glory.
Take to Heart
Suffering and glory are major themes in this section of Romans 8. From experience, Paul knew a believer’s suffering can never outweigh the future glory God promises. Yet for now, the two—suffering and glory—coexist. For now, creation groans, we groan, and the Holy Spirit groans. Creation’s groans of frustration expectantly long for God’s glory to be revealed in His people. Creation groans as in childbirth even today, while God’s children groan inwardly. Pressed under the weight of this world’s momentary sufferings, believers eagerly and patiently await the fullness of glory to be revealed through their eternal adoption and redemption. God’s yet unseen fulfillment creates anticipation in creation and provides eager hope to His longing people.
The Holy Spirit helps God’s people in their weakness. In our weakened state, there are times we cannot form words of prayer. The Holy Spirit intervenes with wordless groans and actively intercedes on behalf of God’s people. One with God, the Spirit knows and prays in unity with the Father’s wisdom and will. At the very same moment, His inexpressible intercession for those He indwells brings them immeasurable, needed, precisely aimed comfort. Paul spoke incomprehensible truth to Rome’s believers that rings true today. God chooses to reveal His glory through His people, and His indwelling Spirit continually groans in prayer on their behalf.
Though suffering’s weight can feel unbearable, we can find comfort in our God, who understands suffering. He gave His one and only Son to die for us.36 How comforting to know that the God who collects our tears is the same God who will permanently wipe all tears from our eyes.37 Suffering, sometimes deep or severe, attacks our mortal bodies along our unavoidable trek toward physical death. However, this sobering reality does not need to dictate how we view life. All suffering and pain will cease when God fulfills His eternal plan. His glory will be fully revealed in the everlasting age to come. And while we wait for that day, we cannot rightly compare eternity’s glory with today’s suffering. Even if suffering endures for a lifetime, God’s purposes will prevail forever. What past or present suffering causes you pain? How is suffering’s burden overwhelming you today? Cry out to the God who sees you. He knows you by name. He is near and ready to help. Will you seek God and receive His comfort?
Groaning resonates throughout the passage we have considered. Difficulties can overwhelm us as we process life in a fallen world. Creation groans. Believers groan. The Holy Spirit groans. However, the groans Paul described are not fruitless, hopeless wails of agonizing despair. Creation longs for God’s children to be revealed—and they will be revealed. Believers long for the glorification God has promised in their adoption into His family. With absolute certainty, that will indeed happen. And the Spirit groans in wordless cries on our behalf, perfectly harmonizing our pain with God’s purposes. God hears the Spirit’s powerful prayers and holds our hearts steady when our knees are shaking. God invites us to rest in hope that cannot and will not bring disappointment. When groaning escalates within you, how do you respond? How does your trouble draw you to God?
Eternal future glory puts temporary suffering into proper perspective. Every believer will receive a resurrection body, live forever, and see God in His full glory, face-to-face. Paul’s explanation does not minimize suffering but instead elevates what lies ahead. The multimedia onslaught of heartbreaking news and empty promises can easily drown out God’s certain promises. We can almost hear creation’s groans in the ocean’s stormy tempest, a tsunami’s thundering cascade, and the sweeping devastation of hurricanes, tornadoes, or wildfires. How comforting to know that a time is coming when God will renew all things. What helps you focus on eternity’s glories rather than today’s grief? How will you allow your most pressing challenge to catapult you into God’s presence, where He can expand your longing for Christ’s return? God can be trusted even when we cannot fully understand His purposes.
The Holy Spirit actively groans in intercessory prayer for God’s people. If you are a believer, God’s Spirit is actively praying for you—continuous, deep, abiding prayer in perfect alignment with the Father’s will. When you feel too weak or confused to pray, ask for the Spirit’s help. He is always with you. Believers are commanded to pray, even continually.38 A great spiritual discipline and privilege, prayer invites believers to experience God’s constant attention, availability, and unlimited power. We may not always know what to pray for, but God gives us His Spirit to step in where we come up short. If you are feeling discouraged or empty, recall God’s promise and pray a short prayer of thanksgiving for His presence, hope, and care. Our Father hears our prayers and responds to them consistently, perfectly, and wisely out of His inexhaustible abundance. Be encouraged! The Holy Spirit prepares us for the time we will pray in perfect unity with all those gathered around God’s throne. As you patiently await the fulfillment of your salvation and God’s glory in eternal resurrection, how and for what will you pray?
1. God’s glory: 2 Corinthians 3:18
2. Heavenly citizenship: Philippians 3:20-21
3. Sharing in Jesus’s glory: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14
4. Christ’s family: Hebrews 2:10-14
5. Eternal worship: Revelation 19:1-8; 22:3
6. Grace through faith: Romans 5:1-2
7. Paul’s hardships: 2 Corinthians 11:23-28
8. Heaven’s glory: 2 Corinthians 12:2-4
9. Momentary troubles: 2 Corinthians 4:16-17
10. God’s work in our suffering: James 1:2-4
11. Fallen angels and judgment: Matthew 8:28-29; Revelation 12:12; 20:7-10
12. Visible evidence: Romans 1:20
13. Creation cursed: Genesis 3:17-19; Isaiah 24:4-6
14. Physical death: Genesis 3:19; Psalms 102:25-26; 104:27-30; Hebrews 9:27
15. New bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:42-54
16. New creation: Revelation 21:1-5; 22:1-5
17. Not without hope: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
18. The fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23
19. Indwelt by the Spirit: Romans 8:9
20. Ongoing battle with sin: Romans 7:15-20
21. Spirit’s guarantee: Ephesians 1:13-14; Philippians 1:6
22. Promised adoption: Romans 8:14-17
23. Adam’s family: Romans 5:12-21
24. Living in glory: Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2
25. God’s truthfulness: Titus 1:2
26. Good works: Romans 12:1; Ephesians 2:10
27. Holy Spirit’s work: Romans 8:1-17
28. Holy Spirit teaches: Luke 12:11-12
29. Holy Spirit’s power: Acts 1:8
30. Unity in the Spirit: Ephesians 4:3-4
31. Holy Spirit’s help: 1 Corinthians 2:12
32. Spirit’s sword: Ephesians 6:17
33. Spirit lives within: John 14:16-17, 25-26
34. Spirit intercedes: Philippians 2:13
35. Jesus intercedes: Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25
36. God gave His only Son: John 3:16
37. Our tears: Psalm 56:8; Revelation 21:4
38. Pray continually: 1 Thessalonians 5:17
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