12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba![a] Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness[b] with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in[c] hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:12-25 NRSV)
If you ever travel to the Holy Land, be prepared to cry. A lot. And to be amazed, marveled, and blessed. It truly is the Bible come to life. Nellie and I were so blessed to have made this journey some years ago with a group of young and seasoned pastors. On the flight over at a certain early hour a group of Jewish men moved to the front part of the aircraft and set up all they needed to to spend time in prayer. It was an animated time of verbal prayer to God. The most pleasant surprise was while in Jerusalem a group of kids with their fathers were on the street near us and at one point a little guy got separated from his dad and he cried out, "Abba!" Wow. There it was, still being spoken as Jesus had shared and as is being shared in this passage by Paul.
Paul opens this passage with a word that sounds like someone finally setting down a heavy load: "So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh" We owe the flesh nothing. After everything the flesh has cost us — the failed promises, the cycles of sin, the mornings after the nights we wish we could take back — we owe it nothing. The debt has been cancelled, not because we cancelled it, but because the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead has taken up residence in us, and you cannot be fully inhabited by that kind of life and remain fully in the grip of the old death.
And then Paul says something that should make every tired, struggling, self-condemning believer sit up a little straighter: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God". Not the perfect. Not the ones who have conquered every weakness. All who are led. The leading itself is the evidence of belonging. If the Spirit is moving in you, prompting you, convicting you, drawing you back when you wander, making the things of God matter to you in ways they didn't before — that movement is the proof. You don't need to have arrived. You need to be following, and the following itself is the Spirit's gift.
The Spirit you have received, Paul says, is not a spirit of slavery leading back into fear — it is a Spirit of adoption, by which we cry out "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). Abba is the intimate Aramaic word for father, the word a child uses when they run in from the yard and reach up for their parent without any hesitation or formality. It is not the language of a servant making a careful request to a master. It is the language of a child who already knows they are wanted, who has no doubt about whether they will be received, who calls out with full confidence that the arms will open. The Spirit teaches us to pray like that. He takes the stiff, formal, distance-keeping prayer of someone who isn't sure they're welcome and transforms it, over time, into the Abba prayer — the prayer that springs from the assurance of belonging rather than the anxiety of trying to earn it.
Then Paul draws out the full inheritance: "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him". Joint heirs with Christ. Whatever belongs to the Son belongs also to those who are in the Son — not as a secondary share, not as a smaller portion given to lesser recipients, but as co-inheritors of the same glory that waits for the King of kings. This is almost too large to hold in a single thought. But Paul immediately places it alongside the suffering that is part of the present age, not to diminish the glory but to put the suffering in proper perspective: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18). The word consider is the same accounting word we encountered in Romans 6 — it's a deliberate, settled reckoning. Paul has done the math. The present suffering doesn't cancel the future glory. It doesn't even come close.
And then the passage opens into one of the most breathtaking visions in all of Paul's letters — the whole of creation, groaning. Not just believers, not just the church, but the mountains and the seas and the soil and the stars, all of it leaning forward with an almost unbearable longing for the day when the children of God are fully revealed and the whole created order is set free from its bondage to decay. Creation has been caught up in the consequences of what happened to humanity, and it will be caught up in the liberation that comes to humanity through Christ. The groaning of creation is not despair — it is the groan of labor, of something being born, of a world in the agonizing and hopeful middle of becoming what it was always meant to be.
We groan too, Paul says, and we should not be embarrassed by that. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit — we have already tasted enough of the coming glory to know what we are waiting for — and that taste makes the waiting harder, not easier, because now we know what we're missing. But the Spirit groans alongside us, interceding for us in ways that go beyond what language can carry, and the God who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit is saying even when we don't have words for what we need.
The whole passage ends with the most quietly confident word in Romans: hope. "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24–25). We are a people of the not-yet-seen. We carry, by the Spirit, the firstfruits of something so large that creation itself cannot contain it. And we wait — not in resignation, not in passive endurance, but in the active, forward-leaning, Spirit-sustained patience of people who know that the one who promised is faithful, and that the glory coming toward us is worth every groan between here and there.
PRAYER: Lord, let Your Spirit cry Abba in us today, reminding us that we are Your children, joint heirs with Christ, waiting in hope for a glory that will make every present suffering look small. This we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Today, speak the word "Abba" aloud in your prayer, and let that single word be the declaration that you belong to God not as a servant uncertain of welcome but as a child who already knows the arms will open.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God and you matter to me! Onward and upward in our mission to win the world for Jesus Christ!
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
