Was made subject to vanity.--"Vanity" = "emptiness" or "nothingness." Creation is fulfilling an unworthy instead of a worthy and noble end. (Comp. Genesis 3:17-18.) It was made subject to this "not willingly," i.e., by its own act or with its own concurrence, but "by reason of Him who hath subjected the same," i.e., in pursuance of the sovereign purpose and counsel of God. The one thing which takes out the sting from this impoverished and degraded condition is Hope.

It is needless to say that this is not Darwinism, but it is easily reconcilable with evolution. Indeed, such a theory seems to give it additional force and emphasis. It helps to bring out both the present "vanity" and hope for the future, and to show both as parts of one "increasing purpose" widening through the ages. "Allowing for irregularities and fluctuations, on the whole, higher and higher forms of life have appeared. There has been unquestionably an enormous advance between the times of the Eozoon Canadense and our own. And, further, we have to notice that a new kind of progress, of far greater intrinsic importance than mere physical improvement, has of late appeared. I mean intellectual and moral progress, as it is seen in man. . . . And this progress, I would say, is most important in our argument as to the character of God, for it is full of promise of far better things than this sad world has ever seen. It points most decidedly to a supremacy of the power for good, and a great hope of final happiness for our race." (Rev. S. T. Gibson, Religion and Science, p. 34.)

"Nequaquam nobis divinius esse paratam
Naturam rerum, tanta star praedita culpa" Why the "creature" was thus "subjected" is not here explained. No solution of the old insoluble problem of τοθὲν τὸ κακὸν is given. All that is, or could be, said is that it was διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα, meaning God. It was his will that it should be so; this is all we know; except that we find the beginning of evil, so far as it affects man, attributed in Scripture to human sin. But he so subjected his creation in hope. This expression may refer to the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, or to the never-dying hope in the human heart; to either or to both. The latter idea is expressed in the myth of Pandora's box. Further, the creature is said to have been so subjected "not willingly" (οὐχ ἑκοῦσα). No sentient beings acquiesce in suffering; they resent evil, and would fain flee from it. Man especially unwillingly submits to his present bondage. When in ver. 21 the hope is expressed of the creature (or creation) itself being eventually freed from the present bondage of corruption, it may be that the human part of creation only is in the writer's eye; but it may be also (there being still no expressed limitation of the word κτίσις) that he conceives a final emancipation of the whole creation from evil (cf. Ephesians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 15:23-27; 2 Peter 3:13). But if so, it is not said that the peculiar glory of the sons of God will extend to all creation, but only that all will be freed into the freedom of their glory; which may mean that the day of the revelation of the sons of God in glory will bring with it a general emancipation of all creation from its present bondage. Such a great final hope finds expression in the verse -

"That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off Divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."

(In Memoriam.') The present condition of things is in ver. 20 denoted by ματαιότης, and in ver. 21 by τῆς δουλειάς τῆς φθορᾶς. The first of these words is the equivalent in the LXX. of the Hebrew XXX, which means properly "breath," or "vapour," and is used metaphorically for anything frail, fruitless, evanescent, vain. It is often applied to idols, and it is the word in Ecclesiastes where it is said that "all is vanity" (cf. also Psalm 39:5, 6). It seems here to denote the frailty, incompleteness, transitoriness, to which all things are now subject. "Ματαιότης sonat frustatio, quod creatura interim non assequatur quod utcunque contendit efficere" (Erasmus). Φθορᾶς intimates corruption and decay.

Parallel Commentaries ...