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Highest and lowest are bound in one in Christ. God is One, and that oneness He impressed on His creation. Before the angels' fall all things in heaven were one. Before man's fall things on earth were one; one, by reflecting His image who is One, by fulfilling His will. And when disunion was brought in, God willed to knit all things again in one in His Son. Our text applies.

I. TO THE INFERIOR CREATION.

1. The very lowest have in some way suffered by man's fall, and they, too, shall in his restoration gain in glory. Mysterious power of sin, that it should so defile the very creation which itself partakes not of it! Mysterious efficacy of our Lord's atonement, that all things which shut not out God shall partake of the glory which He hath purchased!

2. "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity." Nothing comes to any perfection; nothing continues at one stay; things subsist but by renewal and decay: all things by change foretell their own destruction (Ecclesiastes 1:5-8).

3. But more! It was all formed "very good," to its Maker's praise; and now, through which hath not He been dishonoured? If beautiful, man loves and admires it, without or more than God, or worships it instead of Him. If any brings outward evil, man, on occasion of it, murmurs against its Maker. "Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked." "She did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal." What even now is not, even by Christians, offered to some Baal of pride, or luxury, or "covetousness, which is idolatry"? Of what sins are the daily supplies of our daily food, the occasion! "Whose god is their belly." In unthankfulness or luxury, or daintiness, or hardness of heart, if we have much; if little, through sin in procuring it. All "good things of this life" serve to pride when men have them, to covetousness if they have them not. And therefore, as God elsewhere saith that the whole earth is oppressed and loatheth and" vomiteth forth her inhabitants, through whom she is defiled," so now that regenerate man panteth after his heavenly home, "all creation groaneth and travaileth together" with him, that having, with him and for his sake, been "made subject to vanity" and corruption, it may, with him, be made partaker of incorruption and of glory.

4. Things animate and inanimate, as being the works of God, bear in themselves some likeness to their Maker and traces of His hands. Things seen speak of things unseen. And yet all around us and in us bear also sad tokens of the fall. As then to us death is to be the gate of immortality and glory, so in some way to them. Whence Holy Scripture says, "the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner." We are to die "in like manner" with the earth. As then we, so many as are in Christ, perish not utterly, but put off only corruption, to be, by a new and immortal birth, clothed with incorruption, so also they. Again, as Holy Scripture says of us, "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed," so in their measure of them; "as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed." The fire which burns up heaven and earth shall but free them from the wrongs which they endure at our-hands, the bondage in which they have been held to corruption and vanity, and cleansing them from the stains of our sins, shall yield them pure, "a new heaven and a new earth," so that as our dwelling-place has as yet been marred by our sin, then Should the love of God for us overflow upon it, and the glory of His presence, which shall be our joy, shall array it too with a glad brightness, in harmonious sympathy with our joy (Psalm 96:12, 13; Isaiah 44:23).

II. THE HOLY ANGELS. Not as though they can be thought to have pain and grief! Yet, as God is said to "grieve and repent of the evil," when He doeth that which we should do out of our imperfect feelings, much more may the holy angels be said to groan and travail in birth-pain together with us, while they long for our immortal birth, which is yet delayed by our sins. "They," says a Father, "who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, must in a manner mourn over the sorrows of so many sinners."

III. OUR NATURE. For in some sense all are "made subject to vanity, not willingly." Willingly man sinned, against his will he is punished. Willingly he binds himself with the cords of his sins; unwillingly often does he remain in them, galled by the bondage which he cannot break, or, with a maimed will, wishing that he could in earnest will. And so the heathen world yearns at times to be freed, and even, by its mute wretchedness, utters a speechless groan that it is an outcast from its God. And think you not that here, at your very doors, in the heart-sickening desolation of this wilderness of souls, there are those sick at heart at their estrangement from their God, and will ye be deaf to the common cry? Will ye by petty ineffectual efforts and cold prayers or heartless apathy, still, year by year, delay the time of their redemption?

IV. THE SAINTS.

1. More do God's faithful ones mourn than all things around, because that for which they mourn, their remaining imperfect state, the strife of flesh and spirit, is their own. They mourn more because they know in some degree the blessedness for which they pant, God, for whom they long. Angels know, in part at least, the bliss reserved for us; yet they know not the weariness of our strife. Some who know the misery of strife and defeat, know not the object of their longing, who "have the first-fruits of the Spirit."

2. Weary indeed were an eternity of such a life as this! Imagine the fulness of all outward things, "the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," all delights, all knowledge, all power, all honour, all possessed for ever. What weariness were it all, with our imperfections; what a void, without the face of God! All things by turn fatigue, as if to teach us that none of all is our rest. The more we would find rest in any, the more they weary. What so wearisome as continual amusement, or lengthened rest, or too long refreshment. Less painful are watchings and lastings, though these, if too lengthened, would wear out the frame. Yet, in itself, what vanity is this very variety with which God has tempered our weariness. To fill the body, lest it fail; to make it hunger, unless it be oppressed with food; to rest it, lest it be exhausted by labour; to labour, lest it be weary through repose; to sleep, lest it be worn with watching; to wake, lest it be listless through rest: what were life so lengthened out but a long disease?

3. But much more weary, even if victorious, our strife, sweetened though it be by hope. What to have that within still rising though still subdued, at variance with the perfect law of God! This, then, is chiefly the groaning whereof St. Paul speaks. The taste of heavenly things kindles but the more burning thirst. If such be the first-fruits, what the whole? If such it be, to "have tasted the good word of life, and the powers of the world to come!" what must it be to be for ever blessed through the bliss of God! And then what "bondage of corruption " again to sink down to earth! What weariness to those who love, to be absent from Him they love; to dwell in banishment by the streams of Babylon, while they remember the heavenly Jerusalem. Conclusion. How is it then that we have so little of these heavenly longings? Why have we so little of the apostle's desire to be loosed from his bonds, to be dissolved and be with Christ? Weary we all must be, sooner or later, of this world's vanities. How can we exchange mere weariness of the world for hopes of future rest in God? First, unlearn the love of self and of the world; secondly, contemplate God, His loving-kindness and His promised rewards. The eye of the soul must be made clean, else it cannot "see God." We cannot long for things unseen while we are so taken up with things of time and sense. We cannot love God while we love the world.

(E. B. Pusey, D.D.).

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KJV: For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

WEB: For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.