Groaning
by Glenn Conjurske

“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” (II Cor. 5:1-4).

This passage contains two plain assertions that the present portion of Christians is groaning. “In this we groan.” “This” is “our earthly house of this tabernacle” (vs. 1)—-that is, our body. Verse 6, “whilst we are at home in the body,” makes this clear enough. And Paul repeats the assertion: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” So long as we “are in this tabernacle,” this body of flesh and blood, “we do groan, being burdened.” There is no art or science of man, no promise of God, no gospel of Christ, no faith, and no “faith healer,” that can eliminate this. “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” Paul makes no attempt to prove this. Why should he? He merely asserts it as an obvious and unquestioned fact, proved by the experience of the whole human race.

But who is meant by “we”? Everyone who is “in this tabernacle.” “We that are in this tabernacle do groan.” Groaning belongs to everyone who is “in the body.” This groaning will not end until we are either “unclothed” at death, or “clothed upon” with our house from heaven, at the resurrection. And Paul refers particularly to Christians. “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” (Verse 5). There is thus seen to be no difference in this matter between those who have the Spirit of God, and those who have him not. We all together “do groan, being burdened.” There is no escaping this, and those who deny it must deny the plain Scriptures of God, as well as the manifest experience of the whole human race. Neither is there, or can there be, anything anywhere else in the Bible which any way alters or overturns these plain assertions: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.”

Some however, with little inclination to credit Paul’s repeated assertion, or to allow it to have its true force, have brought forward various promises of God in an attempt to set aside the fact which Paul here affirms. One such promise is that found in Romans 8:11, which says, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” On this verse A. B. Simpson writes, “That is not the resurrection, but the quickening of the Spirit in our present or mortal bodies, as the earnest and first fruits of the full redemption then. Divine Healing is a little embryo of the resurrection, a prophetic thrill of the life of immortality.” In this interpretation Simpson has been followed by a myriad of would-be healers and would-be healed. But the interpretation does no justice to the verse itself, and it stands in direct contradiction to the context.

In the verse itself, Simpson’s interpretation ignores the change in tense. “If the Spirit…dwell in you.” This is present tense—-and indicative, by the way, not subjunctive, as the King James Version would make it to appear. It is “If the Spirit…dwelleth in you,” the statement of a present condition, true in this life, the same as “his Spirit that dwelleth in you” at the end of the same verse. Not so when he says, “he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.” This is future, as in the second half of verse 13 (there is no future tense in the first half, but an infinitive), where we read “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Here we have the same word “if” with the present indicative in the first clause, followed by the future tense in the second clause, exactly in verse 11. The mortifying of the deeds of the body is a present thing. “Ye shall live,” is future, and refers to nothing in this life, but to eternal life. To attempt to refer “ye shall live” to anything in this life would be to turn it into a manifest falsehood, for those who mortify the deeds of the body die as soon as others, and it may be the sooner. “Ye shall live” cannot refer to anything in this life, and neither can “shall quicken” in verse 11.

And observe further, “quicken” does not mean to heal or invigorate or strengthen or anything of the sort, as Simpson’s interpretation must make it mean, but to make alive. The Greek word is a compound of two words, meaning literally “make alive.” Behold how the same word is used elsewhere:

John 5:21. “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them.”

Romans 4:17. “God, who quickeneth the dead.”

I Cor. 15:22. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

I Peter 3:18. “Put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”

The word has nothing to do with communicating health to the ailing, but life to the dead, and except where it refers to spiritual quickening of souls dead in sins, it can refer to nothing but resurrection of dead bodies. And this is obviously what it refers to in Romans 8:11. What the verse says is, “he that raised up Christ from the dead shall ALSO quicken your mortal bodies”—-that is, make them alive. At present they are already alive, and there is no occasion to quicken them. This refers to the future resurrection, and to nothing whatever in this life. If people were not so enamored with their doctrine of healing that they see it everywhere in the Bible, they would never have seen it here.

So much for the verse itself. When we turn to the context, the case becomes plainer still. The reader would do well to open to the passage and keep it before him, though I shall quote each verse in its turn, beginning with verse 17, which says, “And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” The suffering is present; the glorification is future, at the resurrection. The next verse (18) is equally clear: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” The sufferings are present; the glory is future. There is no hint here that we have any right to expect relief from our sufferings here and now, but just the contrary.

Verses 19 through 22 are somewhat obscured in all the early English versions, from Tyndale on, by the use of the word “creature” instead of the better rendering “creation.” The King James Version very happily replaced “every creature” of the earlier versions with “the whole creation” in verse 22. Why they did not do so through the whole passage is a mystery, for the Greek word is the same throughout. Now examine the passage in this light. “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” (Vs. 19). The manifestation of the sons of God has nothing to do with anything in this present life, but with the coming glory which he had just spoken of in the preceding verse. “Manifestation” is “apocalypse” in the Greek, the same word as the title, and the first word, of the book of Revelation. It is the revelation of the sons of God which is here spoken of, the same event which Paul elsewhere describes thus: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3:4). This is the event for which the whole creation earnestly waits. Why?

“For [which means because] the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him [God] who hath subjected the same in hope.” (Vs. 20). When man sinned, God subjected the whole creation to vanity for man’s sake, but he subjected it in hope. It is not always to remain in its present marred condition. The curse will yet be lifted from the earth, as other prophecies besides this one declare, and as the next verse clearly teaches. When Christ appears, and we appear with him in glory, “the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” “Glorious liberty” is a paraphrase, as unnecessary as it is detrimental to the true sense of the verse. This is not the liberty of grace which we now possess, but “the liberty of the glory”—-the glory which shall be revealed in us when the sufferings of this present time are ended (vs. 18), the glory in which we shall appear with Christ when he appears. None of this has anything to do with the present life. We do not have the liberty of the glory now, and shall not have it till we reach the resurrection state.

When we are manifested with Christ in that glory, the whole creation shall then be delivered also from the bondage of corruption. “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Is. 11:4-9). This is that blessed day of glory for which our hearts and our lips sigh in the words which the Saviour taught us, “Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” For all of this the creation itself waits—-“in hope”—-and meanwhile the whole creation groans.

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves GROAN WITHIN OURSELVES, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Vss. 22-23). We—-we Christians—-we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit—-we stand upon exactly the same ground as the rest of the creation. The whole creation groans together until now, and we ourselves groan within ourselves. The whole creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God in glory, and we wait for the body of glory in which we shall be manifested. “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory.” (Phil. 3:20-21, Greek).

Meanwhile, we groan, subject to exactly the same bondage of corruption (physical, not moral) which wrings one vast and continuous groan from the whole creation. “We ourselves” groan. We “which have the firstfruits of the Spirit” groan. The assertion that the Spirit who dwells in us so “quickens” us as to give us health and vigor now, and free us from our groaning now, not only empties the word “quicken” of its real meaning, but also stands directly against everything in the passage.

In fairness to Simpson and his school, it should be stated that he has an explanation of this groaning, but it is a very lame one. He says, “We have enough of this life now to make us groan for its completion.” This is wresting the text from its obvious import, and scarcely calls for any more answer than merely to quote the text: “We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now. And not only they, but OURSELVES ALSO, which have received the firstfruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves.” This makes it perfectly plain that we who have received the firstfruits of the Spirit groan with the same groaning with which the rest of the creation does. Has the lower creation received enough of the resurrection life to make it groan for more? Nothing of the sort. The creation groans, “being burdened”—-and so do we. As for “healing in the atonement,” there is no reason to doubt that. Our deliverance from death, from pain, from sorrow, and from tears, all comes to us through the cross of Christ, the same as our deliverance from hell. Nobody doubts this. The only question is whether we are promised all of this deliverance now in this life, or in the life to come. The passage before us in Romans 8, as well as other scriptures, make it plain enough that it is in the life to come, not in this life, that we receive the promised deliverance. For example, Revelation 21:2-4: “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

And there is yet more in Romans 8. The creation was subjected to the bondage of corruption in hope of a future deliverance, and we also are saved in hope. “For we are saved in hope [same words in the Greek as in verse 20]: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” (Vss. 24-25). The plain teaching of this is that we do not yet see the objects of our hope. We do not yet possess them. The glory, the redemption of our body, the quickening of our mortal body—-for all of this we wait, in hope of a future realization of it. And meanwhile, we groan. Our bodies are not redeemed yet. They are not quickened yet, but are subject to the same curse, the same bondage of corruption, that still burdens the rest of the creation.

We have no more right to expect health and vigor—-freedom from groaning—-here and now, than we have to expect the bees to cease to sting, the mosquitoes to bite, the thistles to grow, the lion to kill, or the abrogation of any other of the fruits of the bondage of corruption to which God has subjected the whole creation. It shall all surely be done, when Christ is revealed, Satan bound, the curse lifted, the kingdom come, and the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven—-when “the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients in glory.” (Is. 24:23). “His ancients” will be revealed with him in their resurrection glory. But all of this belongs to the future, and has nothing to do with the present life.

But someone will object that we have no promise of God for the present removal of any other of the effects of the curse, but for bodily healing we do. I know very well that we do, and I believe in that promise as much as anyone else does. But we neither do nor can have any promise of healing which contradicts this plain fact of Scripture and human experience: “we do groan.”

But a promise of healing we do have. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick”—-save him, not relieve him of every ache and pain and sneeze and sniffle—-“and the Lord shall raise him up”—-from the bed of death or disability. (James 5:15). The language employed limits this promise to disabling or fatal illness, and it has nothing to do with relieving us from the groaning which belongs to the bondage of corruption. The dull hearing, the dimming eyes, the aching joints, the decaying teeth, the stooping shoulders, the weary limbs, the general deterioration of the whole body with age—-there is no promise of God in the Bible and no faith on the earth which will relieve us of this. I have no doubt that prayer and faith may relieve some of us some of the time from some of the effects of aging, and so may diet and exercise. So indeed may a merry heart, which “doeth good like a medicine.” But there is no faith on earth which can “quicken” a man’s mortal body in Simpson’s sense, or deliver it from the bondage of corruption before the resurrection day. Every one whom Christ and his apostles raised from the dead must grow old and die again, and so must every one whom they healed of sickness. With all of his faith, and all of his doctrine on this subject, A. B. Simpson must feel the infirmities of old age like other men. He must wear glasses like other men (though he put it off as long as he could). Like all other men, he must “fall sick of his sickness whereof he died” (II Kings 13:14), though the “Official Authorized Edition” of his biography, published by the Alliance which he founded, refuses to tell us about it, or even to mention the fact that he died. Not the promises of God, not the doctrine of healing, nor yet the faith which healed many others, could deliver A. B. Simpson from the bondage of corruption. There is no escaping this till we see Christ as he is, and are glorified together. Till then, “WE GROAN.”

Glenn Conjurske