For a long, long time before He came to earth the Lord Jesus had looked upon the condition of creation and had heard the cries of God's creatures; He felt their pain and knew their travail. They did not know this, nor were they aware of Him or of the reason why they travailed, and when He came, and left, rejected, the condition continued, and does so to this day. The whole creation (those that have the firstfruits of the Spirit and those who do not) is in pain, travailing night and day, groaning to be delivered. The deliverance is different in each case; in that of the sons of God, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, the deliverance is bound up with the redemption of the body, the adoption timed by God to take place then. In the second case, the creation is set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. When the day of adoption arrives God will manifest His sons by raising them from earth to heaven; the expectation of deliverance for which creation groans and travails lies beyond this. All it will be and what it will mean for the creation we do not know. At present it is subject to vanity because Adam handed the authority over it to satan in the deadly transaction in Eden. Through the vanity of purpose for which he did it, the curse of God came on the whole creation and as a result satan's dominion over it became, and still is, vainglorious. The reason why God did this was to foil satan's purposes and make his victory hollow. Adam had been given dominion over the whole of the creation; God had made all His works with the purpose of putting everything under Adam's lordship, and had put everything under his feet as planned. It seems very likely that, after creating the first Adam, God's intention may have been to bring in the last Adam, though how He would have done this we do not know — perhaps by a miracle something like or analagous to the virgin birth, by which ultimately He had to be conceived and born. All must be speculative at this point, but God had both a reason and a hope for subjecting the creation to Adam, and it is certain that His original intentions were frustrated by Adam's fall, but He stepped in with the declaration to satan that the woman's seed should bruise his head. That curse, spoken in the presence of Adam and Eve, though ominous to the serpent, became to them a promise which generated hope in their hearts. Although, by reason of sin, they and all that was subject to them became subject to satan because of Adam's abdication from office, God's determination to redeem the situation and restore everything to conformity to His original purpose remained unchanged — the second man was to be the redeemer, and all God's hopes were fixed on Him; eventually so were the hopes of every pious man and woman on the face of the earth. Meanwhile sin and death passed to all men, and corruption upon all creation. Somewhere buried deep down in the unconscious realms of being, there lurk unknown, un-nameable powers, shadows of former glories, hopes not recognized as hopes, disappointments, frustrations, desires not known as such, pains, groans, travail for things not known, all of them comprehended and interpreted by God as longings for deliverance from the bondage of corruption, and as a cry for the manifestation of the sons of God. There is a mysterious link between those who are the new creatures of God and the creation. We who consciously recognize our hope wait for the redemption of our bodies according to the Spirit of adoption, who came into our hearts at birth crying to Father for that reason. Those who do not recognize it are waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, though they do not know that even, and cannot be told it. So it is that a great universal groan ascends to God, and the pain of His creation is in His ears continually as this old earth travails its way through to the regeneration and the restoration of all things spoken of by the prophets. The Lord God made this creation that it should be the place where the sons of God should be manifested. We do not know all the reasons why God made the earth, but we do know that it was not made for the manifestation of the sons of satan. The great delay in God's plan to manifest His sons is for purposes of His own, but, until that day dawns, God has provided that His sons should, in some measure, hopefully in large measure, be in glorious liberty from the bondage of corruption with which the whole creation is held as by law. To be born or to be planted anywhere as anyone or anything in this whole creation is to be subject at least to the bondage of corruption, or at worst to the law of sin and death, plus the bondage of corruption, which latter came into the creation through sin, and because of death. To some degree everything and everybody in creation is affected by this; everything physical or material is subject to it, including the sons of God, that is, they who are born of the Spirit of God having physical bodies. All flesh is affected by sin (whether that flesh is human, animal, fish, fowl, vermin or reptile) but not all flesh is infected by sin, for not all animate things are moral intelligences. Those which are not, being amoral, and thus not infected by sin, could not be classified as 'sinners'. Nevertheless all these are affected by it and its results, and are subject to the bondage of corruption which passed upon all things as a logical consequence of Adam's sin. The whole creation, having been placed under the curse, is fallen into this and is subject to it. They did not will to sin, neither did they desire it, there is therefore no condemnation upon them or their activities, but, death having passed upon them, corruption is bound to happen to them. Throughout the centuries since Adam despised and left his sonship, these creatures have awaited the manifestation of the sons of God. They had no choice in their abasement, but if they had the ability to choose at present, these would prefer above all to be ruled over by God's sons and, though in ignorance still, groan for their manifestation and all the blessings that it will bring to them. How wonderful it will be for them when the curse is lifted and the bondage of corruption shall be broken and death itself shall be banished and never-ending life be brought in. But what of those who are presently the sons of God on earth? Is it possible to distinguish them here and now? Is it plainly manifest now who these persons are, and that they truly are the sons of God, and if so, by what means? These are important questions, needing plain answers. Many things, all of them true and good, could be advanced as being answers or part answers to these questions, but we will not concern ourselves with these, (sound though they may be theologically, doctrinally and evangelically). Instead we will look for the answer which alone might be acceptable to an inquiring universe, if its multitude of voices could only ask us in language we could understand. Although they cannot do that, the substance of the matter over which they are concerned, and which would almost certainly be posed as a question if it were possible, is written down for everyone to read — corruption. Seeing that all want to be free from the bondage of corruption the question would undoubtedly be, 'is anyone in this universe free from the bondage of corruption?' That is the ultimate test, and to pass it successfully would satisfy every inquiry that could be made from any quarter. To declare justification by faith in the ears or before the eyes or in the presence of things that have no moral faculties and no intelligence is of no use whatsoever; likewise to speak of sanctification or regeneration or the witness of the Spirit would be as fruitless; but to demonstrate liberty from the yoke of bondage would be most convincing. Indeed, if this could be manifested to everyone's and everything's satisfaction, it would be proof to them that all the other things had been achieved for them in this world — the only valid proof. When the bondage of corruption has been broken in a man, and its spread has been stopped in him, he can testify that he is a son of God and expect his testimony to be accepted. When he has been set free from sin and is no longer under its dominion, and sin's deceitful workings have come to an end in him, he is no longer under the bondage of corruption, nor subject to old Adam or his master the devil. That would be about the only proof this groaning, travailing creation would accept; all creatures would accept that as the final answer; it is as far beyond doubt as is possible to be, for corruption is the one thing that all other intelligent beings share in common with humankind. The state of freedom from sin in a man is not beyond challenge by any other man, but it is not beyond manifestation for all to see and hear and taste and feel and know; and to all who know God it is very wonderful. Freedom from sin and death and corruption is a glorious liberty. But glorious liberty that it is, it is not of equal power or effect in every realm of a man's being. In himself as a whole, that is in spirit, soul and 'moral body', a man can be free from sin and death and corruption, but in his mortal body he cannot be free from the presence and process of death and corruption all the time he is in this world. Every part, realm or member of the new spiritual being a man becomes by new birth is likened in scripture to its physical counterpart, but should not be thought of too rigidly as only being that. Mind is a member and may be thought of as a part of the inward spiritous or spiritual man (as the case may be) but must not be mistaken for the brain, which is a part of the physical man. Mind operates with spirit in being in a human body to develop soul or personality, having as many members as the body itself, each of them capable of behaving in similar manner spiritually as the bodily counterpart does physically, but without its limitations. This is why the spiritual and mental sins of the human soul are so much more terrible and infinitely worse than anything a man may do in his mortal body.