Question/insight #13: "We have a query. In reading Romans 8:20 we are trying to figure out how to read it from an inspired perspective. Any insights you might have would be appreciated with respect to the last half: 'but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.' We know God wouldn't subject His creation to futility. Who is the 'him'? Is this perhaps a statement that there is a material seeming creation waiting to be awakened by hope?" (5/11/98)

Response #13:

"In hope" is the beginning of a prepositional clause that continues in Rom 8:21. Unfortunately, the KJV punctuates those verses poorly. The comma should precede "in hope" rather than follow it. This was a case where the KJV translators had the correct Greek text, but they themselves apparently did not understand its meaning. When I read from the KJV, I freely change the punctuation to reflect the originally intended meaning.

The TEV translates these two verses:

[20] For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. {See Gen 3:17-19} Yet there was the hope [21] that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Today's English Version, New York: American Bible Society, 1992)

The NRSV translates these two verses:

[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 bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (New Revised Standard Version, New York: American Bible Society, 1989)

Regarding this passage, the Harper's Bible Commentary (Edited by James Luther Mays, New York: Harper and Row, 1988) writes:

The world's futility and 'decay' (i.e., its vulnerability to the ravages of time), two of its most characteristic marks to Hellenistic thinking, are not the result of anything it has done; there is no 'fall' of creation. Rather, they are part of the created order and fall under God's own 'expectation that the creation itself will be set free' to share in the glorious liberty of God's children (Rom. 8:20-21), so bearing their own testimony to God's transcending future.

This passage may be better understood in light of 1Co 15:22-24,45-58. S&H 566:1 also sheds some significant light on this, as do S&H 288:31-290:2 and S&H 316:3-7.