PaladinValer:
"Why don't you read it in context first? It has nothing to do with Creation but it has to do with the End."
I do read this in context - your comment I find ironic coming from your evolutionary point of view, but at any rate. A little hypocritical? But at any rate...
Here in this passage what Paul is stating that sin will never have the last word and that along with God's people, the Earth will be redeemed by the Creator.
Now, hence the question I asked. This whole passage describes that there is something wrong with the world today for God to restore it... So, if death and suffering have always been here since the beginning, then what effect - if anything - did Adam's Fall have on the whole creation? Why is this creation being subjected to frustration and why is it in a bondage to decay (Romans 8:20-21)?
For example, I have the
New International Version Disciple's Study Bible and in several commentaries on this passage we read:
Romans 8:18-25. CREATION, New Creation - Sin will never have the last word. God made the Earth as a habitation for His people. The presence of sin brought on decay and frustration of purposes (Genesis 3:17-19). Along with His people, the Earth will be redeemed by the Creator.
Redeemed to what? Back to how it was in the beginning - this is known as the "restoration of all things," which also denies evolution.
Romans 8:18-23. LAST THINGS, Creation's Redemption - God's eschatological salvation will include the whole created order. Just as the created order was affected by the advent of human sin, so it will be by future human redemption. A cosmic liberation from decay awaits the final, full redemption of the children of God. The redemption of nature is to be associated with that of believers' bodies. Three statements underlie the eager expectation of creation: because of human sin, God subjected the created order to frustration (Genesis 3:17-19); the created order is presently in bondage to decay; and it has been and yet continues to groan with birth pains. The analogy of travail suggests the coming to be of something new. Creation is not what it should be due to human sin. It cannot serve its true function of glorifying God. It decays and thus goes nowhere. It is temporary rather than eternal. It suffers pain rather than being the arena of peace. It can look forward to a new glory when God creates a new Earth.
Romans 8:20. EVIL AND SUFFERING, Natural Origin - The created world order, the environment of human life, is not perfect as it was created (Genesis 1). It is a frustrated order cursed because of human sin (Genesis 3). God's ultimate salvation includes ope for the created order. What we refer to as natural evil will one day vanish. Storms and catastrophes will no longer threaten us. Pain and laborious work seeking to make the Earth fertile will cease. The enmity between the human and animal world will vanish.
Hopefully now, you should be able to see that the whole hope for the future is based on the fact that this world is not what it is meant to be.
My assertion is that this denies evolutionary theory - why? Because this passage strongly implies that man's sin
caused the creation to be "subjected to frustration" and to be in "bondage to decay" as well as "groaning as in the pains of child-birth." If such things like enmity between the human and animal world has always been here, and death and suffering have been here right from the beginning millions of years before Adam's sin, then one must question what sin did to the world if it was already like this. The situation is even worse for those who reject Adam and Eve altogether.
You see, as a result of both positions, God - not man - is to blame for the creation being the way that it is, which incidently a fall out would be that there is nothing wrong with the Earth and thus there is no need for restortation to take place.
I thought it was a very basic question that everyone could answer considering all major commentaries come to the same conclusion as well. To be "brutally" blunt: I question you people on this sub-forum and just how open-minded you are and whether any real discussion can occur here. It appears to me that your religious faith in evolution has blinded your judgment.
It is clear now that further discussion with you people is pointless.