Anticipation

ANTICIPATION

Rom. 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

There is something inside of all of us longing for the coming kingdom. Paul himself said that all creation is waiting in anticipation for the return of Christ and the glorification of His sons and daughters. The Message Bible says it like this “The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens”. The joyful anticipation is growing and surging inside of His sons and daughters. What we will become and enjoy is beyond our ability to understand or say, the taste we get now is awakening our appetite. If the signs in the heavens are crying out, how about us? Jonathan Edwards often spoke of the coming kingdom; here are some of his thoughts.

“The creature thus earnestly expecting this glorious manifestation and liberty of the children of God, and travailing in pain in order to it, therefore the Scriptures, by a like figure, do very often represent, that when this shall be accomplished, the whole inanimate creation shall greatly rejoice: that “the heavens shall sing, the earth be glad, the mountains break forth into singing, the hills be joyful together, the trees clap their hands, the lower parts of the earth shout, the sea roar and the fullness thereof, and the floods clap their hands”.

The glorious inhabitants of the heavenly world, the saints and angels there, that rejoice when one sinner repents, are earnestly waiting, in an assured and joyful dependence on God’s promises of that conversion of the world, and marriage of the Lamb, which shall be when that glorious day comes; and therefore they are represented as all with one accord rejoicing and praising God with such mighty exultation and triumph, when it is accomplished, in Revelation 19.”
This week we were all treated with the rare spectacle of a solar eclipse. The image is stuck in my mind of the moon covering the sun in a line across the entire continent. Every time I think of the precision in God’s creation I am totally astounded. Stunned silence and waves of joy are my response. I agree with Paul, the joyful anticipation depends as the day draws near.