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The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery entry on "enemy" points out that "groaning" in the Psalms is "frequently focused on the enemy, such as the anguished rhetorical lament, 'How long will my enemy triumph over me?'" The article points out that Paul adopts this same groaning lament in Rom 7:24, but the same idea lies behind Paul's description of the creation and the believer in Rom 8:18-25. Creation "groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now" and through the Spirit "we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of the body." Redemption has to do with liberation, and liberation always implies enemies. What the Spirit enables us to do, then, is to groan and lament for God to triumph over our enemies. In context, the enemy is primarily death, but given what Paul says later in Rom 8, I suspect that the groaning is also to do with persecution and tribulation, and that the groaning is a cry for deliverance from specific, and probably human, enemies.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, May 01, 2004 at 11:34 AM
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