“‘As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth’” (Job 19:25, NASB).

In the beginning, all creation enjoyed the freedom endowed by the Creator to know Him, to enter into fellowship with Him. When Adam disobeyed and ate of the forbidden fruit, all came into bondage to sin and Satan. Death passed to the creatures and to creation alike. Bondage reigned from which the enslaved were unable to free themselves. Hence a redemption was necessary to restore the enslaved to fellowship with the Creator.

In order to reveal what would be provided for those in bondage in the spiritual realm, the Redeemer demonstrated what He would do by what He did to redeem His people from their bondage after four hundred years of enslavement to Egypt. The record of the freedom was revealed in Exodus 12 through the institution of the first Passover, in which Israel was liberated from bondage in Egypt by the sacrifice of an innocent lamb. Those for whom blood had been shed began a pilgrimage which would bring them into the land of promise where they would enjoy the redemption promised them by the Redeemer.

However, though deliverance from bondage to sin and Satan was provided by the Redeemer for individuals, creation has not yet experienced that freedom, for “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly” (Romans 8:19). Since creation has not yet been redeemed, “the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Romans 8:22). While the Redeemer made provision for the deliverance from bondage, the redemption is not complete until it is experienced by creation as well. So creation anticipates the Redeemer’s coming when “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). Then will the redemption provided by the Redeemer be brought to its full completion and the sovereign Creator will be acknowledged as Lord of all.