"'And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies' (Rm 8:23). Paul means that we have a taste of the things to come. For even if someone should be as hard as rock, what has been given already is enough to raise him up, and draw him away from things present, and to wing him after things to come in two ways. Both by the greatness of the things that are given, and by the fact that, great and numerous as they are, they are but firstfruits. For if the firstfruits are so great that we are thereby freed even from our sins, and attain to righteousness and sanctification, and that those of that time both drove out demons, and raised the dead by their shadow (Acts 5:15), or garments (Acts 19:12), consider how great the whole must be. If the creation, devoid as it is of mind and reason, and though in ignorance of these things, still groans, how much more should we.

"That he may give the heretics no handle, or seem to be disparaging our present world, we groan, he says, not as finding fault with present things, but through a desire of those greater things. Paul shows this in the words, 'Wait eagerly for adoption.' Paul insisted on it at every turn, and cried aloud, that we were already made sons. Now he places this good thing among hopes, writing that we must wait for it? Now it is to set this right by what follows when he says, 'the redemption of our bodies.' That is, the perfect glory. Presently, our lot is indeed uncertainty until our last breath, since many of us who were sons have become dogs and prisoners [of sin]. But if we die with a good hope, then the gift is unmovable, clearer, greater, and has nothing to fear from death and sin. Then therefore will the grace be secure, when our body shall be freed from death and its countless ailments. For this is full redemption, not a merely a partial redemption, but one from which we could never again return to our former captivity. That you might not be perplexed at hearing so much of glory without getting any distinct knowledge of it, he partially exposes to your view the things to come, setting before you the changing of your body, and along with it the change of the whole creation. And this Paul has put in a clearer light in another passage, where he says, 'Who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself' (Phil 3:21).  And in another place again he writes and says, 'When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory"' (1Co 15:54)."