https://youtu.be/Froi3dhf_pE
In our verse by verse study of Romans last time we started on Rom 8:23; where so far we have "And not alone (the creation), but also ourselves (maturing believers)." In this verse the word for mankind must be understood to refer specifically to maturing believers.
The maturing believer and only the maturing believer is permitted by God's justice to endure undeserved suffering for the purpose of receiving extra blessing from God.
This category of suffering is a real imputation that God's justice permits to occur in the maturing believer's life in the devil's evil world that is targeted at the capacity righteousness that God the Holy Spirit has created from the development of metabolized doctrine in the maturing believer's soul because of positive volition to GASP.
This category of suffering is neither earned nor deserved so it must be distinguished from God's discipline or punitive suffering that also comes from God's justice for discipline.
The suffering is real but it is designed to create greater capacity for great blessing from God that generally takes some form of personal, regional or national catastrophe or disaster.
While maturing believers also suffer from God's discipline for personal sins this suffering is not included in the special category of undeserved suffering for blessing. When undeserved suffering comes to the maturing believer it is not designed to detract from blessing but to add blessing to blessings.
"having the firstfruits of the Spirit" the present active indicative of the verb "echo"(having) is in the static present tense that describes a condition that exists perpetually.
The active voice describes a situation that is true for all believers but this verse but it refers specifically to the suffering of maturing believers as a part of a real imputation from the permissive will of God's justice that permits undeserved suffering to occur in the maturing believer's life.
This is a concessive participle so a better translation would be "though having." Then the accusative singular direct object from "aparche" (firstfruits) in the singular that is used to describe a group of things in one category such as in the fruit of the spirit.
Plus the ablative of source from the noun "pneuma" (spirit), with the article "ho" (of the) making it monadic so it refers specifically to God the Holy Spirit as the source so we have "though having the first fruits of the Spirit."
The ablative of source refers to the indwelling and the filling ministries of God the Holy Spirit that is the source of God's power to metabolize doctrine in the soul of the maturing believer.
In other words, the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the function of GASP enables maturity adjustment to God's justice that result in God's blessings being imputed from God's justice that permits undeserved suffering for blessing.
These blessings are a real imputation that is enabled by the two positional judicial imputations that have resulted in the believer's development of the reality of these blessings as capacity righteousness under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in time.
The judicial imputation of all personal sins to Jesus Christ on the cross plus the judicial imputation of God's righteousness to the believer at salvation provides the basis for the real imputation of God's blessing to capacity righteousness from metabolized doctrine from GASP in the maturing believer.
We see here that the two judicial imputations are the predicate for this real imputation. The first judicial imputation involves God's justice imputing all of the personal sins of human history to Jesus Christ on the cross. There is no affinity between our sins and the perfect, impeccably of Jesus Christ as God's perfect Son.
The second judicial imputation is when God's justice imputes God's righteousness to the believer at the moment of faith in Christ. There is no affinity between God's righteousness and the believer who has an old sin nature.
Therefore at salvation the greater in a fortiori blessings from God's justice is accomplished through the two judicial imputations: the imputation of our sins to Jesus Christ on the cross; the imputation of God's righteousness to the sin infused believer at salvation.
Therefore, at spiritual maturity the lesser of a fortiori blessing from God's justice is accomplished through a real imputation to its target of capacity righteousness that was created from the judicial imputation of God's righteousness.
If God's justice provides the greater in the form of the judicial imputation of God's righteousness at salvation it follows a fortiori that God's justice will not withhold the lesser in the form of the real imputation of God's blessing to the maturing believer.
The phrase "firstfruits of the Spirit" imply a second a fortiori of God's blessings because firstfruits refers to the real imputation of God's blessing to the capacity righteousness in the maturing believer.
These blessings are called firstfruits, because they are a down payment of the blessings and rewards that will occur at the judgment seat of Christ in the eternal state.
The blessings and rewards of the eternal state are also a real imputation where God's justice imputes both reward and blessing to it's home or target that is the perfect resurrection body that has no old sin nature.
Therefore the firstfruits from the Spirit are not only the best thing in life in time but they are the only thing in eternity.
The best things in this life glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in time and they are parlayed into eternal rewards and blessings that glorify the Lord Jesus Christ forever.
Therefore since God's justice provides the maturing believer in time the greater (the real imputation of God's blessing to it's home of capacity righteousness developed from imputed righteousness) it follows a fortiori that God's justice will also provide the lesser (the real imputation of rewards and blessings to the perfect resurrection body) at the judgment seat of Christ.
This explains that it is easier for God to bless us in eternity that it is for God to bless us in time,
Consequently, the blessings of maturity are the firstfruits and the down payment of the blessings that will be conveyed in eternity.
These blessings are of the Spirit in the sense that only God the Holy Spirit can cause the grace perception necessary for the metabolization of God's Word in the soul that is necessary for the maturity adjustment to God's justice in time.
One might ask what about the blessings, or apparent blessings, during the interval between salvation and maturity adjustment to God's justice? The answer comes from four principles:
The blessing that occurs between salvation and spiritual maturity is God's logistical grace support.
Logistical grace includes many wonderful spiritual things, such as the provision of a right pastor and the teaching of Bible doctrine under the principle of GASP.
Logistical grace includes many wonderful temporal things such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, loved ones, and friends.
While these things are wonderful and often beyond description they cannot be compared to the blessings that are imputed to the maturing believer at maturity adjustment to God's justice.
The next phrase "even we ourselves groan within ourselves" is from the nominative plural from the intensive pronoun "autos" (ourselves), "even we ourselves."
This is an intensive pronoun that is used in a reflective sense because we have reflexive pronoun as the object of the preposition that comes up immediately after the verb.
The verb is the present active indicative of "stenazo" (groan). The customary present tense describes what normally occurs when the maturing believer is given undeserved suffering.
The active voice: the maturing believer produces the action of the verb because of the undeserved suffering for blessing. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of undeserved suffering in the life of the maturing believer.
Then the prepositional phrase "en" (in) plus the locative plural from the reflexive pronoun "eautou" (ourselves) "within ourselves." Paul describes himself in this groan in 2Cor 12:9-10.
Strength in adversity is a blessing from God to the maturing believer. The groan is the reality of undeserved suffering from that God's justice permits to occur in the maturing believer's life. Suffering hurts, therefore the groan. The groan personalizes the maturing believer's response to the suffering.
But no matter how great or what form or category the suffering may take to the maturing believer it is a blessing from God that is designed for a greater blessing. It is given at a time of prosperity to intensify blessing.
It is given in time of prosperity to demonstrate that God's power is greater than the power of the ruler of this world. It is given in time of prosperity to demonstrate and to guarantee; future blessing in eternity, and it is a down payment on that future reward.
Undeserved suffering can only be a blessing when the believer is on top of the spiritual life. If the maturing believer can take the worst of life, he can obviously take the best of life. The extremes demonstrate the stability and cognitive invincibility of the believer in spiritual maturity.
The worst and the best occur simultaneously in the maturing believer's life. No disaster can trap the maturing believer.
Under the principle of undeserved suffering to the maturing believer neither personal nor national disaster can trap the believer and enslave him to the suffering or the disaster.
Undeserved suffering does not trap the maturing believer instead it frees him to new spheres of blessing and it reveals cognitive invincibility from metabolized doctrine. Phil 4:13;
He is free rather than trapped. Undeserved suffering follows the two general trends of personal catastrophe and disaster or national catastrophe or historical disaster.
Such undeserved suffering cannot trap the believer because the undeserved suffering to the maturing believer is a real imputation from the permissive will of God's justice God to righteousness in the believer's soul.
Therefore undeserved suffering to the maturing believer is neither earned nor deserved it is simply designed by God's justice as an imputed blessing.
Rom 8:23;