Humanity was made by God to be his images in his creation. That makes a difference in our understanding of who we are and what we do. It forms our souls, our significance, and our lifestyles. Actually, it re-forms us. But it is not just we ourselves that is impacted.
Romans 8:16-23 reveals an astonishing effect of humans being the image of God:
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creations itself also will be set free from it slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Remember that Genesis 1:2 says that the newly created earth was “formless.” Then the Spirit of God, hovering over it, began putting things in order, putting things right. When he made the two humans, the Creator called them to join him in continuing the orderly operation of creation. The Lord was telling those two images of him, “You have the responsibility and authority to run my world the way I would.” God made humans his offspring, living images to join him in finishing his creation, to carry out God’s will, plans, and purposes for the earth.
Genesis 3 reveals that the first humans fell for the serpent’s scam, became convinced it would be better to act on their own instead of under God’s authority. They disobeyed. When they did, something drastically changed. Suddenly they weren’t what they were before, weren’t what they were supposed to be. They weren’t like God anymore. They, and all the rest of us who have followed, are broken. We are “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Through Jesus the Messiah we are raised and restored.
But it’s not just humans who were broken by rebellion. All of creation was drastically changed – “subjected to futility” and enslaved to “corruption.” Genesis 1 repeatedly declares that what God made was “good.” Not any more. Nature is not in the condition that God intended. Humans in the image of God were given authority and responsibility to rule nature as loving caretakers so it would become the world (perhaps the entire universe) God designed it to be. The progress of creation has been stunted and debased by the failure of creation’s caretaker – humanity – to rule over it as the Creator’s representatives. In fact, Romans 1:23 tells us that humans “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” Commenting on this verse, Brendan Byrne says, “Idolatry represents the summit of “futility” (v 21) in that it has human beings submitting themselves in worship to the creatures over which they were meant to rule. This perverts the whole raison‐d’être of the non-human created world, subjecting it to “futility” (8:20)” (2007, Romans, Liturgical Press, page 68). The very reason for nature to exist was warped, and it became deformed instead of merely unformed. This explains, at the very least, the “red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson) attribute of creation – why diseases and disasters and deterioration exist in the physical world.
Ah, but there is hope. God’s promise (Genesis 3:15) to defeat the serpent included the partnership of humans – “her (the human woman) offspring will crush your head.” Her descendant will conquer the enemy. Humanity still has that mission to subdue and rule. In some way, the restoration of creation is tied to humans in Christ being raised and restored into who we are intended to be – “children of God” and “fellow-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). Creation will be set free from corruption.
This freedom will happen at the “revealing of the sons of God” (verse 19). This is in line with those in Christ being the images of God. God made humans his offspring – his sons and daughters – living images to join him in finishing his creation. In Romans 8:29, Paul says that God predestined his people “to become conformed to the image of his Son.” Creation will be freed from its corruption when it becomes known that people are God’s children who are representing him. The English word “revealing” is the translation of the Greek word “apocalypsin.” Apocalypse. The apocalypse is going to happen but it will not mean the end of the world as it’s depicted in current pop-culture literature and entertainment. The apocalypse will mean the liberation of the world from its corrupt futility.
This revealing is more than mere knowledge of people having the identity of God’s images. It’s humanity actually being restored to the place of ruling caretaker of creation with Jesus the New Adam (1 Corinthians 15:20-25, 45; Romans 5:12-15 and 8:17) leading the way. This is our glorification (Romans 8:17, 21, 30). Humans will take up God’s original mission to run the world in a way that it will become what it was intended to be from the beginning – the garden, the place, the temple, where heaven and earth meet encompassing all of creation.
I don’t know if C. S. Lewis had this in mind when he wrote “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” but that story pictures what Paul is telling us here in Romans 8. Four children in England – Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy – accidentally get into the land of Narnia. Narnia, enslaved to the White Witch, is in a miserable condition – “always winter and never Christmas.” They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver who quote an old Narnian rhyme:
When Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone
Sits at Caravel in throne,
The evil time will be over and done.
They explain the prophecy. “Down at Cair Paravel – that’s the castle on the sea coast… – down at Cair Paravel there are four thrones and it’s a saying in Narnia time out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit in those four thrones, then it will be the end not only of the White Witch’s reign but of her life…”
After many lessons and adventures and battles, led by the great lion Aslan (Christ in Narnia), the White Witch is defeated. Then, “in the Great Hall of Cair Paravel…, Aslan solemnly crowned them and led them to the four thrones amid deafening shouts of ‘Long live King Peter! Long live Queen Susan! Long live King Edmund! Long live Queen Lucy!’… 
And that night there was a great feast in Cair Paravel, and revelry and dancing, and gold flashed and wine flowed… These two Kings and two Queens governed Narnia well, and long and happy was their reign. At first much of their time was spent seeking out the remnants of the White Witch’s army and destroying them, and indeed for a long time there would be news of evil things lurking in the wilder parts of the forest… But in the end all that foul brood was stamped out. And they made good laws and kept the peace and saved good trees from being unnecessarily cut down, and liberated young dwarfs and young satyrs from being sent to school, and generally stopped busybodies and interferers and encouraged ordinary people who wanted to live and let live. And they drove back the fierce giants… So they lived in great joy…” (HarperCollins e-books)
When God’s children are renewed and restored to the place of ruling as God’s images, all of creation will be free and rejoice. The prophecy in Isaiah 11:6-9 will happen:
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Also the cow and the bear will graze,
Their young will lie down together,
And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
This will reach its fulfillment when Jesus returns and finishes off the enemy’s remnant army. More on that in a bit. But we don’t wait until then to begin our mission. Right now we are God’s children and fellow-heirs with Christ. Right now we are called to engage in the restoration of creation. By creation I don’t mean just “nature” but all that is in the world, how the world operates. Here in Romans 8, Paul gives us two actions to take.
The first is prayer in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Verses 26-27:
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
A vital part of our mission on creation’s behalf is prayer. Not cheerily reciting “Dear Jesus, bless the butterflies and dolphins and trees and me!” No, the praying Paul described is an expression of our suffering with Christ so we may be glorified with him (Romans 8:17). The world is a broken mess and we take on some of that mess with prayer in partnership with the Spirit who is taking on that mess himself. It is said that prayer is the key for accomplishing anything in the Kingdom. But “we do not know how to pray.” We can’t pray good enough to do God’s will. We are not “competent in ourselves” (1 Corinthians 3:5). We can’t depend on our giftedness to pray. We must start with weakness, incompetence, ignorance, neediness, emptiness, poverty in spirit. We pray, yes, but with humility, surrender, dependence, faith, and trust in the Spirit of God. He intercedes for us. He makes the way for us to see the brokenness of creation the way he does and bring God’s healing into the corruption through prayer.
N. T. Wright calls this kind of praying “lament,” which is found throughout the Bible. He writes:
“What, after all, is the church for? What are its ministers for? Well, many things – living the gospel, proclaiming the crucified and risen Jesus as Lord of the world. But to live and announce that message in and to the world, with the world in its current state, means engaging with the world’s reality, its turmoil, its trouble, its tears. And we can’t simply say, ‘Well, that’s all right, because Jesus is the answer.’ Nor can we say, ‘Well, of course the world’s a mess, because it doesn’t know Jesus; but we’re all right, heading for salvation somewhere else; we don’t really belong here, we’re just passing through.’ Nor may we say, as some wanted to say when the COVID pandemic struck, ‘It’s someone else’s fault for being so wicked; God is punishing those people for the sins we’ve always known they were committing.’ No: part of our primary calling as followers of Jesus is to lament: to stand in the place of pain in humility, sorrow and hope. That’s what the children of Israel did in Egypt. It’s what the Judaeans did for four hundred years before the Messiah came. It’s what we are called to do as we stand in prayer at the heart of a world in pain.” (Into The Heart of Romans, Zondervan Academic, p. 141)
The second action as creation caretakers in Romans 8 is found in verse 28.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
The language of this statement is complicated. We have accepted translations like this one (New American Standard). I’m not a Greek scholar so I’m not going to get into the grammatical technicalities. There is one word that I think changes the commonly accepted meaning. The Revised Standard Version shows this:
We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.
See the key difference. NAS: “work together for good to those who love God.” RSV: “works for good with those who love him.” God works to do good to his people or God works to do good with his people? They are different meanings.
The Greek word that NAS translates “work together” and RSV “works” is “sunergei.” We get the word “synergy” from it. It refers to two or more agents (like people or companies) working together, combining their efforts, to accomplish an effect. The Greek word is found four other times in the New Testament. James 2:22 is about Abraham’s faith working with his works. 1 Corinthians 3:9 is the noun form calling Christians God’s fellow-workers. 2 Corinthians 6: 1 speaks of Paul working together with God. Mark 16:20 tells about the disciples preaching the gospel everywhere “while the Lord worked with them.”
So I believe that it is correct to interpret Romans 8:28 to be saying that God works in partnership with his children to bring about good according to his purpose.
As Henry Blackaby taught in the “Experiencing God” discipleship curriculum: God is at work and he invites you to join him. God is not leaving the world alone to decay away and merely planning to take his people out of it. He is working in his creation toward its liberation. As his images we are called to work with him; we are his fellow-workers. We are the world’s caretakers under the authority of Christ. This is not just about “nature” but also how the entire world operates. This is our vocation, our calling, our mission. In faith and surrender and obedience to God, we help bring about creation’s freedom and restoration, beginning with prayer and following the Lord’s directions for doing the work for which he equips us and assigns us. (Please remember that we do this God’s way not the world’s ways of military or political or economic force.)
Creation waits eagerly for the children of God to once again be its caretakers and liberate it from its futility and corruption.
As I said previously, this will reach its fulfillment when Jesus returns. The last book in the New Testament, Revelation (The Apocalypse), gives us a glimpse of the ultimate restoration, in chapters 21 and 22. Remembering that Revelation is written with much symbolism and metaphor, we must be careful how we understand and apply its message. Chapter 22 tells about “a new heaven and a new earth” (verse 1) – a new, restored creation. And “new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (verses 2). The new Jerusalem is “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (verse 9) – the bride of Christ, the church, his followers, his people. This pictures God coming to live in his creation with his people: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them” (verse 3).
Chapter 22 shows a new garden of Eden in the new Jerusalem – a river and the tree of life “for the healing of the nations” (verse 2). Two phrases in this chapter show that we will be the images of God continuing to carry out his purposes for all eternity. Verse 4: “they shall see His face and His name shall be on their foreheads.” Seeing his face recalls 1 John 3:2 – “now we are the children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as he is.” Having his name on their foreheads symbolizes their true identity. They are God’s children, his living images – fully restored to the original design. The process of Colossians 3:10 – You have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator – will be completed.
The second phrase is in verse 3: His bond-servants shall serve Him. You see, we will not be “in heaven” just lounging in mansions, or playing football in the Father’s big yard, or singing around the throne forever and ever. Maybe we’ll do those kinds of things at times, probably so. We will serve him. We will continue to work with God to carry out whatever plans and purposes he has in mind for his new creation. Finally and forever we will fully be true humans, experiencing the glory we were created for: the rulers and caretakers of God’s amazing creation.
Psalm 8:3-9:
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Revelation 5:10:
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.
Revelation 22:5:
And they will reign forever and ever.