He does leave the door wide open at the end, doesn’t he? One has to keep front of mind the fact that this is the Old Testament, under the law, hence the emphasis on works, but the truth does ring out, bleak and beautiful by turns.
Back to the question at hand, following up with the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:19-22 and then I Corinthians 15:36-44 lays it to rest. Creation was subjected to sin and by sin death, by the actions of man, through no fault of any other earthly creature. Those with the breath of life have a spirit just as surely as they have an earthly body and will be freed from their temporary bondage of corruption just as man by faith will be freed.
This is sound Biblical exegesis, albeit quite controversial within certain denominations. It’s been called drivel and confused doctrine. I fail to see how that could be so, given the ample scriptural basis, spanning from Genesis to Revelation as it does. But, some do take quite an offense. I suspect we’ll be able to observe it on this thread before too long.
The whole creation is groaning.
Some narrow interpreters refer this back to the “new creation” that God has made through Jesus Christ in believers. But that would be an odd place for this interpretation to kick in, because it isn’t mentioned anywhere nearby. I read this passage out load in the veterinarian’s office when it was time to put one of my sick cats “to sleep.” It seems way too apt an explanation of what is going on in general in the universe, why it is falling, to justify narrowing it to only the “new creation” even though that is groaning too.
out load => out loud