This is not the gospel of the New Testament, however. Scripture gives us no liberty to assert that all human suffering leads to glory. True, Jesus referred to wars, earthquakes and famines as ‘the beginning of birth pains’ heralding the emergence of the new world, and Paul similarly likened nature’s frustration, bondage to decay and groans to ‘the pains of childbirth’.27 But these are references to the promise of cosmic renewal for both society and nature; they are not applied in the Bible to the salvation of individuals or peoples.
