Verse 22 offers a realistic appraisal of the present creation, as opposed to the bland optimism of imperial propaganda. Paul says ‘we know’. The ‘we’ here can’t simply be ‘all human beings’. All humans are aware of earthquakes, epidemics and war. But only those inhabiting the biblical tradition are likely to understand these as the labour pains of a renewed creation, rather than the chance horrors of a random universe (for Epicureans), the blind power of the world’s inner logos (for Stoics) or the flickering shadows of the insubstantial secondary world (for Platonists). So, paradoxically
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