and bar the way to full salvation. The sufferings of the present may indicate the lingering presence of the old age. They certainly do not reflect the hostility of God. What excludes this is the sense of God’s love made palpable in the experience of the Spirit (v 5b). Paul makes a first and rather fleeting allusion here (cf., however, 2:29) to a key aspect of Christian experience that will later (8:1–30) emerge as a central theme. Following upon biblical passages such as Ezekiel 36–37, the apocalyptic