Subscribe: https://youtube.com/StJohnDC?sub_confirmation=1
The Pastoral Epistles of Saint Paul
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), part 8, Romans chapters 8:18-8:39
November 9, 2021

Topics include: 
(1) The rational creation is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God, longing to transcend the life of futility that came about due to the Fall, the restoration of a radiant creation that Adam and Eve originally had the eyes to see (His grace, glory and presence), a bringing to potential of Adam and Eve, a restoration the fallen creation subject to death. This transformation began at the revelation of the Son of God and will ultimately be fulfilled on the Last Day at the Resurrection. The making of all things new at the Second coming: elements of identity and discontinuity. The goal of salvation is the redemption of our bodies and the whole creation made new; 

(2) The Holy Spirit praying in us is the core of what prayer is: a communion with the Father in Christ by the Holy Spirit. We don't even understand our own situation in life ... we need the Holy Spirit to pray for us; 

(3) Foreknowledge and predestination, and the Greek Fathers vs. Augustine. The West was profoundly Augustinian from the 6th century onwards. Very few people in the West could then read or write Greek. The Greek fathers absolutely upheld free-will and God working with those He foreknew, whereas Augustine overemphasized predestination and the West ran with it. The Protestant Reformation was a purification of some of Augustine's most idiosyncratic teachings (on double predestination, on original sin, and his Trinitarian errors);

(4) Discussion of Gender cf. the modern confusion;

(5) Pain vs. suffering vs. trauma/despair, an extensive discussion: Pain is a natural part of life saying something is wrong; Suffering is to undergo pain and death; trauma/despair is psychological torment associated with self-pity. Christ endured suffering without trauma. He remained in hope and in communion with God the Father to the point of death. We can use pain and suffering to grow from ... to overcome our egos. God allows suffering to wake us up and bring us to repentance ... to make us realize how we are destroying ourselves and to bring us to our senses; The cult that has grown up around trauma in the West ... the bloodied Christ ... "the more brutal, the more redemptive". Not in the East. The Martyrs were brutalized in pain, but did not experience trauma ... they remained sober, focused on Christ, as did their Lord at the crucifixion, without self-pity.

(6) Utopian dreams, Socialism, Marxism, and folly. Vain hopes based on thievery; We oppress ourselves and undergo traumatic suffering because of our sins; True freedom is obtained by freeing ourselves of our sins; Socialism is idolatry, foolish, vain hopes, and futility; Social justice is not justice, because justice is about righteousness not retribution; Patriarch Kirill has said emphatically and winsomely to the West ... stay away from Socialism and Marxism! ... go around it! ... see what it did here ... hundreds of millions killed ... it's not love of God but hatred.