Fr. Stephen De Young: Okay, I guess we’ll go ahead and get started, and in just a moment when we get started, as I mentioned, we’ll be picking up in Romans 8:28. To quickly kind of get us caught up—and it’s important that we get caught up on the earlier part of chapter eight because, as we get into here the second half of chapter eight and then into chapter nine and chapter ten and chapter eleven, as I mentioned before we started recording, these are passages about which Calvinists get very excited. And part of the reason they get excited is that they have an interpretation of these passages that’s sort of the basis for their whole thing.

And it’s not just these passages. They’ll take you— It’s called the Romans Road in Calvinist circles. They will sort of hop-skip through the book of Romans. You generally do one through three and then the first half of chapter five, and then chapters eight through eleven. If you read those chunks along a certain trajectory, you can kind of get Calvinism out of them. [Laughter] An obvious problem there already is that there are certain parts we’re skipping and ignoring and not focusing on, which means we’re taking the passages we are reading out of context. So that’s why it’s important that we set this second half of chapter eight here in terms of the first half of chapter eight: the lead-in, the themes that St. Paul has already been talking about before he gets to what he’s going to talk about here in the second half, so that we can understand the flow of his overall argument and not take anything out of context.

St. Paul began chapter eight by making a contrast between people walking according to the flesh and walking according to the spirit. We talked about how “flesh” and “body,” even though we would use those interchangeably, refer to two different things in St. Paul. And when St. Paul talks about our body, he’s talking about our physical body. That is something which, as he said earlier in chapter eight, is going to be redeemed when Christ returns. He’s going to talk about—and be very clear about, especially when we get to 1 Corinthians and 1 Corinthians 15—the resurrection and transformation and transfiguration of our bodies, our physical bodies.

So for St. Paul the physical body, physicality, creation as such: the material world is not bad, is not evil, is not wicked; contra a lot of Greek thought at this time. The flesh, on the other hand is that part of us, that part of our current body which is prone to sin, is our— He uses the phrase “mortal flesh” or our “mortal body” sometimes to refer to the flesh: it’s that part of us that’s subject to sin and death, and it’s that part of our bodies that was received after the expulsion from paradise, where Christ, we’re told, clothes them with garments of skin. That’s not understood by the Fathers to be referring to: God made them a meat-leather outfit. [Laughter] But that now, just as our bodies are going to be transformed in the resurrection, as we saw Christ’s body was transformed when he rose from the dead, in the same way there was a negative transformation after the expulsion from paradise, where their bodies became, first of all, mortal, subject to death, therefore subject to sin, to wandering astray.

And so St. Paul has set up in Romans 8 that there are two ways in which we can choose to walk, two ways in which we can live our lives. We can follow our flesh, we can follow that sinful part of ourselves that desires things in this world, where we live our life just trying to gratify it, just trying to give it what it wants: food and drink and sex and wealth and all the things that our flesh desires. Or we could follow after the spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit, who, because Christ has purified us, now has come to dwell within us, and so we can follow the spirit. We can seek the things of the spirit. We can seek to try to gratify God through his Spirit, and live our life following the Spirit’s leading.

After setting up that— And within that comparison is the way that follows the flesh leads to death, because it is chasing after the things of this world, and this world is passing away, whereas the way of following the spirit leads to life, meaning eternal life: life in the world to come. So St. Paul then moved to talking about the sufferings of this life, because in this life we suffer, but he talks about how the Spirit who dwells within us is sort of a down payment and a deposit on the world to come. He’s the beginning of our salvation, and so he gives us hope in the midst of all of the suffering that we experience in this life, all the troubles we feel in this life, as sort of proof and a down payment of what the glory is that awaits us at the end, as we draw close to God. And as we follow the Spirit, we’ll progress towards that glorious end, and St. Paul has said that he thinks that all the troubles of this life—there’s a whole bunch of them, being shipwrecked and stoned several times and beaten and hotly rejected and all these things—that isn’t even worth comparing to the glory that will be ours in the world to come.

And he’s talked about that in terms of our adoption as sons, which isn’t just a metaphor of love, but, remember, God’s family is a royal family. The sons of God in the Old Testament are not just angels, but they’re sort of the highest rank of angels who form God’s council around him. And so it’s adoption into this royal family, and receiving the spiritual riches and that role in the world to come of helping God to govern his creation, as Christ gives us the privilege of sharing in his rule over creation. That’s how St. Paul in the earlier part of chapter eight defines this glorious destiny that we have ahead of us. So whatever we have to suffer in this life doesn’t compare to that. If we ever start to doubt because of the suffering of this life, then we have the Spirit as a signifier and a down payment dwelling within us, to show us that that is real.

So it’s now within the context of that discussion that St. Paul is going to continue here in Romans 8:28. We kind of have to have that lead-in in mind so that we don’t misunderstand what he’s about to say as he starts talking about things like predestination and what that means. Unless we have any leftover questions or comments or allegations or business proposals or anything else— [Laughter]

Q1: I have a quick question, kind of irrelevant.

Fr. Stephen: Okay! [Laughter]

Q1: One of the things you were saying… Genesis, it talked about man being clothed in skin. Does it differ between the Hebrew or the Greek translation of it, on the interpretation of how that’s interpreted?

Fr. Stephen: No, it basically says, “garments of skin.” And so the reason why people sometimes have taken the other interpretation is that comes right after God kills some animals in front of Adam and Eve, so they think, “Oh, well, God killed some animals to make them clothes,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense in context. What the Fathers say is the reason God killed those animals was to show them what death was, because they had been told they were going to die and now they’re telling it, “You’re going to die,” and so he shows them what death is. And then they’re clothed with the body that is like the body of those animals in that it’s now mortal; it’s subject to death, which the animals were, but they were not, before the expulsion from paradise.

Q2: So the animals, before the fall, were mortal.

Fr. Stephen: Yes.

Q2: Okay.

Q1: I had never asked that question to myself before!

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right, yeah. Because, remember, the immortality would come with eating from the tree of life, for human beings.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.” I’ll just go ahead and read the next verse or couple of verses. “For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called; whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.”

Q1: I could get Calvinism out of that.

Fr. Stephen: Yes, this is crucially important to get, especially if you take it out of context and just take it by itself. So the first verse is non-controversial, mostly. That all things work together for good for those who love God—at least that much of it. And remember, this is in the context of St. Paul having just talked about suffering. So what he’s saying here is that even those things we suffer, even those things in this life that are negative, that are unpleasant, that are painful, ultimately God uses those to work for our good. It’s not just that we have to endure them, but that, through them, we can actually develop into more mature spiritual people.

Now, notice, remember, I’ve commented before, if you’re reading this in the Orthodox Study Bible, that words that are in italics are not there in the original, so that’s important here, too, because those are words that were added by someone who’s doing an interpretation, so we always have to be a little careful with those.

Those who love God are here identified as those who are the ones called, when it literally says—you notice they’ve inserted the word “his”: according to his purpose—where what it actually says is, “who are called according to a purpose.” The word “his” is not there. So you already see how that shifts the meaning. “Called according to his purpose” means God has chosen to call some people for his reasons, where as “called for a purpose” means it’s talking about people whom God has called to something. You’re called to do something. So this isn’t necessarily talking about salvation, first of all. You’re called for a purpose; you’re called to do something.

Then it says, “For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.” Now, notice that “to be” is added. “He predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” And then he says, “Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called; and whom he called he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.”

The first problem with the Calvinist interpretation of this is that the Calvinist understanding of this verse is that this is what they call the ordo salutis; this is the order of salvation: these things happen in sequence. So they say first God foreknows people, and then, because he foreknows them, he predestines them to be conformed to the image of his Son, and once he predestines them then he calls them, and then after calling them he justifies them, and then after justifying them he ultimately glorifies them. What’s the problem with that? Well, all of these words are in the exact same past tense. There’s nothing here to indicate that these are things that take place in a certain order.

Q1: No, I didn’t read it that way. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: In fact, what St. Paul is saying is that God doesn’t just do one of these things.

Q1: You’re not at stage two or something like that.

Fr. Stephen: Right. It’s all or nothing. It’s all or nothing.

Now, interestingly, if you look in the Church Fathers about this verse—obviously Calvin hadn’t lived yet, and most of them had not yet read Augustine, even, who did something somewhat similar with this verse—what they consider to be the big problem is that Christ said repeatedly in the gospels, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and this says, “Everyone whom he predestined he also called, and everyone whom he called he also justified…” So they consider that to be the problem with this passage.

So what I want to do is dig a little deeper into the words. So the first word is “those whom God knew beforehand.” It doesn’t say that he knew something about them beforehand; it just says that he knew them. In the context of God knowing people, what do we see? Well, for example, the parable of the last judgment, the parable of the sheep and the goats in St. Matthew’s gospel, the goats, the wicked, Christ says, “Begone from me, I never knew you. I never knew you.” That doesn’t literally mean, “Well, where’d you come from?” [Laughter] Because obviously God in Christ created everyone who had ever lived. So it’s not that he literally doesn’t know who they are and where they came from. [Laughter] So this knowledge is referring to the faithful and the unfaithful, because the basis on which Christ said, “I never knew you,” is that he was poor and he was hungry and they hadn’t fed him. And this is true in several other parables where that language was used: “I never knew you. Depart from me—outer darkness.”

So those who are known by God, being known by God. Other language that’s related to this in the Old Testament is having their names written in the Book of Life. That book language is common not only in the Old Testament but also in other Ancient Near Eastern and Second Temple Jewish literature, and it’s the idea that there is a record of everything that happens and everyone that lives.

Q1: That’s in Revelation, isn’t it?

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, the books were opened at the last judgment. That there are these heavenly books in which everything that happens is written down. And what that means is that God knows about it. This isn’t slipping past him or getting past his mind. [Laughter]

So the group we’re starting out with here that St. Paul is talking about is the group of people who are known by God. So these are the faithful people; these are the faithful people whom he’s talking about. And God, he’s already said, has a purpose for these people.

Q2: What is the significance of: he foreknew? I mean, to the Calvinists this means he knew before creating them.

Fr. Stephen: Well, we’re going to get into that in just a second when talk about predestination. So this is proginosko, which is— pro- just means “before,” obviously. “Prologue, proactive.” And ginosko is “to know.” So it’s very literally he knew beforehand.

But the second word is that what happens to these people is that they are pröorizo, where that’s the word that’s translated “predestined.” This predestined verb is setting them up “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son so he could be the firstborn of many brethren.” So this is the language he used earlier in chapter eight, about us becoming sons of God and heirs within the kingdom, becoming part of this royal family, becoming like Christ. This is what he did.

The word pröorizo literally means to— orizo means to set things in order. It’s a verb that’s used a lot of times for when a general or a troop commander is setting his troops in order for battle. It means to organize, to set in place. So what St. Paul is saying here is: God, beforehand, knew that there would be these faithful people, not in a general sense like “oh, there will be some faithful people,” but he knew—because God is outside of time; he’s not sort of following along and he gets surprised by this— He knew who his faithful people would be. So in advance he set things in place; he organized things so that they would be able to experience this glorious destiny that St. Paul has been talking about.

Well, what does that mean, he set things in order? Well, Christ had to become incarnate. He had to have his ministry. He had to die on the cross. He had to rise again on the third day. He had to ascend into heaven. He had to pour out his Holy Spirit on all flesh. All these things things had to happen for you and [me] to find salvation, and they all happened a long time before we existed. But God knew us already, knew that we would exist. And so for us— This is why I could say Christ died for my sins, that he rose again for my salvation—not just somebody’s but mine—because he already knew me at the time he was doing it. All of that had to happen first. All of that had to happen so that God could bring me to that destiny. And so God has been at work— Not just then! I mean, we could go all the way back to Genesis, from the moment they were expelled from paradise, which he knew would happen, God has been working to bring us back. Giving the Law, everything that happened in the Old Testament, everything that happens in the New Testament, everything that’s happened— And then everything that’s happened in my life up till now: God made that possible so that salvation would be a reality for his faithful people.

And he was under no obligation to do so. He didn’t have to. He could have just left us all to perish in our sins, but he didn’t, because he knew us and he loved us already, and so he made this provision so that this could happen.

Q2: So what’s predestined here is the whole plan of salvation.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah. “Foreordained” is probably a better translation than “predestined,” because it’s not— “Predestined” has this fatalistic sound of destiny—you’re born with this destiny and there’s nothing you can do about it—which the original word doesn’t have. “Foreordained” is better, because it means “beforehand he ordered,” which is more literally what the word means, that he set things in order so that this could happen, so that we could become like Christ, so that we could become fellow-heirs with Christ, with Christ as the firstborn.

And I’ll reiterate it here, because this is going to become important here and again in chapter nine, that, remember, the way inheritance worked at this time in history and for a long time before— We sometimes think: Well, the firstborn son inherited everything. Sort of. He inherited everything, but then it was his responsibility to distribute it to the other heirs. For example, there’s an incident in the gospels where someone comes to Christ and says, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” because apparently he’s been holding on to all the money. And Christ basically tells him, “Don’t worry about the money. Come, follow me. Let your brother be, if that’s what he wants, is the money.”

But that’s how it worked. So it’s not that there’s one person who received the whole inheritance and everybody else can go lump it. That’s going to be important when we get to Jacob and Esau in the next chapter, but it’s also important here, because this is how St. Paul is talking about Christ and us as fellow heirs. Christ is the firstborn. Christ inherits the whole creation, but then he distributes that: he gives a share to us as his adopted brothers. So that’s that language of being conformed to his likeness, and then the firstborn among many brethren.

And the reason he uses “brother”— This sometimes gets muted out because our modern translations are trying to be very PC, and so they don’t like to use the word “sons”; they like to use the word “children,” but the word “son” is important because the word “son” is an heir in this culture. St. Paul is trying to make the point that women who believe become sons; they become heirs. They may be second-class citizens on earth in the first century AD or third- or fourth-class, but in terms of the family of God, the royal family of God, they’re not second-tier; they’re not lesser. They’re sons and heirs just as much as the men are in terms of the inheritance they receive in Christ.

So then “those for whom he set this, all these things, he also called,” meaning what? Meaning we heard the Gospel. The Gospel was proclaimed; it was put out there. Because, again, if Christ had done all those things for us but we never heard about it, it wouldn’t avail anything. “Those whom he called, he also justified.” We talked about justification back in chapter three: made righteous, come to share in God’s righteousness, meaning that when the judgment happens we’re the sheep, not the goats. Brought us into that category. “And whom he justified, these he also glorified.” Now, this is all in the past tense because there have already been a whole lot of saints by the time St. Paul is writing. And so this has all happened for people. He’s saying: Look at these people. Look at St. Elias. Look at any of the Old Testament prophets. God has done this. He had done this whole thing.

Q1: So this was retroactive for the Old Testament saints.

Fr. Stephen: Right. They were glorified together with us, and that’s part of the whole harrowing of hell depiction.

But so why is he saying this? This is in the context again of why we should have hope. We’re in this life and we’re suffering. We’ve decided that we’re going to follow Christ, we’re going to embrace Jesus as the Messiah, we’re going to try to walk by the Spirit—and our family has just disowned us. We’ve become an outcast in our city. We’ve lost our livelihood. You might be tempted to say, “Well, maybe we’re wrong about this, because God’s not doing a lot to take care of me, if this is really the right thing for me to do.” [Laughter] And so St. Paul is saying to that person, “Look. Long before you existed, long before you were born, long before you were conceived and came into being, God knew who you were, and he’s done all of these things—all these things in the Old Testament and then Christ’s incarnation, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit—he’s done all these things so that you could be adopted into his royal family. He made provision for you to hear the Gospel. He’s cleansed you and purified you of your sins. Having done all that for you, that all being the case, do you really think he’s not going to bring this through to the end just because you’re suffering some things now?”

This is what St. Paul is saying. He’s not talking to them about whether or not their actions are involved in their salvation. He’s made a pretty clear statement about that at the beginning of the chapter, that those who follow the flesh perish and those who follow the Spirit come to life. He’s already talked about that; that’s not what he’s talking about here.

Q1: It’s about what distinguishes sheep from goats, too.

Fr. Stephen: Right, that’s not what he’s talking about here. He’s talking about people who are given to lose hope and fall into despair, and telling them why they shouldn’t. And this is a pretty powerful reason why you shouldn’t.

Q2: That’s interesting, because in Calvinism it was often [used] to discourage people, to make them think they can’t possibly make it.

Fr. Stephen: To talk about your wickedness and your inability, and just having to hope that God picked you for his team. [Laughter] Which he would do for no reason, and so there was nothing you could do to get yourself picked. And it already happened, so you’re picked or not already.

St. Paul goes on in verse 31: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Again, this is in this context of suffering. God is doing all these things for us, so who is there out there who can stop it, stop him? Who can prevent him from bringing it to completion? What can they do to us, in the face of that? If they kill us, if they kill you, well, then, now I will go to eternal life: you still don’t win, even though you killed my body.

“He who did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” So this is a pretty clear restatement of what he was saying in those verses. If God was willing to offer his own Son, if Christ was willing to die on the cross for us, how will he not also bring this through to completion? Why would he do that? Why would he do all this and then not fulfill the rest of his promises?

“Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore is also arisen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” The word “elect,” I know now carries Calvinist connotations.

Q1: I really don’t like that word. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: But how is it used in Scripture? So when St. Paul in Colossians refers to the “elect angels,” is he talking about the angels that were predestined for salvation in Christ?

Q1: No…

Fr. Stephen: No, he’s talking about the ones who were faithful, who didn’t rebel. And that’s the way the word is used. The phrase “elect angels” occurs fairly frequently in Second Temple Jewish literature. So “elect” is a word that means, really means “called,” or it can mean “chosen,” it can mean “preferred,” his beloved, that is used for angels; it’s used for faithful people; it’s used for Israel a lot in the Greek of the Old Testament. And when it’s used to describe Israel, it doesn’t mean every single person who’s a member of the nation of Israel is “saved.” Scriptures are very clear that that’s not true.

Q2: Some of them thought that, though, didn’t they?

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Well, later on. But, yeah, that’s clearly not what it means, like in the case of Israel, Israel being the people that were chosen. It means the faithful ones.

The prophets move to talking about an elect remnant of Israel, that there’s this piece, and that piece isn’t that “well, God just chose a few to save who were just as wicked as all the other ones.” It’s that there’s one remnant, one little remnant, that remains faithful. This is the remnant that—

Q1: This is in the context of the captivity in Babylon.

Fr. Stephen: Right, the exile, yeah.

Q1: Where the idea that a remnant might survive is kind of startling.

Fr. Stephen: Well, even the ones who made it to captivity in Babylon are a tiny piece. Remember, ten tribes, really ten and a half, were wiped off the face of the earth. Most of Israel just ceased to exist; the Assyrians destroyed them. So you’ve got this remnant of the tribe of Judah and a little bit of Benjamin that even went into exile, let alone were delivered and came back from the exile. Yeah, it’s this small remnant, but it’s this remnant that’s faithful. This is the remnant that God talks to Elijah about, when Elijah despairs and he says, “Look, I’m the last one left who’s still faithful to you,” he says, “No, I have ten thousand who have not bowed their knee to Baal.” That there is this elect remnant. And that means that those are the ones who are faithful, just like those are the angels who are faithful.

So it’s saying who is going to bring a charge against God’s faithful people? Who’s going to come and accuse them of sin? Who’s going to come and say they need to be condemned because of their sins? And this is appealing to a very common motif in Jewish thought. In Second Temple Judaism, St. Michael the Archangel was the angel who is— He’s referred to in Daniel as the prince of Judah, of the Israelite people. He’s sort of the angel that’s assigned to them, and he talks about the prince of Persia, who’s a demon whom the Persians worship, and the prince of Greece, referring to Alexander’s gods who are coming. But St. Michael is sort of the guardian angel or the patron of Judah. So the idea of a nation having a patron, a heavenly patron, is not new in Orthodox Christianity; it goes all the way back into the Old Testament. It’s just now there are humans who have become sons of God and who fill that role, not just angelic beings.

But so St. Michael would sort of intercede for the nation as Satan would come and accuse. You see Satan doing that job in, for example, the book of Job. All the sons of God, meaning the angels, come to stand before God, and “the Satan” comes, too, and he starts accusing Job. “Oh, yeah, Job loves you and is faithful to you, but that’s because you’ve made him rich and you’ve given him all these things. If you hadn’t given him all those things, he wouldn’t be faithful. You take those away…” He’s making these accusations.

So there was this parody between the Satan, who was seen as an angelic being, sometimes called Satana-el and other names, and then St. Michael on the other side. This is where, in Jude, which we’ll get to eventually, he refers to when the Archangel Michael and Satan contested over the body of Moses. This is a reference to the same tradition. Moses dies, and Satan comes and wants to claim him for death and corruption, and starts accusing him of sins. St. Michael comes and says no and testifies in the other direction and intercedes on his behalf.

This is what’s being referred to when Christ, during his ministry, talks about it and he says when he sends out the Seventy and they go and cast out demons, “I saw Satan fall from heaven, like then.” [Laughter] That’s what it’s referring to; it’s referring to him now being thrown down, because in the face of the Gospel he can’t make accusations any more. So this is what St. Paul is referring to here: Who can come and make an accusation against? He says because it’s not now St. Michael who’s interceding; now it’s Jesus Christ who’s interceding, and he’s the One who died for us and rose again; he’s the One who’s justified us, who’s cleansed us from our sins; he’s the One who’s saving us now, who intercedes—and he’s the Judge, by the way. So who is it can come and make— No one. No one.

So he’s already said— First St. Paul says there’s no one on earth who can do anything to us, to combat what God is doing in our lives. Kill our body—we still win; now we’re a martyr—we just sang about the Hieromartyr Michael—now we’re glorified. Now he’s saying there’s no spiritual power out there, the devil or any of his demons, who can come and make an accusation at us, because of who Christ is and what he’s done for us. So we have nothing to fear from anybody.

And so he summarizes this by saying, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” These are all the things, all the suffering, all the bad things that can happen to us in this life. “As it is written—” This is from Psalm 44. “—For your sake we are killed all day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

So through Christ who loves us and showed that by dying for us and rising again for our justification, as St. Paul has said—has made us more than conquerors, meaning— What it actually says is super-conquerors, hyper-conquerors. [Laughter] This is that language that Christ himself used, like in St. John’s gospel: “In this world you will have troubles, but fear not, for I have overcome the world.” And then he uses in the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation: “To the one who overcomes.” That “overcome” is the word “conquer.” So he’s saying, “We’ve super-overcome all these things, all of these powers opposed, both the earthly powers, any heavenly powers, the devil himself who comes to accuse us. We’ve defeated them all in Christ.”

And so his final summary in verse 38: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So things on earth, things in heaven—angels, demons, powers and principalities in heavenly places; death, life, the sword, famine—anything that happens in this life—can’t separate us from the love of Christ, because the work he’s begun he’s going to bring to completion.

Q2: What about other people?

Fr. Stephen: What other people?

Q2: The Calvinist emphasis is just as much on those who are condemned as those who are saved. All of these things apply to faithful Christians, but the sheep and goats parable seems to indicate that it’s what you do more than… I don’t want to say more than faith. Help me out.

Fr. Stephen: Well, you notice the one thing that he doesn’t say is that you can’t separate yourself. He says nothing can separate you; he doesn’t say you can’t separate yourself. He doesn’t say you can’t reject the love of Christ; he says if you accept it, no one can come in between that or break that, but he doesn’t say you can’t reject it yourself. Because he’d be contradicting himself, because he’s already talked about people following after the flesh and it bringing about destruction.

So these are words of assurance directed to the faithful in the midst of trials and tribulations and troubles, guilt which condemns us; in the face of all those things, reminding us of the love of God, the work he’s done for us, and the work he’ll bring to completion. But he doesn’t say, “You don’t participate in that.” He doesn’t say, “God does this to you against your will.” [Laughter] “If you don’t want it, God’s still going to—” None of that.

Q1: But the foreknowledge part— If you’ve been a faithful Christian and then you turned your back on him, God knew that, too.

Fr. Stephen: Yep. God knows that, too, yeah. [Laughter] And so we get St. Paul saying, “He who endures to the end will be saved.” So that’s the— If we are following the Spirit on this road that leads to life, God will bring that to fruition.

Q2: And this is the Holy Spirit who is within us—

Fr. Stephen: Who is dwelling within us.

Q2: —enabling us to not give up and, say, separate ourselves.

Q3: So this is like the anti-Calvin interpretation, because God does everything to bring us into his love, everybody. He does everything to bring us into his love, and it’s within us that we choose to love him and to enter into that love, or not to. So it’s in our choice.

Fr. Stephen: Right, to walk according to the flesh or walk according to the Spirit.

Q2: Definitely a reversal.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, but I think that reversal comes, again, from just taking it in context of what he’s saying earlier in chapter eight. If you start with verse 28, you can take it in one direction, but if you take it in the context…

Q2: Those italicized words, the words that are added, they make a difference, too.

Fr. Stephen: Because they’re interpreting it according to a certain reading, yeah.

Q2: And the use of the word “predestined” instead of “foreordained” makes a difference.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, at least in the connotation.

Q2: At least in our ears.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, because “predestined” for us brings in this whole Calvinist idea of predestination, which isn’t really contained within the Greek word. Because, remember, the Greek word is God actively doing something: he’s setting things in order. It’s not an act of choosing; it’s not an act of will. It’s him actively doing something.

Q1: It’s taking what he has and ordering it.

Fr. Stephen: Right, yeah, what he’s created and setting these things in order.

Q2: So it includes crossing the Red Sea and everything else.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, the giving of the Law. And this is recounted in one of the prayers of St. Basil’s Liturgy. “When we had fallen away…” Actually, I think it’s in St. John Chrysostom’s Liturgy. “When we had fallen away, you did not cease to do all things to raise us up and to make us heirs to the kingdom which is to come.” Now this is St. Basil. “He sent us the Law to aid us. He sent prophets…” It lists all the things. “Finally, he sent to us through his Son—” and it goes through the life of Christ and everything Christ did; it recounts all of that. All of the things that God did once we had fallen away, in order to bring us back. That’s what St. Paul is talking about here.

Q2: There’s a wonderful Jewish song—I guess it’s a hymn—called Dayenu, which is Hebrew for “It would have been enough for us.” What they do is they first specify one of the actions of God, and then says, “If that’s all he’d done, it would have been enough for us,” but then it kind of builds. “He did that, and he also did this, and that would have been enough for us. So he did this, he did this, and he also did that, and that would have been enough for us.” And it keeps going. I really like it. Of course, it doesn’t go far enough, but— [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: It stops too early, yeah!

Q1: Maybe we should continue it.

Q2: It would be neat to write a continuation.

Fr. Stephen: So, yeah, that’s what St. Paul is doing, and I think if you read it in context, you see how all of these statements relate. Why is he talking about the fact that angels and demons and principalities can’t separate—? Well, that’s what he’s already been talking about, how these are summaries.

Q2: Yeah, there’s some verses here that are very comforting, encouraging verses, and there’s nothing comforting and encouraging about a Calvinist interpretation. [Laughter] These are verses I think of when I’m discouraged.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, and that’s how they’re intended. That’s how they’re intended.