CHAPTER NINE
PAUL'S SELF-IMAGE
Paul's model of God was a new model of God even though his model of God included everything about God that had ever been said in the Old Testament. It was a new model of God because it included a new understanding of how God intended to save the world. Central to Paul's new model of God was the understanding that as a Pharisee Paul had been deluding himself by thinking he had ever actually kept the commandments of God's law in a way that established Paul as righteous. The Pharisee Saul had believed himself to be righteous; on becoming a Christian Paul was led to see that Saul's definition of righteousness had been woefully defective.
In order to see how closely connected the ideas of Paul are to the ideas of Jesus one need only realize that Paul spent his entire ministry trying to explain to us the words that had so puzzled and enraged the Pharisees and the people of Israel. Once we have grasped the fact that the context within which the words and actions of Jesus was set was his battle with the Pharisees and teachers of the law over their misunderstanding of the purpose God had given the Holy Scripture, it becomes easy to see how truly Paul had the mind of Christ. Every word uttered by the Apostle Paul was addressed to precisely the same context as the words and actions of Jesus!
NOTE: What follows will flow easier if I can refer to Paul's pre-salvation model of God as "Saul's" model, and the post-salvation model as "Paul's."
Saul, the Pharisee, held in mind the Pharisee's model of God. When Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Saul's model of God began to shake on its foundation, Saul's pyramid began to crumble. But Saul's pyramid of ideas about God did not instantly collapse. Based on what the Bible tells us, it appears that only one idea was altered by Saul's first encounter with the risen Jesus. Saul realized that Jesus is the Christ.
Acts 9:19b-22 describes Saul's reaction to meeting Jesus this way, "Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, 'Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests? Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ."
Saul knew that Jesus is the Christ because Saul, the Pharisee, knew all that was written in the Hebrew Scriptures. From birth Saul had been trained to be a Pharisee, trained by the wisest and most accomplished scholars of Holy Scripture in the nation of Israel. Reviewing his life, the Apostle Paul was led to tell us, "But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man." Paul did not have to consult any man about the meaning of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus because Saul had been set aside at birth to understand the Holy Scriptures. Saul had been trained to understand every prophesy in Scripture concerning the Messiah, the Christ, who was to come and deliver Israel on the great and awesome Day of the Lord. The only alteration in Saul's pyramid of ideas created by Saul's initial encounter with Jesus was Saul's realization that if Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, his life and work fulfilled exactly every prophesy in Scripture that pertained to the life and work of the Messiah. And that's exactly what Saul began to tell everybody: Jesus is the Christ. Saul proved to the Jews in Damascus that Jesus is the Christ by comparing the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth with the prophesies about Christ found in Holy Scripture. Saul proved it powerfully because Saul knew every word that was written in Holy Scripture.
I think it is important that we see this is all Saul initially understood about Jesus. In constructing our model of Saul, we are constantly forced to make choices between competing images. For instance, it is possible to choose to believe that when Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus that Jesus immediately gave Saul insight into every aspect of the complete model of God that Paul subsequently communicated to the Church. It is possible to choose to believe this about Paul but, if we make this choice, we immediately disengage Paul from the story as it is told in the Bible. To disengage Paul from the story by and about Paul told in the Bible inevitably leads to a different image of Paul being constructed in one's mind, an image different from the image the Bible is designed to communicate. In order to meet the Paul that the Bible talks about, we must realize that Saul was a real person just like you and I, and God dealt with Saul exactly the way He deals with you and I. He leads us to understand Him by constructing a model of Himself in our mind. He constructs this model, this pyramid, one block at a time. So, too, did God reveal Himself to Saul.
We actually begin to understand the Apostle Paul only when we begin to examine the process through which God led Saul the Pharisee to become Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. This process took time. Paul gives us some insight into exactly how much time was involved in the process during which Paul's model of God was formed in Galatians 1: 15-18, "But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days." Acts 9 tells us what happened to Paul when he went to see Peter, "When he (Saul) came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabus took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Ceasarea and sent him off to Tarsus. Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord."
Paul took great care to inform us that the insight he had received concerning the meaning of the life and work of Jesus Christ was not something he received from any of the other apostles. Then Paul makes clear he withdrew from interaction with other Christians and spent over three years meditating on the meaning of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul was careful to make these facts clear because Paul's point of view was formed as the Holy Spirit moved the Apostle Paul to hear the words of Jesus and reflecting on those words reexamine the message in Holy Scripture. Paul did not depend for his authority as a teacher on the authority of any other person, neither Peter, nor John, nor James, the brother of Jesus. Paul claimed to be speaking the words of God. As you examine the story about Paul's relationship with the other apostles in Acts you will see considerable evidence that Paul's point of view created initial tension even among Christ's closest disciples. The reason for this is that Paul came back from Tarsus with a fresh revelation concerning how God had saved the world in Christ Jesus, a revelation that caused Jesus' disciples to make some adjustments in their model of God.
Acts 13 gives us the first evidence offered in the Bible about what God had revealed to Paul. Paul is addressing a congregation of Jews in Antioch. After going through a chronological account of God's dealings with the nation of Israel, Paul reaches his conclusion in v. 38, "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses."
Those who do not want to believe that Paul's model of God was constructed on a foundation composed of the words of Jesus better ignore the amazing similarity between the context addressed by the Apostle Paul and the context addressed by Jesus. Just as Jesus' words were focusing on the Law and the Pharisee's misunderstand of that Law, so, too, were Paul's words focusing on the Law. Just as Jesus contended that the people of Israel had not kept the commandments of God, so, too, the Apostle Paul was intent on explaining exactly the same subject.
It does not take much imagination to realize how great an impact certain words of Jesus would have had on the Pharisee Saul after he met the risen Jesus. "For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 5:20) Words like these would have tormented the Pharisee who knew for a fact that Jesus is the Messiah promised from of old. What could he have meant? Paul would have said to himself. How is it possible to be more righteous than perfectly righteous? Could he have meant we were not actually keeping the commandments of God, even when we believed with all our heart that we were doing so? Could we have deluded ourselves about the meaning of the words in God's Law. When God said, Thou shalt not covet, could He have meant more than we interpreted Him to mean? The Pharisee Saul believed that he had kept the law without blemish and was therefore righteous. As a Christian Paul heard the words of Jesus, "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Paul heard Jesus say, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment..." And again, "You have heard that is was said, 'Do not commit adultery,' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Paul heard those words and he was struck with the conviction that as a Pharisee he had been manipulating God's word in order to create a self-image of righteousness that was in fact a false self-image, a lie before God. As Paul listened to Jesus' words, Paul realized that God's law had meaning that went far beyond the Pharisee's interpretation, meaning that left no room for anyone to claim to have obeyed God's law.
Paul heard Jesus' teachings about righteousness and the words in the Old Testament came alive with new meaning to Paul. He described the process this way: "For I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what it was to covet if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire."
Now this statement of Paul only becomes intelligible when we firmly grasp that there was a time in the Apostle Paul's life when he firmly believed himself to be a person who had never violated the commandment Moses had brought down from the mountain that said, "Thou shalt not covet." When was this time? When Paul had been Saul, the Pharisee. Saul, the Pharisee had never been guilty of coveting because the sin of coveting had been defined by the Pharisees in very precise terms. As long as you did not allow yourself to want to possess your neighbor's ox, or your neighbor's wife, according to the Pharisees, one had never coveted.
Actually, it was not quite that simple. The commandment to not covet had been studied for centuries by the forerunners of the Pharisees and a zone that included much more than wives or oxen had been encircled which one could not enter without violating the law against coveting. This zone included virtually every aspect of personal property as we understand the term. Longing for another's person's property had been circumscribed so it was possible to ward off any thought that might lead one to break the Pharisee's definition of "covet." But the zone had been primarily confined to a desire for material things that belonged to other people. As the Christian Paul studied the teachings of Jesus he would have heard Jesus accusing the Pharisees of all manner of covetous lusts that extended far beyond lust for material things.
For instance, Luke 18:9-14: "As he spoke this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 'Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ''God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice in a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.''
"And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying. God be merciful to me a sinner.
"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
As a Christian it is easy to stand in judgment of the Pharisees. They were responsible for Jesus being crucified; they were responsible for his pain. It is easy to dislike the Pharisees. And it is hard to see their other side. Paul saw clearly the Pharisees other side.
The Pharisees were people who wanted to please the God revealed in the Old Testament. They were people who desperately wanted to be righteous before God, to be all right with God. Why? Because they feared God. They were God-fearing people--the Pharisees. This is the side of the Pharisees that's hard for Christians to see because when we see it we tend to feel discomfort. We do not want to identify with the Pharisees.
To understand the Apostle Paul, we must understand that he identified totally with the Pharisees. Saul was a Pharisee. Can you see how personally Saul would have taken Jesus' indictment of the Pharisees? The Pharisee Saul had not been an impartial observer of this argument between Jesus and the Pharisees. Saul had been convinced that Jesus was a heretical blasphemer intent on corrupting God's Word. When Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was forced to listen to Jesus and His words afresh. What made Saul become Paul was this: he understood that he and all the rest of the Pharisees had been lying to themselves when they thought they were righteous, when they thought they had never broken the law. In light of Jesus' words the illusion that Paul had actually obeyed God's instructions to the point where God would consider him righteous was destroyed. He saw that the Law had been full of meaning that the Pharisee's had ignored. He saw that God's purpose in giving the law was not to specify a list of instructions that could be followed by man, but to point out the sin that resided in the heart of man that made it impossible to obey God. As Paul explained later, "Now you, if you call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?"
Paul's answer was yes, the Jews (Pharisee's included) did dishonor God by breaking the law. He concludes his tirade by telling the Jews, "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
But what of the Gentiles? If righteousness came to those who did not violate God's laws, could the Gentiles be accused of unrighteousness if they had never heard God's laws? Paul answers the question this way: "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous."
But, wait a minute, why would people who sin apart from the law perish apart from the law? How could God justly accuse them of violating his rules if they never heard those rules? Paul answers the question: "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them."
Is Paul telling us that while the Jews had the law and did not obey it, there were some Gentiles who had the law written on their hearts who actually did what God said do? If that's what you think, you've missed Paul's conclusion. Hear it this time: "What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin." In other words, Paul is saying that even though Gentiles had access to the law because God wrote it in their hearts, they disobeyed God's instructions just like the Jews. Paul continues, "As it is written, 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.' 'Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.' 'The poison of vipers is on their lips.' 'Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.' 'Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.' 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.'"
So what's the point? "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law..." (which hopefully you now realize was, from Paul's point of view, everyone--Jew and Gentile alike) "...so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."
And there in a nutshell we have it--what Saul the Pharisee could never see but what became plain as day to Paul as the Holy Spirit of God moved Paul to review the words of Scripture in light of the words of Jesus--instead of the law being given to show us how to be righteous before God, the law was given to make us see how sinful we were in God's sight.
No wonder people feel uncomfortable reading the Bible! It's designed to make us feel guilty before God! That is, unless we decide like the Pharisee's did that we are actually capable of doing everything God said do without deviation or error. Then we get to feel like the Pharisees felt: self-righteous, holy, spotless, pure--downright God-like. Saul had felt like that once. If you can't hear Paul kicking Saul in the fanny every time Saul crosses Paul's mind, you simply haven't tuned in to Paul yet. And if you haven't seen that Paul's disgust with Saul was exactly the same disgust that Jesus expressed to the Pharisees, you haven't tuned in on how closely connected the mind of Paul was to the mind of Jesus. They were of one mind. They both were absolutely determined to eradicate the model of God taught by the Pharisees.
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