The Origin of Paul's ReligionMachen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Religion
The Origin of Paul's Religion
Machen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Bible. Epistles of Paul -- Theology; Paul, the Apostle, Saint
Let it not be objected that Jesus maintained also the expectation
of a judgment. For in this particular also He was followed by
Paul. Paul also, despite his doctrine of grace, expected that
the Christians would stand before the judgment-seat. And it may
be remembered in passing that both in Jesus and in Paul the
judgment-seat is a judgment-seat of Christ.
In the fourth place, the ethical teaching of Paul is strikingly
similar to that of Jesus. It is necessary only to point to the
conception of love as the fulfilling of the law, and to the
substitution for external rules of the great principles of justice
and of mercy. These things may seem to us to be matters of course.
But they were not matters of course in the Jewish environment of
Paul. Similarity in this field between Jesus and Paul can hardly
be a matter of chance. Many resemblances have been pointed out in
detail between the ethical teaching of Jesus and that of Paul.
But the most important is the one which is most obvious, and which
just for that reason has sometimes escaped notice. Paul and Jesus,
in their ethical teaching, are similar because of the details of
what they say; but they are still more similar because of what they
do not say. And they are similar in what they do not say despite
the opposition of their countrymen. Many parallels for words of
Jesus may have been found in rabbinical sources. But so much more,
alas, is also found there. That oppressive plus of triviality
and formalism places an impassable gulf between Jesus and the
Jewish teachers. But Paul belongs with Jesus, on the same side of
the gulf. In his ethic there is no formalism, no triviality, no
casuistry--there is naught but "love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control." What has
become of all the rest? Was it removed by the genius of Paul? It is
strange that two such men of genius should have arisen independently
and at the same time. Or was the terrible plus of Pharisaic
formalism and triviality burned away from Paul when the light shone
around him on the way to Damascus and he fell at the feet of the
great Teacher?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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