The Gospel in the Letters of Paul
Saul of Tarsus saw the Risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus and then devoted his life to the proclamation of His Gospel. He would have much to say and teach regarding the life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of Jesus of Nazareth in all the correspondence he maintained with the Christians and churches with whom he was associated.
Saul of Tarsus, better known as Paul, descended from Benjamin in Israel, and was educated as a Pharisee under the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3, Philippians 3:5). He proved quite zealous for the customs of Moses and was motivated by that zeal to persecute the earliest Christians (cf. Acts 22:3-5). While traveling to Damascus to round up any Christians there, he saw Jesus in heaven in the resurrection (Acts 9:1-8). Paul would receive the Gospel by means of revelation from Jesus, who sent him to preach that Gospel primarily among the people of the nations, often called the Gentiles (Acts 9:15-16, Galatians 1:11-12). After spending a few years in Tarsus and Antioch of Syria, Paul began traveling to proclaim the Gospel in Asia Minor, Greece, and ultimately Rome for a period of around twenty years (ca. 46-65 CE; Acts 13:1-28:31, 2 Timothy 4:1-22). Paul would help those who heard his message and accepted it organize into local congregations, and he would often visit them and encourage them (e.g. Acts 18:22-23, 20:1-2). But Paul could not be everywhere at all times; therefore, he also maintained correspondence with both churches and individual Christians, and many of Paul’s letters have been preserved for us in the New Testament.
Jesus’ life did not feature prominently in Paul’s letters. It is not as if Paul denied Jesus’ life or considered it without meaning or value: Paul spoke of Jesus as an Israelite and descendant of David in the flesh in Romans 1:2, Galatians 4:4, and His willingness to take on flesh and the humiliation thereof in Philippians 2:5-8. Paul also made reference to Jesus’ instruction regarding divorce in 1 Corinthians 7:11-13 and the institution of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (cf. Luke 16:18, 22:17-20); in 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul quoted and called Scripture what Jesus said in Luke 10:7, the only explicit quotation of a New Testament writing in another part of the New Testament and considered Scripture. Paul’s exhortations toward Christian living may not feature direct quotes of Jesus’ teaching, but they do demonstrate having been profoundly shaped by what Jesus had taught (e.g. Romans 12:1-21, Galatians 2:10, 6:10, etc.). While some have tried to make much of Paul’s lack of emphasis on Jesus’ life, we do well to remember how Paul was not a witness to Jesus’ life, bearing witness primarily to His resurrection and receiving the Gospel by revelation from Jesus Himself (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:8-11, Galatians 1:11-12), and how his correspondence did not represent the sum of all he taught within the churches. We should not assume a lack of emphasis on Jesus’ life in Paul’s letters means Paul did not put much emphasis on Jesus’ life or should cast aspersions on us doing so.
In his correspondence Paul reflected much on the death of Jesus, and he invested significant efforts into making sense of what God accomplished in it: he would go so far as to say he came to Corinth knowing only Christ and Him crucified in 1 Corinthians 2:2, and how he had been crucified with Christ in Galatians 2:20. Paul did speak of Jesus’ death as vicarious and sacrificial for our sins, considering Jesus the new Adam, able to atone for sin through His death on the cross (cf. Romans 5:12-21, 2 Corinthians 5:21). Paul would make much of the degradation and humiliation inherent in death on a cross, and very much wanted Christians to understand how they should humble themselves and expect suffering likewise (e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 2:5-9). To Paul, Jesus’ death on the cross represented His victory and triumph over the powers and principalities (cf. Colossians 2:15). Paul did not shy away from understanding Jesus’ death as redemptive, as seen in Galatians 3:13, 4:4-5, Colossians 1:14. Paul also made much of Jesus’ death as conciliative, reconciling God and mankind, Israelite and Gentile, and ultimately as redemptive for the entire cosmos, the great and powerful testimony of God’s love for us (Romans 5:6-11, Ephesians 2:1-22, Colossians 1:19-22).
Yet the resurrection of Jesus was as important as His death, if not more so, in Paul’s messages for the churches. In Romans 1:4, Paul understood Jesus as having been empowered as the Son of God in His resurrection (cf. Psalm 2:7-9): Jesus is the Christ not only because He suffered and died but also because He was raised from the dead. Resurrection from the dead would be a hard sell in a Greco-Roman milieu heavily influenced by Platonism and therefore hostile to the material creation, and Paul marshaled all his rhetorical skill to persuasively argue for the resurrection of Jesus, and the resurrection in general, to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58. In that exhortation Paul insisted on Jesus’ resurrection as according to the Scriptures and certified by eyewitness testimony (1 Corinthians 15:1-11); presented the counterfactual if Christ were not raised, including the confession we all would remain in our sins if Jesus had not arose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:12-19); again portrayed Jesus as a second Adam, the basis for the hope of our own resurrection and to be made alive in the body forever (1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 45-49; cf. Romans 5:12-21); and introduced the illustration of the firstfruits to explain how Jesus arose first and now how we all await our resurrection at His return (1 Corinthians 15:23-29; cf. Exodus 23:16-19). A similar confidence regarding our resurrection in terms of Jesus’ resurrection animated Philippians 3:20-21; according to Philippians 3:4-10, Paul considered everything he had obtained as trash so he might strive to know Jesus in His suffering and death so as to also know His resurrection.
Nevertheless, if we attempt to pit Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection against each other, we have not well discerned his purposes in his messages to the churches. Paul was thoroughly transformed by the good news of how the Jesus the Christ lived, died, suffered, but then arose by the power of God in the Spirit: his consistent message featured sharing in Jesus’ humiliation, suffering, and death in order to share in His life. Thus Paul understood and described baptism as a spiritual death and resurrection in Romans 6:1-11; so Paul summarized his own life and hope, and the expectation for Christians to do likewise, in Romans 8:9-11, 17-18, Philippians 2:5-11, 3:4-16, etc.
Jesus’ ascension, like Jesus’ life, did not feature prominently in Paul’s letters. Paul was well aware Jesus had ascended; he had seen Jesus as the Risen Lord in heaven (cf. Acts 9:3-6). Paul did speak of Jesus’ ascension in Ephesians 4:8-10, likely alluding to Psalm 68:18 in the Greek Septuagint, and doing so in order to explain how Jesus was able to fill all things in the church. Paul thus did confess Jesus as having ascended to the Father and did take opportunities to explain its purpose and relevance for Christians when necessary.
Paul’s letters display Paul working out for Christians what Jesus’ lordship meant for their lives. Paul referred to Jesus as Lord around 250 times in all of his correspondence, and he manifestly primarily understood Jesus as his Lord (e.g. 2 Timothy 1:8, 1:18). Paul also well understood “Christ” as the Anointed One, the Messiah, and thus the King, receiving power and authority (e.g. Romans 1:4). He meditated on Jesus’ cosmic power and authority over all things in Colossians 1:15-18, and always understood how Jesus’ lordship was part and parcel of His life, death, and resurrection (cf. Colossians 1:13-14, 19-23). Few passages better illustrate how Paul expected Christians to consider and work out what Jesus’ lordship meant for their lives than Romans 14:1-15:7: Christians should receive one another as Jesus received them, always remembering how He is the Lord, He will judge, and how we should do all things for the Lord and not judge the servant of another. To this end all of Paul’s letters feature his instruction and exhortation in how Christians and churches can well serve Jesus as Lord by means of emulating His life, suffering, and death, so they might share in His resurrection.
As we have seen, Paul’s strong hope was in sharing in Jesus’ resurrection, and Paul expected Jesus to return soon in judgment and to inaugurate the resurrection. Paul made much of Jesus’ return to judge the living and the dead, manifest in Romans 2:1-11, 16, 2 Corinthians 5:10, and 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9. He meditated at length regarding what the day of resurrection and the resurrection body would be like in 1 Corinthians 15:20-58, very much expecting Christians to look then like Jesus does now in His resurrection body in Philippians 3:21. But much of what Paul had to say about the expectation of Jesus’ return was to counter false narratives suggested about it, manifest in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, and perhaps even over-enthusiasm about it in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15. We have every reason to believe Paul had confidence Jesus would return soon, but such should not mean we have any right to suggest Paul would perceive some kind of failure in what he taught since Jesus has not yet returned after almost two thousand years. “We” in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 are “we who are alive” when the Lord returns; in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, Paul emphasized the importance of always being prepared and always encouraging one another, maintaining the confidence we would all receive the resurrection of life somehow or another. Even after almost two thousand years, Paul’s words in Romans 13:11 remain true: our salvation is closer now than when we first believed. Maranatha (Our Lord, come) indeed (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:22!
Paul’s letters, therefore, remain saturated with the Gospel of Jesus Christ regarding which Paul proved unashamed (Romans 1:16). In Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return, Paul perceived the demonstration of God’s grace, love, and righteousness, fulfilling all He promised to Israel, and making known His righteousness and essential characteristics (Romans 1:17). Paul sought to model his own life after Jesus’ life, sufferings, and death, and encouraged his fellow Christians to do likewise, so they might all share in the exaltation of His resurrection (Romans 8:17-18, 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10). Paul made much of how God reconciled Himself to His people Israel, to all people, and in fact the whole cosmos in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, and lordship, and accordingly exhorted Christians to receive and welcome one another, living in shared faith as the body of Christ, whether Jewish or Gentile, rich or poor, male or female, free or slave (Romans 1:1-15:7, Galatians 3:1-5:16, 1 Corinthians 11:1-14:40, Ephesians 1:1-6:18, Colossians 1:1-4:1). Paul very much lived according to his hope in Jesus’ return, the judgment, and the resurrection of life, and encouraged Christians to imitate him to the same end (2 Corinthians 4:1-5:10, Philippians 3:1-21, etc.).
We do well to consider how Paul spoke of the Gospel, in each component and as a whole, in all of his letters. He had worked to understand how his life needed to change because of what God accomplished in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and would accomplish in His return, and worked out what it all meant for the various people to whom he preached and ministered in the Mediterranean world of the late Second Temple Period Jewish and Greco-Roman milieu. We should seek to imitate Paul as he imitated Jesus by deeply considering how the Gospel should profoundly affect and shape our lives, and proving willing to humble ourselves, suffer, and perhaps even die like Jesus so we might share in Jesus’ resurrection!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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