PAULINE THEOLOGY. The letters of Paul, containing the message of the apostle, were written to meet certain specific situations in particular churches, and are therefore principally pastoral in tone and content. They presuppose the apostle’s evangelistic preaching, but give only sporadic glimpses of its nature and data (1 Cor 15:1-11; 1 Thess 1:5-10). They also allude in tantalizing fashion to other letters which presumably have not survived (1 Cor 5:9; Col 4:16), to other visits not recorded (Rom 15:19; 2 Cor 2:1; 12:14; 13:1; Titus 1:5), and to other practices or doctrines never clarified (1 Cor 15:29; 2 Thess 2:5-7). In addition, on such matters as the existence and personality of God, the authority of Scripture, and baptism—matters on which there was no dispute within the churches, nor could Paul envision any—there is little treatment except to indicate certain major implications, for these were tenets he assumed were held in common by all believers and elements in the substructure of the faith upon which he believed he could safely base his appeals.

It cannot be assumed, therefore, that the apostle’s correspondence as contained in the NT reveals the whole of his thinking and preaching regarding Christian faith and practice. Nor is one entitled to treat the collection of his letters as a volume on systematic theology, for though he thought theologically, everything the apostle wrote is set in the context of history and polemic. Nonetheless, sufficient material has been preserved under the direction of the Holy Spirit to allow a fairly clear picture of the main outlines of the apostle’s thought. The Christian who looks at Paul’s message in its historical setting discovers that the doctrines Paul enunciated and the principles governing his specific exhortations are authoritative for faith and practice today; the same Spirit preserved who first inspired—and it is His also to illuminate and apply.

1. Originality and dependence. Paul emphatically asserts that “the gospel which was preached by me” is independent of any human source or agency, having come to him directly “through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rom 16:25, 26; Gal 1:1, 11, 12; Eph 3:2-10). His message was so thoroughly his own, in fact, that he refers to it as simply “my gospel” (Rom 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim 2:8) and “our gospel” (2 Cor 4:3; 1 Thess 1:5; 2 Thess 2:14). Yet he also insists that his preaching is not radically different from that of the other apostles (1 Cor 15:11; Gal 2:6-10), and refers in his letters to kerygmatic traditions which he assumes were held in common by all Christians (Rom 6:17; 1 Cor 11:23; 15:3-5; cf. 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6). Indeed, as there is but one Christ there could be only one Gospel. Had it been otherwise, he would have felt he was “running or had run in vain” (Gal 2:2). Such assertions appear, on the face of it, to be in direct conflict, and have led many to view Pauline theology as either (a) essentially original, being in the main the result of a direct revelation to the apostle; or (b) essentially dependent, stemming for the most part from his Jewish and Christian predecessors—or perhaps as overstatements made in the heat of argument, or possibly even due to later redaction of his letters.

It is a mistake, however, to press such statements beyond their proper limits or to set them in rather wooden opposition one to the other. Paul’s gospel given him by revelation was not a gospel differing in kerygmatic content from that of the Early Church. Rather, it was a message which included a new understanding of the pattern of redemptive history in these final days, involving the legitimacy of a direct approach to Gentiles and the recognition of the equality of Jew and Gentile before God (Rom 16:25, 26; Eph 3:2-10; Col 1:26, 27). Paul could not claim the usual apostolic qualifications as expressed in John 15:27 and Acts 1:21, 22. He was dependent upon those who were believers before him for much in the Christian tradition, as his letters frankly indicate. But he had been confronted by the exalted Lord, directly commissioned an apostle by Jesus Himself, and given the key to the pattern of redemptive history in the present age. The Jerusalem apostles had the key to many of the prophetic mysteries and were the living canons of the data in the Gospel proclamation, but he had been entrusted with a further aspect of that message which by revelation was uniquely his. Together, they combined to enhance the fullness of the Gospel.

2. Dominant perspectives. The key to Pauline theology is to be found in Paul’s thought regarding Jesus Christ, and is prob. most aptly expressed in the apostle’s frequently repeated phrase “in Christ.” Paul’s theology is Christocentric and his religion a life lived in communion with and response to his exalted Lord. This fact must be maintained in the face of all ethical interpretations of religion—whether Jewish, Stoic or so-called Christian—which lay emphasis upon laws and principles as final criteria. It must also be asserted in opposition to contemporary religious existentialism which seeks to explain Paul’s theology along the lines of anthropology. Paul’s doctrine of man is only a part of his total thought and subservient to his doctrine of Christ, for in Paul’s view, man can be truly understood and life truly authentic only in relation to Jesus Christ. Paul’s theology is not even a theology in the narrow sense of that term. While accepting all that the OT teaches about God the Father, Paul’s proclamation that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19) in context indicates that the focus has shifted for Paul from the first to the second Person of the Trinity. Nor can Paul’s thought be described principally in terms of soteriology, ecclesiology or eschatology (many people’s favorite central concepts to explain early Christian thought). All of these were subjected by the apostle to his overruling and central theme: salvation is salvation “in Christ,” the Church exists as the “Body of Christ” because believers are first of all “in Christ,” and the future holds promise because history has been anchored and reconstituted at a point of time “in Christ.”

Likewise, Paul’s thought is predominantly historical, functional and dynamic in nature. It was “when the time had fully come” that “God sent forth his Son” (Gal 4:4), suggesting that, while metaphysical elements inevitably appear in his preaching, the apostle understood the coming of Christ and the redemption of God in Him first of all in historical terms. And in that God’s Son has come “to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:5) and “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19), the conclusion is inescapable that the focus of Paul’s preaching was on the redemptive significance of Christ’s work.

Functional and ontological categories can never be detached or held in isolation from one another, for what Christ did has its basis in who he was and is. Indeed, both are constantly interwoven in the apostle’s correspondence. Yet Paul seems to have laid primary emphasis upon the functional aspect and assumed for the most part (at least in his pastoral letters) the ontological. Only where his message was challenged by some alien metaphysical system that would depreciate the person of Jesus Christ, as happened at Colossae, did he enter into something of an extended description of Christ’s being or essence (Col 1:15-19; 2:9, 10); though even here his purpose in such a description was to clear the way for the proclamation of Christ’s redemptive work (Col 1:20-23; 2:11-15). As his Christian faith came to birth not through metaphysical speculation nor philosophic induction, but resulted from confrontation by the risen and exalted Christ, so he proclaimed the activity of God in Christ as set in a dynamic and redemptive context; though since his preaching had an inevitable metaphysical and ontological basis—and as he was providentially led to a fuller explication of his Christian convictions—these factors inevitably appear in the warp and woof of his theology.

3. Man’s state and need. As a backdrop to the display of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, Paul speaks of man’s state and need. In depicting the created state of man, the apostle evidences a qualified anthropological dualism in referring to man as possessing an “inner” and an “external” constitution (Rom 7:22; 8:10; 1 Cor 5:5; 6:20; 7:34; 2 Cor 7:1; Eph 3:16). The division of man into two component parts often is said to reflect his debt to Hellenism. It also appears, however, in strictly Hebraic contexts (Gen 2:7; 35:18; 1 Kings 17:22; Lev. Rabbah 34:3; BT Sanhedrin 91a, b). But while acknowledging a structural dichotomy, Paul also insists upon the fundamental unity of the human personality wherein the structural elements comprise intrinsic parts. 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 is instructive in this regard, for here, while accepting the fact of man’s inner and external components, the apostle longs for consummation in terms of a perfected union of the two structural aspects—explicitly renouncing any thought of a merely “soulish” redemption and any idea of the separation of material and immaterial as ideal. Paul never thought of the body of man as the tomb of the soul or as corrupting of itself. True, it has become a captive vehicle for evil because of the entrance of sin. Essentially, however, the material and immaterial components of man are both created by God to form one complete human personality, and thus that material constitution (a) may presently enter into communion with God (1 Cor 3:16; 6:15, 19, 20); (b) is a medium through which God can be glorified (Rom 12:1; 1 Cor 6:20; Phil 1:20); and (c) shall in the future experience more fully divine redemption and fellowship (Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 15:35-50; 2 Cor 5:1-5; Phil 3:21). In addition, Paul spoke of man in terms of a number of functional aspects, behind each of which lay the whole personality (e.g., 1 Thess 5:23).

In his synthetic rather than analytic approach to man, and in his explicit anthropological formulations, Paul indicates that his basic thought is rooted in the soil of the OT and orthodox Judaism. He differed from his Jewish heritage more in emphasis than in doctrine, stressing as he does the spiritual (pneumatic) nature of man more than the created (psychic); but that must be credited to his Christian experience and resultant convictions. None of this, however, highlights his teaching on man’s most important need; for while man as creature is responsible, Paul laid stress on the fact that man as sinner is in rebellion and thus desperately needy.

The OT doctrine of the sinfulness of man was explicated in the Judaism of Paul’s day in two ways. The first way stressed the inherited depravity of all men and their resultant personal guilt, and was expressed at least as early as the 2nd cent. b.c. in Sirach 25:24: “From a woman did sin originate, and because of her we all must die.” And it continued through at least the latter part of the 1st cent. a.d. in such words as those of 4 Ezra 7:116-126, wherein the consciousness of personal responsibility is coupled with the cry: “O Adam, what hast thou done? For though it was thou that sinned, the fall was not thine alone, but ours also who are thy descendants!” (cf. 1QH 4. 29, 30; Apoc. Moses 14, 32; 2 Enoch 30:17; Wisdom 2:23, 24; 4 Ezra 3:7, 8, 20-22; 2 Baruch 48:42, 43).

The other strand of Jewish thought laid emphasis upon a doctrine of good and evil “impulses” (yetzer) implanted by God in equal measure within every man, thus de-emphasizing inheritance and attributing guilt to men individually. This teaching can also be found in the centuries immediately prior to Christianity (Sirach 15:14, 15; 1QS column 4), but came to full expression later in 2 Baruch 54:19: “Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul; but each of us has been the Adam of his own soul.” This also is expressed in the teaching of Rabbi Akiba in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries a.d. (BT Sanhedrin 81a). Through Akiba, this teaching became standard doctrine for rabbinic and modern Judaism.

Paul clearly relates man’s sin to the transgression of Adam, insisting that through one man sin and death have infected all mankind with disastrous results (Rom 5:12-21; 1 Cor 15:21, 22). He does not, however, merely leave it there, but, like the earlier rabbis, goes on to assert man’s personal responsibility as well. There are therefore two emphases in Paul’s teaching: a corporate solidarity with Adam by which all men inherit a radical depravity of nature, and an individual responsibility for the expression of that depravity by which all men become guilty (cf. the krima ex henos eis kata-krima of Rom 5:16). Or as he puts it in Romans 7: (a) man’s history is so irrevocably rooted in Adam that he is forced to cry in effect, “I am in Adam” (vv. 7-13); (b) man’s experience is so obviously in opposition to God that he must acknowledge in effect, “Adam is in me” (vv. 14-24); which facts together mean that (c) “I of myself” (that is, man as he is now is by nature and practice) am in rebellion against God and unable to please Him (v. 24). Surely man’s sin has not taken God by surprise, for Paul insists that the divine plan of salvation was conceived by the Creator before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4; 3:9), but it is sin which stands as the occasion for the manifestation of God’s grace in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

4. The law. Paul’s teaching regarding the law is complex, and has been variously evaluated. In the main, two approaches have been followed in interpreting Paul’s view of the law. The first, stemming from Origen and Tertullian, views the apostle as making a distinction between the moral and ceremonial aspects of Mosaic legislation: the moral expressing the eternal will of God for man, which is fixed throughout the course of history and which the apostle considers “holy, just and good”; the ceremonial aspect being a secondary addition to prefigure the person and work of Christ, which symbolism, once finding reality in Jesus of Nazareth, is to be either spiritualized or set aside by the Christian. Often it is claimed, as Origen and Tertullian also asserted, that the absence or presence of the definite article with the word “law” in Paul’s writings can aid in determining which usage the apostle had in mind, though not invariably. The second line of interpretation is founded in the exegesis of Chrysostom, Theodore, and Theodoret of the “Antioch School” (though not always consistently), and views Paul’s understanding of the law in more wholistic and historical terms. On this view, (a) the Mosaic law was given not only to express in fuller form the primal will of God for man but also as a developed system of righteousness which would be adequate if man could achieve it; (b) but since man is unable to fulfill the requirements of the law, its underlying purpose of revealing and condemning sin came to the fore; (c) Christ, however, both bore the condemnation and fulfilled the obligations of the law (moral and religious), thus providing both redemption and righteousness for all who are His; (d) therefore, the Christian lives not in relation to the law but in response to his Lord who has reiterated and heightened the expression of God’s eternal principles, borne the curse of the law, fulfilled the law’s obligations in their contractual form, and enables His own to live lives pleasing to the Father.

The first interpretation became almost universal in the Western church and experienced a revival in late 19th-century theology. It appears, however, to rest more on polemic purpose than exegetical principle and to reflect more a static understanding of Pauline thought than an historical. The second underlies to a great extent the Protestant Reformation (cf. Luther’s On the Freedom of the Christian), and must be judged to correspond more closely to the thinking of the apostle.

For Paul, then, the law as expressing God’s standard is the inevitable and inviolable expression of a holy and righteous God which has been declared in nature and in the conscience of man (Rom 1:19, 20; 2:14, 15). It was given at the beginning of human history when man first had need of such knowledge (Rom 5:14), and was reiterated, clarified, amplified and applied to the people’s new situation of nationhood in the Mosaic code. As the Mosaic legislation expressed this aspect of the divine will in the form of concrete regulations, it offered guidance for life and provided a standard for judgment when men fell short. Without denying this aspect of the law, however, Paul also asserts another function for the Mosaic covenant as well: the law as a system of works which placed men under a contractual obligation. In this latter sense it (a) came 430 years after the promise had been confirmed with Abraham, and therefore cannot annul such a promise (Gal 3:17), (b) was added in the process of redemptive history due to the hardness and waywardness of man, and not as a restatement of God’s covenant promise given earlier (Gal 3:18, 19); (c) has its terminus in the coming of God’s Messiah (Gal 3:19); and (d) by its very nature of having been mediated through angelic and human agency reveals itself to be inferior to the unilateral grace of God (Gal 3:19, 20). Negatively, it prepared for faith in Christ and the reception of the promise by revealing sin to be “sinful beyond measure” (Rom 7:13; cf. Rom 3:19, 20). And, on the principle that forbidden fruits are sweetest, it actually stirred up transgressions so that men might understand the extent of their own rebellion against God (Rom 5:20; cf. Rom 7:5, 7-11). Positively, it served as a kind of supervising cu stodian keeping God’s chosen people in ward until Christ came (Gal 3:23-25).

As a system of works given through Moses, the law came with a valid promise of life and righteousness (Rom 7:10), but a promise incapable of reception because of the inability of man to fulfill its obligations (Rom 8:3). It called for complete obedience (Gal 3:10; 5:3), but in so doing placed men under a curse since men are unable to live up to it (Gal 3:10). Thus Paul contrasts the experience of men prior to Christ as being “under the law” with the righteousness of God now revealed in Jesus Christ which is “apart from law” (Rom 3:19-21; 1 Cor 9:20; Gal 3:23-25; 5:18), and insists that “Christ is the end of the law in its connection with righteousness” (Rom 10:4). In both its negative and positive features, the law in its contractual form served a vital purpose in the redemptive program of God—and where Christ is yet to be acknowledged, may still function in this manner. It was “counted as loss” by Paul only in comparison to the “surpassing worth” of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 3:7-18; Phil 3:7-11). Historically, it was given that men might see themselves for what they really are in the sight of God and as a guardian preparing men for faith in Christ. Any return to it for righteousness after the coming of Christ, however, is a return to “weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal 4:3, 9; Col 2:20), for human depravity prevents man from ever fulfilling its requirements (Rom 8:3).

5. The person and work of Christ. The central motif in the Pauline message is that the divine plan of redemption has its focal point in human history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. “When the time had fully come,” the apostle proclaims, “God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4, 5).

The work of Christ in Paul’s teaching is presented primarily in relation to the law. In coming “under the law” Christ has taken both the curse and the obligations of the law upon Himself, bearing both on behalf of those unable to bear either and thereby reconciling us to the Father. Christ in His death “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13); was made sin for us “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21); “canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:14); and reconciled us “in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present [us] holy and blameless and irreproachable before him” (Col 1:22). But the act of Calvary is not the whole story for Paul, important as it is. The apostle does not proclaim a redemption which merely obliterates the curse of the law, presenting the individual to God as neutral. He also insists that Christ has fulfilled the legal demands of the contractual obligation established in the Mosaic covenant, thus presenting before the Father a positive righteousness for all those who are “in Him.”

The thought of the obedience of Christ, although included in that of the sacrifice of Christ (cf. Phil 2:8), is not exhausted in the consideration of that act. The declared purpose of Jesus included a fulfilling of the law (Matt 5:17), and Paul picks up that theme in Romans 5:18, 19, contrasting the disobedience of Adam with the obedience of Christ; for not only was “one man’s trespass” countered by “one man’s act,” but “one man’s disobedience” was rectified by “one man’s obedience.”

This thought seems to be likewise involved in Paul’s repeated emphasis on righteousness as based not upon “the works of the law” but upon “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,” and given to all who respond to Him by faith (Rom 3:22; Gal 2:16; 3:22; Eph 3:12; Phil 3:9). That which the contractual obligation of the law demanded, Christ has provided. He stood for mankind in offering the perfect righteousness, so that all who stand “in Him” stand before the Father not in their own righteousness but robed in His. As James Denney once said: “It is the voice of God, no less than that of the sinner, which says, ‘Thou, O Christ, art all I want; more than all in Thee I find.’” And it is because in His sacrifice He redeemed from the curse of the law and by His perfect obedience He fulfilled the obligations of the law that Paul can assert: “Christ is the end of the law in its connection with righteousness to all who believe” (Rom 10:4). The sacrifice and the obedience of Christ are corollaries which in Paul’s mind could never truly be separated, both validated by His resurrection and living presence.

In his presentation of the person of Christ, Paul has frequently been accused of developing into a divine-man figure one who claimed to be and was originally accepted as only a prophet and eminent teacher. In some areas, of course, development by Paul over that of the earliest Christians is undeniable. In the matter of the titles ascribed to Jesus, however, the situation is quite the reverse, for in this area the apostle is much more limited than were his Christian predecessors. Christos, for example, in the Pauline letters, though overtones of its earlier usage still reverberate, usually appears as a proper name, whereas amongst Jewish believers within the Jewish mission of the Church it was employed almost exclusively as a title. Likewise such early Christological titles as “Son of Man,” “Eschatological Mosaic Prophet,” “Servant of the Lord,” “High Priest,” “The Name,” “God’s Salvation,” “Angel of God,” “The Righteous One,” “Shepherd,” and “Lamb of God” are conspicuous by their absence in what we know of Paul, or appear in such veiled fashion that their presence may be debated. Even “Son of God” and “Son” are found less frequently in Paul’s writings than in such works as the first gospel, the fourth gospel, and the Epistle to the Hebrews; the term “Son of God” appearing only three times in Paul (Rom 1:4; 2 Cor 1:19; Gal 2:20) and “Son” only twelve times (Rom 1:3, 9; 5:10; 8:3, 29, 32; 1 Cor 1:9; 15:28; Gal 1:16; 4:4, 6; 1 Thess 1:10). By far the predominant title for Jesus in the Pauline letters is that of “Lord,” and into it the apostle seems to have compressed most of the nuances of his Christology.

While “Lord” ranged in meaning in the 1st cent. from simple respect (“Sir”) to reverential worship, it was commonly employed in the Gr. OT and the intertestamental writings as a designation for God. And it appears frequently in this manner in the NT as well. With this precedent undoubtedly in mind, the earliest Christians ascribed the title to Jesus in their preaching (Acts 2:36), prayers (1 Cor 16:22, 23), and confessions (Phil 2:11). Thus it need come as no surprise that Paul proclaimed “Jesus as Lord” (Rom 10:9), intending by that to designate Jesus as both divine and the object of faith. Probably the Lordship of Christ was first conceptualized by Paul, as well as by the earliest believers generally, within the matrix of primarily religious and historical concerns. Under the pressures of alien ideologies and the need to speak meaningfully to the concerns of the day, however, the metaphysical and ontological overtones inherent in such original convictions were providentially spelled out. Thus in the face of the Colossian heresy, the apostle proclaimed Jesus as the “cosmic Christ” whose Lordship extends over everything that can be envisaged in the universe of God’s creation (Col 1:15-20). And in view of the rising tide of emperor worship in the eastern regions of the Rom. empire, he explicitly identified Jesus as “God” (Rom 9:5; 2 Thess 1:12; Titus 2:13) and “Savior” (Eph 5:23; Phil 3:20; 2 Tim 1:10; Titus 1:4; 2:13; 3:6; also Acts 13:23).

6. In Christ. In speaking of the personal appropriation of the work of Christ, the apostle repeatedly employs the expression “in Christ.” The phrase, together with its cognates, occurs a total of 172 times in Paul’s writings: 164 in the ten letters from Romans through the Prison Epistles (minus the Pastorals), and another eight times in those addressed to Timothy and Titus. It is the major soteriological expression of Paul, being the basis for and incorporating within itself the patristic themes of “victory” and “redemption,” the Reformation stress on “justification,” the Catholic insistence on “the body,” the more modern emphases on “reconciliation” and “salvation,” and all the Pauline ethical imperatives and appeals.

Of course, the words “in Christ” often can be understood in Paul’s writings to be merely another way of saying “Christian,” as, for example, in such a greeting as “to all the saints in Christ Jesus” (Eph 1:1; Phil 1:1; Col 1:2) or in references to “the dead in Christ” (1 Thess 4:16; cf. 1 Cor 15:18). And there are a host of passages where the ideas of instrumentality and causality (“by” or “through Christ”) or source (“from Christ”) could be read into the phrase, and a perfectly intelligible and theologically proper meaning would emerge (cf. Rom 5:10; 14:14; 2 Cor 3:14; Phil 4:13). But there are other passages where the local and personal flavor is prominent, as, for example, in Philippians 3:8, 9, “that I may gain Christ and be found in him,” and 2 Corinthians 5:17, “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation” (cf. Rom 8:1; 2 Cor 5:19; Eph 1:20). Without asserting a unitary exegesis of the phrase in its every occurrence or denying further implications, it must, therefore, be insisted that in the use of this expression and in his soteriology generally Paul thought first of all in local and personal terms.

Just as the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son (John 10:38; 14:10, 11, 20; 17:21), and just as mankind is in Adam and Adam in man (Rom 5:12-21; 7:7-25), without such relationships ever diminishing the concepts of personality and individual responsibility, so Paul, with his all-pervading Christology, speaks of Christ “in us” as man’s only hope for present fulfillment and future glory (Col 1:27) and of being “in Christ” as man’s only basis for justification and acceptance. He does not speak of a transference of merit, as though righteousness were a commodity which could be stored or exchanged. Nor does he usually talk in terms of “reckoning” or “imputing,” except in Romans 4 and 5:13 where the language is controlled by Psalm 32. Rather, the apostle lays all the emphasis upon a loving response to and personal relationship with Jesus Christ in terms which pass beyond the categories of psychological analysis. Though this may be called a mysticism, it is not the mysticism of absorption, for the “I” and the “Thou” of the relationship retain their identities. It is rather a personal and most intimate communion of man with his God and of God through Christ with man, and is thus the basis for the Christian’s life, hope and acceptance.

7. The body of Christ. Paul’s concept of being “in Christ,” however personal, also has a corporate significance, for it means incorporation into a community wherein the members, being intimately related to Jesus Christ, are thereby inextricably related to one another, and are therefore described as the “body of Christ.” The expression “the body” as representing the Church comes to the fore in the Pauline correspondence most explicitly in Colossians and Ephesians, appearing in conjunction with the apostle’s anti-gnostic polemic in Colossians (Col 1:18, 24; 2:19; 3:15) and then in a strictly ecclesiological context in Ephesians (Eph 1:23; 2:16; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30). Its quasi-technical use in the Prison Epistles, however, is anticipated in the illustration of the body and its members in Romans 12:5 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, in the correlation of the eucharistic bread and the Lord’s body in 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17, and possibly in the words regarding not “discerning the body” of 1 Corinthians 11:29.

A great deal of debate has surrounded Paul’s use of the body imagery. Catholic theology insists that it signifies an ontological reality, thus developing the doctrine of “The Mystical Body” which exists prior to its members and mediates grace. Protestants claim it to be only a metaphor, many heedlessly equating it with some type of “Social Compact Theory” of the Church. The close relation between symbol and reality which is a feature of Heb. thought in general (wherein symbol and reality are closely joined yet never confused) forbids us to make the identity required in any “realistic” or ontological understanding of the phrase. Yet something, on the other hand, is basically wrong in speaking of Paul’s expression as “only a metaphor.” Since hearing the words on the road to Damascus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” the apostle could never look into the face of a Christian without realizing anew the unity that exists between Christ and His Church.

The Church, then, in Paul’s teaching, is composed of individuals vitally related to Jesus Christ and thereby inextricably joined to all others acknowledging a like allegiance. As members of the same body, Christians are (a) to take care not to sin against a brother (1 Cor 8:12); (b) to manifest an attitude of concern for one another, realizing that “if one member suffers all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:25, 26); and (c) to recognize that each has been given abilities and responsibilities by God for the harmonious and fruitful extension of the Gospel of Christ, and to get on with the task in a spirit of mutual dependence and unity (Rom 12:5ff.; 1 Cor 12:27ff.).

It is because of this corporate relationship of believers in Christ that Paul speaks of his fellow Christian as a “brother,” a word testifying to the closeness of a believer to other believers and exceeded in the figure of the family only by terms descriptive of the marriage relationship itself—terms normally reserved in Biblical language for the relation of the Lord and His people. Similarly, while Paul uses the preposition “in” to signify the believer’s personal relation to his Lord, he employs the preposition “with” ofttimes to denote his own unity with other Christians and the believer’s corporate relationship within the community. Thus he refers to his brothers “in Christ” as “fellow workers” (Rom 16:3; Phil 2:25), “partners” (Phil 1:7), “fellow servants” (Col 1:7; 4:7), “fellow soldiers” (Phil 2:25; Philem 2), “fellow prisoners” (Rom 16:7; Col 4:10), and those with whom he both dies and lives (2 Cor 7:3). All of these expressions have “with” as a prefix in the original Gr.

8. The Christian ethic. The Christian life in Paul’s teaching is (a) based upon the fact of a new creation “in Christ”; directed through the correlation of the “law of Christ” and the “mind of Christ”; (c) motivated and conditioned by the “love of Christ”; (d) enabled by the “Spirit of Christ”; and (e) expressed in a situation of temporal tension between what is already a fact and what has yet to be realized. Although they can be spoken of separately, all these elements must be combined and merged in our consciousness if the apostle’s thought is to be rightly understood and the Christian ethic truly exhibited.

As Paul never proclaimed salvation simply by renewal of character, so he never taught the possibility of living the Christian life apart from being “in Christ.” It is because the believer is “in Christ,” and therefore a “new creation,” that life has become transformed (2 Cor 5:17); and it is because Christ is in the believer that Christians can be exhorted to live in obedience to the Spirit of God (Rom 8:10-14). Apart from this foundation, the superstructure of the Pauline ethic has no rationale or support.

Accepting this union of the believer with Christ as the basic premise, however, Paul goes on to speak of the guidance of the Christian as a matter involving both the “law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21; Gal 6:2) and the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). By the “law of Christ” he seems to mean not only the teaching of Jesus as the embodiment and true interpretation of the will of God (Rom 12-14; 1 Cor 7:10, 11; cf. Acts 21:35; 1 Tim 5:18), but also the person of the historical Jesus as the tangible portrayal and example of the divine standard, as is suggested by his phrase “according to Christ” (Rom 15:5; Col 2:8) and his frequent appeals to the character of Jesus (Rom 15:3, 7, 8; 1 Cor 11:1; Eph 5:2, 25ff.; Phil 2:5-11; 1 Thess 1:6). This new law of the Messiah abrogates the supervisory prescriptions of the Mosaic covenant for the believer in Christ (Rom 7:1-6; Gal 3:23-26; Eph 2:15). Nevertheless, at the same time it explicates more fully the divine standard in continuity with that code; and so it is for Paul the external expression of God’s eternal principles, setting the bounds for life and indicating the quality and direction which action should take within those bounds. By the “mind of Christ” Paul seems to have reference to the activity of the Spirit enabling the believer to discern the divine will and to form a proper ethical judgment at each given moment (Rom 12:2; Phil 1:10; 1 Thess 5:19-22). Without the “mind of Christ,” the “law of Christ” remains remote and unattainable. Where the two are in harmony, however, direction is supplied for Christian living.

The “love of Christ” and the “law of Christ” are not so much equated by Paul (as commonly supposed by some, who appeal to Rom 13:10 and James 2:8) as they are balanced, the latter being one aspect in the directing of the Christian’s life and the former spoken of as the motivating and conditioning factor in a life receiving guidance from Christ. That love which motivated and conditioned God’s action on behalf of mankind “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5), with the result that now love has come to characterize the Christian ethic in the same manner. And as love provides the matrix and context for the ethical life of the believer, so the Spirit provides the dynamic and strength; for the same God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead gives life to our “mortal bodies also through his Spirit” (Rom 8:11).

All of this is lived out between the polarities of what has been accomplished by the historical achievement of Jesus and what is yet to be fully realized in the consummation of God’s redemptive program. In such a temporal tension the believer lives, conscious both of (a) what he is “in Adam,” sobering him to the potentialities of his depraved nature; and (b) what he is “in Christ,” awakening him to the prospects of present victories and ultimate conquest.

9. The consummation of God’s plan. Paul’s eschatology, while rooted in the OT and employing the imagery of his day, is basically an extension of his Christology in its distinctive features and focus. God’s Son entered the arena of human history “when the time had fully come” (Gal 4:4), thus inaugurating the Messianic Age and setting in motion a series of events which will reach its climax in the final days. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the presence of His Spirit in the lives of believers are the “firstfruits” which sanctify the whole redemptive process and give assurance of final consummation (Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 15:20, 23). The declaration regarding Christ’s coming again and the believers’ being caught up to meet their Lord is based upon “the word of the Lord” (1 Thess 4:15), the essence of which Paul seems to quote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. And the apostle’s thought regarding the future centers upon the coming again of Christ, the parousia, all else being related to that.

It frequently is asserted that Paul’s eschatology underwent something of a transformation during the course of his ministry, maturing from a crude apocalypticism laying all the emphasis upon the future parousia, to a more refined existential understanding which stressed fulfillment in the present and immortality at death. It is instructive to note, however, that the elements which have so often been cited in Paul to evidence such a development appear conjoined rather than contrasted throughout his writings, from the earliest to the last. Thus in his earlier letters, while reminding his converts of the futuristic note in his evangelistic preaching (1 Thess 1:10) and presenting the parousia in imagery strikingly similar to that of Jewish apocalypticism (1 Thess 4:13-5:11; 2 Thess 2:1-12), the apostle also speaks of Christian conduct as characterized by Christ’s living “in” the believer (Gal 2:20). In writing to Christians at Corinth and Rome, while talking of disembodiment and presence with the Lord at death (2 Cor 5:1-10), Paul also lays heavy emphasis upon full consummation at the parousia (Rom 8:8-15; 1 Cor 15:12-58) and joins in the common prayer of the Church: “Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor 16:22; cf. Rev 22:20). In his letters written during his Rom. imprisonment, although speaking repeatedly of being “in Christ” and of the “body of Christ,” he also writes that “our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:20, 21). And in the Pastoral Epistles, with their stress upon ecclesiastical concerns of the present, there is also the note of “awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Emphases may vary in his letters, depending in large measure upon the situation to which he speaks. And his own expectation of being alive at the time of the parousia may well have changed during the course of his life (cf. 1 Thess 4:15-17; 1 Cor 15:51, 52; 2 Cor 5:1-10). But throughout his Christian experience and ministry, it was the parousia which held center stage in his thoughts regarding the future.

The parousia in Paul’s teaching, then, means first of all permanent union for the Christian with Christ (1 Thess 4:17) and the resurrection of the believer’s body, completing the sonship to which the believer has been called by the transformation of that body “to be like his glorious body” (Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 15:12-58; Phil 3:21). It also means judgment, though for the Christian the ultimate verdict already is known (Rom 8:1); whatever else the judgment may mean in terms of purgation and recompense, it cannot affect the salvation of those who have believed in Christ (1 Cor 3:13-15; 5:5; 2 Cor 5:10). For those apart from Christ, however, the parousia can mean only “sudden destruction,” “wrath,” and “condemnation” (1 Thess 1:10b; 5:3, 9a; 2 Thess 2:10-12). In addition, at the parousia; (a) “the full number of the Gentiles” will be completed (Rom 11:25); (b) the promises of God to Israel will be finally fulfilled (Rom 11:26-31); (c) the creation will be liberated from the shackles imposed as a result of man’s sin (Rom 8:19-22; cf. 1 Cor 7:31b); (d) all rule and authority will be subjected first to the Son and then be delivered by the Son to the Father (1 Cor 15:24, 27); (e) death, the “last enemy,” will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26); and (f) “the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor 15:28).

Though the historical achievement of Jesus is a finished work, its application is progressive and its climax will be reached only in the Second Coming of Christ. And though the Christian experiences resurrection life and intimacy “in Christ” now, and may know even closer fellowship at death, the full realization of his sonship and the consummation of God’s redemptive plan awaits the parousia. For this Paul expectantly waits, joining in the Christian prayer: “Our Lord, come!” (1 Cor 16:22).

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