Paul indifferent not only to ordinary information about Jesus,
but also to ordinary information about men in general. But as a
matter of fact Paul was not indifferent to ordinary information
about men in general. On the contrary, he was exceedingly careful
about getting information just as accurate as could possibly
be secured. Was Paul a visionary, with his head always in the
clouds, indifferent to the concrete problems of individual men,
indifferent to what men had to tell him about their various earthly
relationships, indifferent to their bodily needs? The First Epistle
to the Corinthians is a magnificent refutation of such a caricature.
That Epistle represents Paul as a pastor of souls, unsurpassed in
his insight into the practical problems of his converts, unsurpassed
in the tact with which he applied great principles to special
circumstances. But the same characteristics appear everywhere in
Paul. Everywhere Paul is the true friend, the true patriot, and the
true man; everywhere he exhibits that careful attention to detail,
that careful recognition of special relationships, which is lacking
in genuinely mystical piety. Some pastors are accustomed to say the
same thing no matter what questions are laid before them; they can
only enunciate general principles without applying them to special
problems; they are incapable of special friendships and incapable
of analyzing actual situations. It is not so in the case of Paul.
In the Pauline Epistles special problems are solved in the light of
eternal principles; but the special problems as well as the eternal
principles are subjected to the most careful examination. Paul was
not indifferent to ordinary knowledge of his fellow-men.
Thus when Paul says that he knows no man after the flesh he does
not mean that he ignored the ordinary knowledge which comes through
sight and hearing. But if that kind of knowledge is not excluded
from the relations between Paul and men in general, it is also
not excluded from the relations between Paul and Christ; for the
latter part of the verse is evidently placed in parallel with the
former part. It is evidently the same kind of knowledge which is
excluded in both cases. Paul does not mean, therefore, that he was
indifferent to ordinary sources of information about Christ.
What he does mean is that he regarded those ordinary sources of
information not as an end in themselves, but as a means to an end.
The natural man according to Paul does not understand the true
significance of the words and deeds of his fellow-men; he does
not use them to attest spiritual facts. The man who is in Christ,
on the contrary, even when he uses ordinary means of information,
is acquiring knowledge of spiritual relationships, relationships
which exist in the new world. So it is also with the knowledge of
Christ. The natural man may acquire a certain knowledge of Christ;
he may learn what Christ said and did and what were the worldly
circumstances of His life. But such knowledge is a knowledge
according to the flesh; it does not attain to the true significance
even of those facts which are learned. The man who is in Christ,
on the other hand, may operate partly with the same materials; but
even when he is operating with the same materials, even when he is
obtaining by sight or by hearsay knowledge of the words and deeds
of Jesus, these facts now are invested with a higher significance.
The natural man detects only the outward appearance of the words
and deeds of Jesus; the man who is in Christ makes them attest
facts that have significance in the new world. No doubt the higher
knowledge of Christ of which Paul is speaking is not limited to this
spiritual use of ordinary sources of information; no doubt there is
also a direct intercourse between the believer and the risen Lord.
But the spiritual use of the ordinary sources of information is
certainly not excluded. Paul does not mean that he was indifferent
to what Jesus said and did.
Thus 2 Cor. v. 16, rightly interpreted, does not attest any
indifference on the part of Paul toward the information about Jesus
which came to him through contact with Jesus' disciples. Such
indifference, however, is also thought to be attested by the Epistle
to the Galatians. In Gal. i, ii, Paul emphasizes his complete
independence over against the original disciples. He received his
gospel, he says, not by the instrumentality of men, but by direct
revelation from the risen Christ. Even after the revelation he felt
no need of instruction from those who had been apostles before him.
It was three years before he saw any of them, and then he was with
Peter only fifteen days. Even when he did finally have a conference
with the original apostles, he received nothing from them; they
recognized that God had already entrusted him with his gospel and
that they had nothing to add. What can this passage mean, it is
asked, except that Paul was indifferent to tradition, and derived
his knowledge of Christ entirely from revelation?
In answer, it is sufficient to point to 1 Cor. xv. 1-11. Was Paul
indifferent to tradition? In 1 Cor. xv. 3 he himself attests the
contrary; he places tradition--something that he had received--at
the very foundation of his missionary preaching. "For I delivered
unto you among the first things," he says, "that which I also
received." The word "received" here certainly designates information
obtained by ordinary word of mouth, not direct revelation from the
risen Christ; and the content of what was "received" fixes the
source of the information pretty definitely in the fifteen days
which Paul spent with Peter at Jerusalem. It is almost universally
admitted that 1 Cor. xv. 3ff. contains the tradition of the
Jerusalem Church with regard to the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The comparison with 1 Cor. xv. 1-11 thus exhibits the danger of
interpreting the Epistle to the Galatians in one-sided fashion. If
Galatians stood by itself, the reader might suppose that at least
the resurrection of Christ, the central fact of Paul's gospel, was
founded, in Paul's preaching, upon Paul's own testimony alone. In
Galatians Paul says that his gospel was not derived from men. But
his gospel was grounded upon the resurrection of Christ. Surely,
it might be said, therefore, he based at least the resurrection
not at all upon the testimony of others but upon the revelation
which came to him from Christ. Is it possible to conceive of the
author of Galatians as appealing for the foundation of his gospel
to the testimony of Peter and the twelve and other brethren in
the primitive Church--to the testimony of exactly those men whose
mediatorship he is excluding in Galatians? Yet as a matter of fact,
that is exactly what Paul did. That he did so is attested not by the
Book of Acts or by any source upon which doubt might be cast, but
by one of the accepted epistles. The Epistle to the Galatians must
always be interpreted in the light of 1 Cor. xv. 1-11.
What then does Paul mean in Galatians when he says that he received
his gospel directly from Christ? The answer is perfectly plain. He
does not mean that when he drew near to Damascus on that memorable
day he knew none of the facts about Jesus; he does not mean that
after that day his knowledge of the facts was not enriched by
intercourse with Jesus' friends. What Jesus really gave him near
Damascus was not so much the facts as a new interpretation of the
facts. He had known some of the facts before, but they had filled
him with hatred. The Galilean prophet had cast despite upon the Law;
He had broken down the prerogatives of Israel; it was blasphemous,
moreover, to proclaim a crucified malefactor as the Lord's Anointed.
Paul had known the facts before; he had known them only too well.
Now, however, he obtained a new interpretation of the facts; he
obtained that new interpretation not by human intermediation, not by
reflection upon the testimony of the disciples, not by the example
of the holy martyrs, but by revelation from Jesus Himself. Jesus
Himself appeared to him. He might have appeared in anger, to destroy
him for his unspeakable sin. Instead, He appeared in love, to call
him into fellowship and into glorious service, to commission him as
apostle of the One whose Church he had laid waste. That is what Paul
means when he says that he received his gospel directly from the
risen Christ.
The truth is, it never occurred to Paul to regard the bare facts
about Jesus as constituting a "gospel"; it never even occurred
to Paul to reflect upon all the sources of information about the
facts. To us the sources of information about Jesus are limited:
therefore they are searched out and numbered and weighed. But to
Paul the sources of information were so numerous that they could
not be catalogued. It never occurred to him to regard with supreme
gratitude the particular source from which he derived any particular
bit of information about Jesus any more than we regard with special
gratitude the newspaper from which we derive our knowledge of
current events. If one newspaper had not printed the news, others
would have done so; the sources of information are so numerous
that we do not reflect upon them. So it was in the case of Paul's
information about Jesus. Bare detailed information about the words
and deeds of Jesus did not in Paul's mind constitute a "gospel";
they constituted only the materials upon which the gospel was based.
When he says, therefore, that he did not receive his gospel from
men he does not mean that he received no information from Peter or
Barnabas or Mark or James or the five hundred brethren who had seen
the risen Lord. What he does mean is that he himself was convinced
of the decisive fact--the fact of the resurrection--not by the
testimony of these men, but by the divine interposition on the road
to Damascus, and that none of these men told him how he himself was
to be saved or what he was to say to the Gentiles about the way of
salvation. Materials for the proof of his gospel might come to him
from ordinary sources of information, but his gospel itself was
given to him directly by Christ.
Thus Paul does not directly attest any indifference on his
part toward tradition about the life of Jesus. But is not such
indifference revealed by the extreme paucity of references in the
Pauline Epistles to what Jesus said and did?
In answer to this question it must be admitted that direct citations
in the Pauline Epistles of words of Jesus, and direct references to
the details of Jesus' life, are surprisingly few. In 1 Cor. vii. 10,
Paul appeals to a command of the Lord about divorce, and carefully
distinguishes such commands from what he himself is saying to the
Corinthians (verses 12, 25). In 1 Cor. ix. 14, he calls attention
to an ordinance of the Lord to the effect that they that proclaim
the gospel should live of the gospel. In these passages it cannot
be doubted that the commands of "the Lord" are commands that Jesus
gave during His earthly ministry; they are certainly not commands
given to Paul by the risen Christ. For the words which Paul himself
wrote to his churches, by virtue of his apostolic authority,
themselves constituted commands of the Lord in the broad sense, in
that the authority of the Lord was behind them (1 Cor. xiv. 37);
here, therefore, when such apostolic commands are distinguished from
commands of the Lord, the commands of the Lord must be taken in a
narrower sense. They can only be commands given by Jesus during His
earthly ministry.[80]
[80] Compare Knowling, _The Witness of the Epistles_, 1892, pp. 319f.
These passages show that Paul was in the habit of distinguishing
what Jesus said on earth to His disciples from what the risen Lord
said to him directly by revelation. They show, moreover, that Paul
was in possession of a fund of information about the words of
Jesus. It may be a question why he did not draw upon the fund more
frequently; but at any rate, the fund was there.
In 1 Thess. iv. 15, the assurance that those who are alive at
the Parousia shall not precede those that have died is grounded
in a word of the Lord ("For this we say to you in a word of the
Lord").[81] Here again the "word of the Lord" is probably to be
regarded as a word which Jesus spoke while He was on earth, rather
than as a revelation made by the risen Lord directly to Paul. If
this interpretation be correct, then this passage contains another
incidental reference to a fund of information about the words of
Jesus.
[81] τοῧτο γάρ ὑμῖν λέγομεν ἐν λόγῳ κυρίου.
Most important of all, however, is the report of the institution of
the Lord's Supper in 1 Cor. xi. 23ff. The report is introduced by
the words, "For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered
unto you." What does Paul mean by the expression "received from the
Lord"? Does he mean that the information was given him directly by
the risen Christ, or that he received it by ordinary word of mouth
from the eyewitnesses? The former interpretation has been favored
in the first place by some who occupy a strictly supernaturalistic
point of view, to whom therefore it does not seem strange that the
risen Christ should give to His apostle even detailed information
about past events; it has also been favored by some who start from
naturalistic presuppositions, and, regarding Paul as a mystic and a
visionary, seek to separate him as far as possible from historical
tradition about Jesus. But from either of these two points of view
the interpretation is unsatisfactory. Why should the risen Christ
give to His apostle detailed information which could be obtained
perfectly well by ordinary inquiry from the eyewitnesses? Such
revelation would be unlike the other miracles of the Bible. God
does not rend the heaven to reveal what can be learned just as
well by ordinary word of mouth. But this interpretation is equally
unsatisfactory from the naturalistic point of view. Did Paul really
suppose the risen Christ to have given him all this detailed
information about the night of the betrayal and the rest? How could
such a visionary experience be explained? The only possible answer,
on naturalistic presuppositions, would be that the vision merely
made use of materials which were already in Paul's mind; Paul
already had information from the eyewitnesses about the Supper, but
after he had forgotten whence he had received the information it
welled up again from his subconscious life in the form of a vision.
This explanation involves a psychological absurdity. The area of
Paul's consciousness was not so limited as it is represented in
modern reconstructions as being. If Paul received information from
the eyewitnesses about what Jesus said and did on the night of the
betrayal, we can be sure that he remembered the information and
remembered where he had got it. It was not necessary for him to
receive it all over again in a vision.
There are therefore serious _a priori_ objections against finding
in the words "received from the Lord" in 1 Cor. xi. 23 a reference
to direct revelation. But this interpretation is not really favored
by the words as they stand. The word "from," in the clause "I
received from the Lord," is not the only word used for "from" after
the word "received"; this word seems to indicate not the immediate
but the ultimate source of what is received.[82] Furthermore, the
word "received"[83] in 1 Cor. xv. 3 certainly refers to ordinary
information obtained from eyewitnesses; it is natural therefore to
find a similar usage of the word in 1 Cor. xi. 23. It is natural to
interpret one passage after the analogy of the other. In 1 Cor. xv.
3ff. Paul is certainly appealing to ordinary tradition; probably,
therefore, he is also doing so in 1 Cor. xi. 23ff. The report of
the institution of the Lord's Supper is thus to be added to those
passages which contain definite citations of the words of Jesus.
[82] ἀπό is here used, not παρά.
[83] παρέλαβον.
This report also belongs with those passages in the Epistles which
attest knowledge of the details of Jesus' life. It is sometimes said
that Paul is interested only in two facts about Jesus, the death
and the resurrection. Yet in 1 Cor. xi. 23 he refers even to such a
detail as the betrayal, and fixes the time of its occurrence--"the
night in which He was betrayed." Other details about the life of
Jesus may be gleaned from the Epistles. Jesus, according to Paul,
was a Jew, He was descended from David, He was subject to the Mosaic
Law, He had brothers, of whom one is named, He carried on a ministry
for the Jews (Rom. xv. 8). With regard to the crucifixion and
resurrection, moreover, Paul was interested not merely in the bare
facts themselves; he was also interested in the details connected
with them. Thus in 1 Cor. xv. 4 he mentions the burial of Jesus as
having formed a part of his fundamental missionary preaching; and he
also gives in the same connection an extended list of appearances
of the risen Christ. It is possible that when Paul writes to the
Galatians that Jesus Christ crucified had been pictured or placarded
before their eyes (Gal. iii. 1), he is referring, not merely to
the forcibleness with which the one fact of Christ's death was
proclaimed in Galatia, but also to the vividness with which the
story was told in detail. So vivid was the story of the crucifixion
as Paul told it in Galatia that it was as though the Galatians had
before their eyes a great picture of Jesus on the cross.
Moreover, the references of Paul to Jesus' life concern not merely
details; some of them also attest warm appreciation of Jesus'
character. The character of Jesus is indeed, according to Paul,
exhibited primarily by the great central act of love by which He
came to earth to die for the salvation of men. In Phil. ii. 5ff.,
the unselfishness of Christ, which is held up for imitation by
the Philippian Christians, is found no doubt primarily in the
incarnation and in the Cross; in Gal. ii. 20, the love of Christ,
upon which the faith and the gratitude of believers are based, is
found in the one great fact of Christ's death ("who loved me and
gave himself for me"). But there are also passages in the Epistles
which show that Paul was impressed with the character of Jesus not
only as it was manifested by the incarnation and by the atoning
death, but also as it appeared in the daily life of Jesus throughout
His earthly ministry. The plainest of such passages, perhaps, are 2
Cor. x. 1 and Rom. xv. 2, 3. When Paul speaks of the meekness and
gentleness of Christ, he refers evidently to the impression which
Jesus made upon His contemporaries; and when he says that Christ
"pleased not himself" but bore reproaches patiently, he is evidently
thinking not only of the gracious acts of incarnation and atonement
but also of the conduct of Jesus from day to day. In 2 Cor. viii. 9
("though He was rich yet for your sakes He became poor"), although
the reference may be primarily to the poverty of any human life
as compared with the glories of the preëxistent Christ, yet the
peculiar choice of words is probably due to the details of Jesus'
life of hardship; Paul would hardly have spoken in this way if Jesus
while He was on earth had lived in the magnificence of an earthly
kingdom. Even in Phil. ii. 7, though the "form of a servant" refers
primarily to human existence as distinguished from the glories of
heaven, yet there seems to be also an impression of the special
humility and poverty of Jesus' earthly life; and the Cross is put
as the climax of an obedience which appeared also in Jesus' life
as a whole (verse 8). Back of these passages there lies warm
appreciation of Jesus' character as it appeared in the days of His
flesh. Imitation of Christ (1 Thess. i. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 1) had its
due place in the life and teaching of Paul, and that imitation was
founded not only upon one act, but upon many acts, of the Lord. When
Paul speaks of his own life of constant self-sacrifice, in which
he seeks not his own comfort but the salvation of others, as being
led in imitation of Christ (1 Cor. x. 32-xi. 1), he has before his
mind the lineaments of just that Jesus who is known to us in the
Gospels--that Jesus who had not where to lay His head, who went
about doing good, and who preached the gospel to the poor.
Thus the paucity of references in the Pauline Epistles to the
teaching and example of Jesus has sometimes been exaggerated. The
Epistles attest considerable knowledge of the details of Jesus'
life, and warm appreciation of His character.
Undoubtedly, moreover, Paul knew far more about Jesus than he has
seen fit, in the Epistles, to tell. It must always be remembered
that the Epistles do not contain the missionary preaching of Paul;
they are addressed to Christians, in whose case much of the primary
instruction had already been given. Some things are omitted from the
Epistles, therefore, not because they were unimportant, but on the
contrary just because they were fundamental; instruction about them
had to be given at the very beginning and except for special reasons
did not need to be repeated. Except for certain misunderstandings
which had arisen at Corinth, for example, Paul would never have
set forth in his Epistles the testimony by which the fact of the
resurrection of Jesus was established; yet that testimony, he says,
was fundamental in his missionary preaching. If it were not for the
errorists at Corinth we should never have had the all-important
passage about the appearances of the risen Christ. It is appalling
to reflect what far-reaching conclusions would in that case have
been drawn by modern scholars from the silence of Paul. So it is
also with the account of the institution of the Lord's Supper in
1 Cor. xi. 23ff. That account is inserted in the Epistles only
because of certain abuses which had happened to arise at Corinth.
Elsewhere Paul says absolutely nothing about the institution of
the Supper; indeed, in the Epistles other than 1 Corinthians he
says nothing about the Supper at all. Yet the Lord's Supper was
undoubtedly celebrated everywhere in the Pauline churches, and no
doubt was grounded everywhere in an account of its institution.
Thus the resurrection appearances and the institution of the Lord's
Supper, despite the fact that they were absolutely fundamental in
Paul's teaching, appear each only once in the Epistles. May there
not then have been other things just as prominent in Paul's teaching
which are not mentioned at all? These two things are mentioned only
because of the misunderstandings that had arisen with regard to
them. Certain other things just as important may be omitted from
the Epistles only because in their case no misunderstandings had
happened to arise. It must always be remembered that the Epistles of
Paul are addressed to special needs of the churches. It cannot be
argued, therefore, that what is not mentioned in the Epistles was
not known to the apostle at all.
Thus the incidental character of Paul's references to the life and
teaching of Jesus shows clearly that Paul knew far more than he has
seen fit in the Epistles to tell. The references make the impression
of being detached bits taken from a larger whole. When, for example,
Paul says that the institution of the Lord's Supper took place on
the night in which Jesus was betrayed, he presupposes on the part
of his readers an account of the betrayal, and hence an account of
the traitor and of his position among the apostles. So it is in
other cases where Paul refers to the life and teaching of Jesus. The
references can be explained only as presupposing a larger fund of
information about the words and deeds of Jesus. Unquestionably Paul
included in his fundamental teaching an account of what Jesus said
and did.
Indeed, if he had not done so, he would have involved himself in
absurdity. As J. Weiss has pointed out with admirable acuteness, a
missionary preaching which demanded faith in Jesus without telling
what sort of person Jesus was would have been preposterous.[84]
The hearers of Paul were asked to stake their salvation upon the
redeeming work of Jesus. But who was this Jesus? The question could
scarcely be avoided. Other redeemers, in the pagan religion of the
time, were protected from such questions; they were protected by the
mists of antiquity; investigations about them were obviously out
of place. But Paul had given up the advantages of such vagueness.
The redeemer whom he proclaimed was one of his own contemporaries,
a Jew who had lived but a few years before and had died the death
of a criminal. Investigation of this Jesus was perfectly possible;
His brothers, even, were still alive. Who was He then? Did He suffer
justly on the cross? Or was He the Righteous One? Such questions
could hardly be avoided. And as a matter of fact they were not
avoided. The incidental references in the Epistles, scanty though
they are, are sufficient to show that an account of the words and
deeds of Jesus formed an important part of the teaching of Paul.
[84] J. Weiss, _Das älteste Evangelium_, 1903, pp. 33-39.
The presumption is, therefore, that Paul was a true disciple of
Jesus. He regarded himself as a disciple; he was so regarded by
his contemporaries; he made use of Jesus' teaching and example.
But is this presumption justified? Was it the real Jesus whom Paul
followed? The question can be answered only by a comparison of what
is known about Paul with what is known about Jesus.
But at the very beginning of the comparison, a fundamental
difficulty arises. How may Jesus be known? Paul is known, through
his own letters. But how about Jesus? The sources of information
about Jesus are the four Gospels. But are the Gospels trustworthy?
If they are trustworthy, then it will probably be admitted that
Paul was a true disciple of Jesus. For the Gospels, taken as a
whole, present a Jesus like in essentials to that divine Lord who
was sum and substance of the life of Paul. The Jesus of the Gospels
is no mere prophet, no mere inspired teacher of righteousness,
no mere revealer or interpreter of God. He is, on the contrary,
a supernatural person; a heavenly Redeemer come to earth for the
salvation of men. So much is usually being admitted to-day. Whatever
may have been the real facts about Jesus, the Gospels present a
supernatural Jesus. This representation is contained not merely
in one of the Gospels; it is contained in all of them. The day is
past when the divine Christ of John could be confronted with a
human Christ of Mark. On the contrary, Mark and John, it is now
maintained, differ only in degree; Mark as well as John, even
though it should be supposed that he does so less clearly and less
consistently, presents a Jesus similar in important respects to the
divine Redeemer of the Epistles of Paul.[85]
[85] See, for example, J. Weiss, _Das Urchristentum_, 1914-1917, pp.
540, 547, 548.
Thus if Paul be compared with the Jesus of the Gospels, there is
full agreement between the two. The Jesus of all the Gospels is a
supernatural person; the Jesus of all the Gospels is a Redeemer.
"The Son of Man," according to the shortest and if modern criticism
be accepted the earliest of the Gospels, "came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mk.
x. 45). But it is not necessary to depend upon details. The very
choice of material in the Gospels points to the same conclusion; the
Gospels like the Epistles of Paul are more interested in the death
of Jesus than in the details of His life. And for the same reason.
The Gospels, like the Epistles of Paul, are interested in the death
of Jesus because it was a ransom from sin.
But this similarity of the Jesus of the Gospels to the Christ of
the Pauline Epistles has led sometimes, not to the recognition
of Paul as a disciple of Jesus, but to the hypothesis that the
Gospels are dependent upon Paul. If the Gospels are introducing into
their picture of Jesus elements derived not from the real Jesus
but from the mythical Christ of the Epistles, then of course they
will display similarity to the Epistles; but such similarity will
scarcely be very significant. In comparing the Epistles with the
Gospels, the historian will then be comparing not Paul with Jesus,
but Paul with Paul.
If, therefore, Paul is to be compared with Jesus, it is said, those
elements which are derived from Paul must first be separated from
the Gospels. Even after this separation has been accomplished,
however, there remains in the Gospel picture of Jesus a certain
amount of similarity to the Pauline Christ; it is generally admitted
that the process by which Jesus was raised to the position of a
heavenly being was begun before the appearance of Paul and was
continued in some quarters in more or less independence of him. Thus
if Paul is to be compared with the real Jesus, as distinguished
from the Christ of Christian faith, the historian, it is said, must
first separate from the Gospel picture not merely those details
which were derived distinctly from Paul, but also the whole of
the supernatural element.[86] Mere literary criticism will not
accomplish the task; for even the earliest sources which can be
distinguished in the Gospels seem to lift Jesus above the level
of ordinary humanity and present Him not merely as an example for
faith but also as the object of faith.[87] Even in the earliest
sources, therefore, the historian must distinguish genuine tradition
from dogmatic accretions; he must separate the natural from the
supernatural, the believable from the unbelievable; he must seek
to remove from the genuine figure of the Galilean prophet the
tawdry ornamentation which has been hung about him by naïve and
unintelligent admirers.
[86] For what follows, see, in addition to the paper mentioned at
the beginning of the chapter, "History and Faith," in _Princeton
Theological Review_, xiii, 1915, pp. 337-351.
[87] See Denney, _Jesus and the Gospel_, 1909.
Thus the Jesus who is to be compared with Paul, according to the
modern naturalistic theory, is not the Jesus of the Gospels; he is
a Jesus who can be rediscovered only through a critical process
within the Gospels. And that critical process is very difficult. It
is certainly no easy matter to separate natural and supernatural
in the Gospel picture of Jesus, for the two are inextricably
intertwined. In pulling up the tares, the historian is in danger of
pulling up the wheat as well; in the removal of the supernatural
elements from the story of Jesus, the whole of the story is in
danger of being destroyed. Certain radical spirits are not afraid
of the consequence; since the Jesus of the Gospels, they say, is a
supernatural person, He is not a real person; no such person as this
Jesus ever lived on earth. Such radicalism, of course, is absurd.
The Jesus of the Gospels is certainly not the product of invention
or of myth; He is rooted too deep in historical conditions; He
towers too high above those who by any possibility could have
produced Him. But the radical denials of the historicity of Jesus
are not without interest. They have at least called attention to
the arbitrariness with which the separation of historical from
unhistorical has been carried on in the production of the "liberal
Jesus."
But suppose the separation has been completed; suppose the
historical Jesus has been discovered beneath the gaudy colors which
had almost hopelessly defaced His portrait. Even then the troubles
of the historian are not at an end. For this historical Jesus, this
human Jesus of modern liberalism, is a monstrosity; there is a
contradiction at the very center of His being. The contradiction is
produced by His Messianic consciousness. The human Jesus of modern
liberalism, the pure and humble teacher of righteousness, the one
who kept His own person out of His message and merely asked men to
have faith in God like His faith--this Jesus of modern liberalism
thought that He was to come with the clouds of heaven and be the
instrument in judging the earth! If Jesus was pure and unselfish
and of healthy mind, how could He have applied to Himself the
tremendous conception of the transcendent Messiah? By some the
problem is avoided. Some, like Wrede, deny that Jesus ever presented
Himself as the Messiah; others, like Bousset, are at least moving
in the same direction. But such radicalism cannot be carried out.
The Messianic element in the consciousness of Jesus is rooted too
deep in the sources ever to be removed by any critical process. It
is established also by the subsequent development. If Jesus never
thought Himself to be the Messiah and never presented Himself as
such, how did His disciples come to regard Him as the Messiah after
His death? Why did they not simply say, "Despite His death, the
Kingdom of God is coming?" Why did they say rather, "Despite His
death, He is the Messiah?"[88] They could only have done so if Jesus
had already presented Himself to them as Messiah when He had been
with them on earth.
[88] J. Weiss, "Das Problem der Entstehung des Christentums," in
_Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, xvi, 1913, p. 456.
In recent criticism, such radicalism as that which has just been
discussed is usually avoided. The presence of the Messianic
element in the consciousness of Jesus cannot altogether be denied.
Sometimes, indeed, that element is even made the determining
factor in all of Jesus' teaching. So it is with the hypothesis of
"consistent eschatology" of A. Schweitzer and others.[89] According
to that hypothesis Jesus expected the Kingdom of God to come in
a catastrophic way in the very year in which he was carrying on
His ministry in Galilee, and all His teaching was intended to be
a preparation for the great catastrophe. Even the ethic of Jesus,
therefore, is thought to have been constructed in view of the
approaching end of the world, and is thus regarded as unsuitable
for a permanent world order. This hypothesis not only accepts the
Messianic consciousness of Jesus, but in one direction at least it
even exaggerates the implications of that consciousness.
[89] A. Schweitzer, _Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung_, 1913, pp.
390-443.
Usually, however, this extreme also is avoided, and the historian
pursues, rather, a policy of palliation. Jesus did come to regard
Himself as the Messiah, it is said, but He did so only late in
His ministry and almost against His will. When He found that the
people were devoted to sin, and that He alone was fighting God's
battle, He came to regard Himself as God's chosen instrument in the
establishment of the Kingdom. Thus He had a tremendous consciousness
of a mission. But the only category in which He could express that
consciousness of a mission was the category of Messiahship. In one
form, indeed, that category was unsuitable; Jesus would have nothing
to do with the political aspirations associated with the expected
king of David's line. But the expectation of the Messiah existed
also in another form; the Messiah was sometimes regarded, not as
a king of David's line, but as the heavenly Son of Man alluded to
in Daniel and more fully described in the Similitudes of Enoch.
This transcendent form of Messiahship, therefore, was the form
which Jesus used. But the form, it is maintained, is a matter of
indifference to us, and it was not really essential to Jesus; what
was really essential was Jesus' consciousness of nearness to God.
Such palliative measures will not really solve the problem. The
problem is a moral and psychological problem. How could a pure and
holy prophet of righteousness, one whose humility and sanity have
made an indelible impression upon all subsequent generations--how
could such a one lapse so far from the sobriety and sanity of His
teaching as to regard Himself as the heavenly Son of Man who was to
be the instrument in judging the world? The difficulty is felt by
all thoughtful students who proceed upon naturalistic principles.
There is to such students, as Heitmüller says, something almost
uncanny about Jesus.[90] And the difficulty is not removed by
putting the genesis of the Messianic consciousness late in Jesus'
life. Whether late or early, Jesus did regard Himself as the
Messiah, did regard Himself as the one who was to come with the
clouds of heaven. There lies the problem. How could Jesus, with His
humility and sobriety and strength, ever have lapsed so far from the
path of sanity as to assume the central place in the Kingdom of God?
[90] Heitmüller, _Jesus_, 1913, p. 71.
Here, again, radical minds have drawn the logical conclusions. The
Messianic consciousness, they say, is an example of megalomania;
Jesus, they say, was insane. Such is said to be the diagnosis of
certain alienists. And the diagnosis need cause no alarm. Very
likely it is correct. But the Jesus who is being investigated by the
alienists is not the Jesus of the New Testament. The liberal Jesus,
if he ever existed, may have been insane. But that is not the Jesus
whom the Christian loves. The alienists are investigating a man who
thought he was divine and was not divine; about one who thought He
was divine and was divine they have obviously nothing to say.
Two difficulties, therefore, face the reconstruction of the liberal
Jesus. In the first place, it is difficult to separate the natural
from the supernatural in the Gospel picture of Jesus; and in the
second place, after the separation has been accomplished, the human
Jesus who is left is found to be a monstrosity, with a contradiction
at the very center of His being. Such a Jesus, it may fairly be
maintained, could never have existed on earth.
But suppose He did exist, suppose the psychological impossibilities
of His character be ignored. Even then the difficulties of the
historian are not overcome. Another question remains. How did this
human Jesus ever come to give place to the superhuman Jesus of the
New Testament? The transition evidently occurred at a very early
time. It is complete in the Epistles of Paul. And within Paul's
experience it was certainly no late development; on the contrary
it was evidently complete at the very beginning of his Christian
life; the Jesus in whom he trusted at the time of his conversion was
certainly the heavenly Christ of the Epistles. But the conversion
occurred only a very few years, at the most, after the crucifixion
of Jesus. Moreover, there is in the Pauline Epistles not the
slightest trace of a conflict between the heavenly Christ of Paul
and any "other Jesus" of the primitive Jerusalem Church; apparently
the Christ of Paul was also the Christ of those who had walked and
talked with Jesus of Nazareth. Such is the evidence of the Epistles.
It is confirmed by the Gospels. Like Paul, the Gospels present no
mere teacher of righteousness, but a heavenly Redeemer. Yet the
Gospels make the impression of being independent of Paul. Everywhere
the Jesus that they present is most strikingly similar to the
Christ of Paul; but nowhere--not even where Jesus is made to teach
the redemptive significance of His death (Mk. x. 45)--is there the
slightest evidence of literary dependence upon the Epistles. Thus
the liberal Jesus, if he ever existed, has disappeared from the
pages of history; all the sources agree in presenting a heavenly
Christ. How shall such agreement be explained?
It might conceivably be explained by the appearances of the risen
Christ. If, at the very beginning of the Church's life, Jesus
appeared to His disciples, after His death, alive and in heavenly
glory, it is conceivable that that experience might have originated
the lofty New Testament conception of Jesus' person. But what in
turn caused that experience itself? On naturalistic principles
the appearances of the risen Christ can be explained only by an
impression which the disciples already had of the majesty of Jesus'
person. If they had listened to lofty claims of Jesus like those
which are recorded in the Gospels, if they had witnessed miracles
like the walking on the water or the feeding of the five thousand,
then, conceivably, though not probably, they might have come to
believe that so great a person could not be holden of death, and
this belief might have been sufficient, without further miracle, to
induce the pathological experiences in which they thought they saw
Him alive after His passion. But if the miraculous be removed from
the life of Jesus, a double portion of the miraculous must be heaped
up upon the appearances. The smaller be the Jesus whom the disciples
had known in Galilee, the more unaccountable becomes the experience
which caused them to believe in His resurrection. By one path or
another, therefore, the historian of Christian origins is pushed off
from the safe ground of the phenomenal world toward the abyss of
supernaturalism. To account for the faith of the early Church, the
supernatural must be found either in the life of Jesus on earth, or
else in the appearances of the risen Christ. But if the supernatural
is found in one place, there is no objection to finding it in both
places. And in both places it is found by the whole New Testament.
Three difficulties, therefore, beset the reconstruction of the
"liberal Jesus." In the first place, it is difficult to disengage
His picture from the miraculous elements which have defaced it in
the Gospels; in the second place, when the supposed historical Jesus
has been reconstructed, there is a moral contradiction at the center
of His being, caused by His lofty claims; in the third place, it
is hard to see how, in the thinking of the early disciples, the
purely human Jesus gave place without the slightest struggle to
the heavenly Christ of the Pauline Epistles and of the whole New
Testament.
But suppose all the difficulties have been removed. Suppose a human
Jesus has been reconstructed. What is the result of comparing that
human Jesus with Paul? At first sight there seems to be nothing but
contradiction. But closer examination discloses points of agreement.
The agreement between Jesus and Paul extends even to those elements
in the Gospel account of Jesus which are accepted by modern
naturalistic criticism.
In the first place, Jesus and Paul present the same view of the
Kingdom of God. The term "kingdom of God" is not very frequent in
the Epistles; but it is used as though familiar to the readers, and
when it does occur, it has the same meaning as in the teaching of
Jesus. The similarity appears, in the first place, in a negative
feature--both in Jesus and in Paul, the idea of the Kingdom is
divorced from all political and materialistic associations. That
fact may seem to us to be a matter of course. But in the Judaism of
the first century it was far from being a matter of course. On the
contrary, it meant nothing less than a revolution in thought and in
life. How did Paul, the patriot and the Pharisee, come to separate
the thought of the Kingdom from political associations? How did he
come to do so even if he had come to think that the Messiah had
already appeared? How did he come to do so unless he was influenced
in some way by the teaching of Jesus? But the similarity is not
merely negative. In positive aspects also, the Kingdom of God in
Paul is similar to that which appears in the teaching of Jesus. Both
in Jesus and in Paul, the implications of entrance are ethical. "Or
know ye not," says Paul, "that the unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God" (1 Cor. vi. 9). Then follows, after these words,
as in Gal. v. 19-21, a long list of sins which exclude a man from
participation in the Kingdom. Paul is here continuing faithfully
the teaching of Him who said, "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." Finally both in Jesus and in Paul the Kingdom appears
partly as present and partly as future. In the above passages
from Galatians and 1 Corinthians, for example, and in 1 Cor. xv.
50, it is future; whereas in such passages as Rom. xiv. 17 ("for
the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit"), the present aspect is
rather in view. The same two aspects of the Kingdom appear also in
the teaching of Jesus; all attempts at making Jesus' conception
thoroughly eschatological have failed. Both in Jesus and in Paul,
therefore, the Kingdom of God is both transcendent and ethical.
Both in Jesus and in Paul, finally, the coming of the Kingdom means
joy as well as judgment. When Paul says that the Kingdom of God is
"righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," he is like
Jesus not merely in word but in the whole spirit of the message;
Jesus also proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom as a "gospel."
In the second place, Paul is like Jesus in his doctrine of the
fatherhood of God. That doctrine, it will probably be admitted, was
characteristic of Jesus; indeed the tendency in certain quarters
is to regard it as the very sum and substance of all that Jesus
said. Certainly no parallel to Jesus' presentation of God as Father
has been found in extra-Christian literature. The term "father" is
indeed applied to God here and there in the Old Testament. But in
the Old Testament it is usually in relation to the people of Israel
that God is thought of as Father rather than in relation to the
individual. Even in the Old Testament, it is true, the conception of
the fatherhood of God is not without importance. The consciousness
of belonging to God's chosen people and thus being under God's
fatherly care was immensely valuable for the life of the individual
Israelite; it was no mere product of an unsatisfying state religion
like the religions of Greece or Rome. There was preparation in
Old Testament revelation, here as elsewhere, for the coming of
the Messiah. In Jewish literature outside of the Old Testament,
moreover, and in rabbinical sources, the conception of God as Father
is not altogether absent.[91] But it appears comparatively seldom,
and it lacks altogether the true content of Jesus' teaching. Despite
all previous uses of the word "father" as applied to God, Jesus
was ushering in a new era when He taught His disciples to say, "Our
Father which art in heaven."
[91] Bousset, _Die Religion des Judentums_, 2te Aufl., 1906, pp.
432-434.
This conception of the fatherhood of God appears in Paul in just
the same way as in Jesus. In Paul as well as in Jesus it is not
something to be turned to occasionally; on the contrary it is one of
the constituent elements of the religious life. It is no wonder that
the words, "God our Father," appear regularly at the beginnings of
the Epistles. The fatherhood of God in Paul is not something to be
argued about or defended; it is altogether a matter of course. But
it has not lost, through repetition, one whit of its freshness. The
name "Father" applied to God in Paul is more than a bare title; it
is the welling up of the depths of the soul. "Abba, Father" on the
lips of Paul's converts was exactly the same, not only in form but
also in deepest import, as the word which Jesus first taught His
disciples when they said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray."
But the fatherhood of God in Paul is like the teaching of Jesus
in even more definite ways than in the fervor of the religious
life which it evokes. It is also like Jesus' teaching in being the
possession, not of the world, but of the household of faith. If,
indeed, the fatherhood of God in Jesus' teaching were like the
fatherhood of God in modern liberalism--a relationship which God
sustains toward men as men--then it would be as far removed as
possible from the teaching of Paul. But as a matter of fact, both
Paul and Jesus reserved the term Father for the relation in which
God stands to the disciples of Jesus. One passage, indeed (Matt. v.
45; Luke vi. 35), has been quoted as making God the Father of all
men. But only by a strange misinterpretation. It is strange how in
the day of our boasted grammatico-historical exegesis, so egregious
an error can be allowed to live. The prejudices of the reader have
triumphed here over all exegetical principles; a vague modernism has
been attributed to the sternest, as well as most merciful, Prophet
who ever walked upon earth. When Jesus says, "Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father
who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust," He certainly
does not mean that God is the Father of all men both evil and good.
God cares for all, but He is not said to be the Father of all. On
the contrary, it may almost be said that the very point of the
passage is that God cares for all although He is not the Father of
all. That it is which makes Him the example for those who are to do
good not merely to friends or brothers but also to enemies.
This interpretation does not mean that God does not stand toward all
men in a relation analogous to that of a father to his children;
it does not mean that He does not love all or care for all. But
it does mean that however close may be the relationship which
God sustains to all men, the lofty term Father is reserved for a
relationship which is far more intimate still. Jesus extends to all
men those common blessings which the modern preacher sums up in
the term "fatherhood of God"; but He extends to His own disciples
not only those blessings but infinitely more. It is not the men
of the world--not the "publicans," not the "Gentiles"--who can
say, according to the teaching of Jesus, "Our Father which art in
Heaven." Rather it is the little group of Jesus' disciples--which
little group, however, all without exception are freely invited to
join.
So it is exactly also in the teaching of Paul. God stands, according
to Paul, in a vital relation to all men. He is the author of the
being of all; He cares for all; He has planted His law in the hearts
of all. He stands thus in a relation toward all which is analogous
to that of father to child. The Book of Acts is quite in accord with
the Epistles when it makes Paul say of all men, "For we are also His
offspring." But in Paul just as in Jesus the lofty term "Father"
is reserved for a more intimate relationship. Paul accepts all the
truth of natural religion; all the truth that reappears in the vague
liberalism of modern times. But he adds to it the truth of the
gospel. Those are truly sons of God, he says, who have been received
by adoption into God's household, and in whose hearts God's Spirit
cries, "Abba, Father."
There was nothing narrow about such a gospel; for the door of the
household of faith was opened wide to all. Jesus had died in order
to open that door, and the apostle went up and down the world,
enduring peril upon peril in order to bring men in. There was need
for such service, because of sin. Neither in Jesus nor in Paul
is sin covered up, nor the necessity of a great transformation
concealed. Jesus came not to reveal to men that they were already
children of God, but to make them God's children by His redeeming
work.
In the third place, Paul is like Jesus in presenting a doctrine
of grace. Of course he is like the Jesus of the Gospels; for the
Jesus of the Gospels declared that the Son of Man came to give His
life a ransom for many. But He is even like the Jesus of modern
reconstruction. Even the liberal Jesus taught a doctrine of grace.
He taught, it for example, in the parables of the laborers in the
vineyard and of the servant coming in from the field. In those two
parables Jesus expressed His opposition to a religion of works,
a religion which can open an account with God and seek to obtain
salvation by merit.[92] Salvation, according to Jesus, is a matter
of God's free grace; it is something which God gives to whom He
will. The same great doctrine really runs all through the teaching
of Jesus; it is the root of His opposition to the scribes and
Pharisees; it determines the confidence with which He taught His
disciples to draw near to God. But it is the same doctrine, exactly,
which appears in Paul. The Paul who combated the legalists in
Galatia, like the Jesus who combated the scribes and Pharisees, was
contending for a God of grace.
[92] Compare W. Morgan, _The Religion and Theology of Paul_, 1917,
p. 155: "The essential import of Paul's doctrine [of justification
by faith] is all contained in the two parables of the Pharisee and
the publican and the servant coming in from the field."
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?
Points of contact between Jesus and Paul have just been pointed out
in detail, and the list of resemblances could be greatly increased.
The likeness of Paul to Jesus extends even to those features which
appear in the Jesus of modern liberalism. What is more impressive,
however, than all similarity in detail is the similarity in the
two persons taken each as a whole. The Gospels are more than a
collection of sayings and anecdotes; the Pauline Epistles are more
than a collection of reasoned discussions. In the Gospels, a person
is revealed, and another person in the Epistles. And the two persons
belong together. It is impossible to establish that fact fully by
detailed argument any more than it is possible to explain exactly
why any two persons are friends to-day. But the fact is plain to any
sympathetic reader. The writer of the Pauline Epistles would have
been at home in the company of Jesus of Nazareth.
What then was the true relation between Paul and Jesus? It has been
shown that Paul regarded himself as a disciple of Jesus, that he
was so regarded by those who had been Jesus' friends, that he had
abundant opportunity for acquainting himself with Jesus' words and
deeds, that he does refer to them occasionally, that he could have
done so oftener if he had desired, that the imitation of Jesus found
a place in his life, and that his likeness to Jesus extends even
to those elements in Jesus' life and teaching which are accepted
by modern naturalistic criticism as authentic. At this point the
problem is left by the great mass of recent investigators. Wrede is
thought to be refuted already; the investigator triumphantly writes
his Q. E. D., and passes on to something else.
But in reality the problem has not even been touched. It has been
shown that the influence of Jesus upon Paul was somewhat greater
than Wrede supposed. But that does not make Paul a disciple of
Jesus. The true relationships of a man are determined not by
things that lie on the periphery of his life, but by what is
central[93]--central both in his own estimation and in his influence
upon subsequent generations. And what was central in Paul was
certainly not the imitation of Jesus. At that point, Wrede was
entirely correct; he has never really been silenced by the chorus
of protest with which his startling little book was received. It is
futile, therefore, to point to the influence of Jesus upon Paul in
detail. Such a method may be useful in correcting exaggerations, but
it does not touch the real question. The plain fact remains that if
imitation of Jesus had been central in the life of Paul, as it is
central, for example, in modern liberalism, then the Epistles would
be full of the words and deeds of Jesus. It is insufficient to point
to the occasional character of the Epistles. No doubt the Epistles
are addressed to special needs; no doubt Paul knew far more about
Jesus than in the Epistles he has found occasion to tell. But there
are passages in the Epistles where the current of Paul's religious
life runs full and free, where even after the lapse of centuries,
even through the dull medium of the printed page, it sweeps the
heart of the sympathetic reader on with it in a mighty flood. And
those passages are not concerned with the details of Jesus' earthly
life. They are, rather, the great theological passages of the
Epistles--the second chapter of Galatians, the fifth chapter of 2
Corinthians, and the eighth chapter of Romans. In these chapters,
religion and theology are blended in a union which no critical
analysis can ever possibly dissolve; these passages reveal the very
center of Paul's life.
[93] Wrede, _Paulus_, 1904, p. 93 (English Translation, _Paul_,
1907, p. 161).
The details of Jesus' earthly ministry no doubt had an important
place in the thinking of Paul. But they were important, not as an
end in themselves, but as a means to an end. They revealed the
character of Jesus; they showed why He was worthy to be trusted.
But they did not show what He had done for Paul. The story of Jesus
revealed what Jesus had done for others: He had healed the sick; He
had given sight to the blind; He had raised the dead. But for Paul
He had done something far greater than all these things--for Paul He
had died.
The religion of Paul, in other words, is a religion of redemption.
Jesus, according to Paul, came to earth not to say something, but
to do something; He was primarily not a teacher, but a Redeemer.
He came, not to teach men how to live, but to give them a new life
through His atoning death. He was, indeed, also a teacher, and Paul
attended to His teaching. But His teaching was all in vain unless
it led to the final acceptance of His redemptive work. Not the
details of Jesus' life, therefore, but the redemptive acts of death
and resurrection are at the center of the religion of Paul. The
teaching and example of Jesus, according to Paul, are valuable only
as a means to an end, valuable in order that through a revelation
of Jesus' character saving faith may be induced, and valuable
thereafter in order that the saving work may be brought to its
fruition in holy living. But all that Jesus said and did was for the
purpose of the Cross. "He loved me," says Paul, "and gave Himself
for me." There is the heart and core of the religion of Paul.
Jesus, according to Paul, therefore, was not a teacher, but a
Redeemer. But was Paul right? Was Jesus really a Redeemer, or was
He only a teacher? If He was only a teacher, then Paul was no
true follower of His. For in that case, Paul has missed the true
import of Jesus' life. Compared with that one central error, small
importance is to be attributed to the influence which Jesus may have
exerted upon Paul here and there. Wrede, therefore, was exactly
right in his formulation of the question. Paul regarded Jesus as
a Redeemer. If Jesus was not a Redeemer, then Paul was no true
follower of Jesus, but the founder of a new religion. The liberal
theologians have tried to avoid the issue. They have pointed out
exaggerations; they have traced the influence of Jesus upon Paul
in detail; they have distinguished religion from theology, and
abandoning the theology of Paul they have sought to derive his
religion from Jesus of Nazareth. It is all very learned and very
eloquent. But it is also entirely futile. Despite the numerous
monographs on "Jesus and Paul," Wrede was entirely correct. He was
correct, that is, not in his conclusions, but in his statement of
the question. He was correct in his central contention--Paul was no
true disciple of the "liberal Jesus." If Jesus was what the liberal
theologians represent Him as being--a teacher of righteousness, a
religious genius, a guide on the way to God--then not Jesus but
Paul was the true founder of historic Christianity. For historic
Christianity, like the religion of Paul, is a religion of redemption.
Certainly the separation of religion from theology in Paul must be
abandoned. Was it a mere theory when Paul said of Jesus Christ,
"He loved me and gave Himself for me"? Was it merely theological
speculation when he said, "One died for all, therefore all died;
and he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again"?
Was it mere theology when he said, "Far be it from me to glory save
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"? Was this mere theological
speculation? Surely not. Surely it was religion--warm, living
religion. If this was not true religion, then where can religion
ever be found? But the passages just quoted are not passages which
deal with the details of Jesus' life; they are not passages which
deal with general principles of love and grace, and fatherliness and
brotherliness. On the contrary, they deal with just the thing most
distasteful to the modern liberal Church; they deal with the atoning
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, by which He took our sins upon Him
and bare them in His own body on the tree. The matter is perfectly
plain. Religion in Paul does not exist apart from theology, and
theology does not exist apart from religion. Christianity, according
to Paul, is both a life and a doctrine--but logically the doctrine
comes first. The life is the expression of the doctrine and not
vice versa. Theology, as it appears in Paul, is not a product of
Christian experience, but a setting forth of those facts by which
Christian experience has been produced. If, then, the theology of
Paul was derived from extra-Christian sources, his religion must be
abandoned also. The whole of Paulinism is based upon the redemptive
work of Jesus Christ.
Thus Paul was a true follower of Jesus if Jesus was a divine
Redeemer, come from heaven to die for the sins of men; he was
not a true follower of Jesus if Jesus was a mere revealer of
the fatherhood of God. Paulinism was not based upon a Galilean
prophet. It was based either upon the Son of God who came to earth
for men's salvation and still holds communion with those who
trust Him, or else it was based upon a colossal error. But if the
latter alternative be adopted, the error was not only colossal,
but also unaccountable. It is made more unaccountable by all that
has been said above, all that the liberal theologians have helped
to establish, about the nearness of Paul to Jesus. If Paul really
stood so near to Jesus, if he really came under Jesus' influence,
if he really was intimate with Jesus' friends, how could he have
misinterpreted so completely the significance of Jesus' person; how
could he have substituted for the teacher of righteousness who had
really lived in Palestine the heavenly Redeemer of the Epistles?
No satisfactory answer has yet been given. In the relation between
Jesus and Paul the historian discovers a problem which forces him
on toward a Copernican revolution in all his thinking, which leads
him to ground his own salvation and the hope of this world no longer
in millions of acts of sinful men or in the gradual progress of
civilization, but simply and solely in one redemptive act of the
Lord of Glory.