05.22. An Introduction To A Study Of Paul
XIV AN INTRODUCTION TO A STUDY OF PAUL
We now make a new start in our study of Acts, and I open the discussion with a general bibliography of Paul. Some of the most helpful books on Paul are: (1) The textbook, Goodwin’sHarmony of the Life of Paul;(2) Conybeare and Howson’sLife and Epistles of Paul,which is the greatest that has been published, and no book on this line has ever equaled it; (3) Farrar’sLife and Works of Paul. While Farrar is semi-infidel as to the Old Testament scriptures, and not quite so bad, but bad enough in that respect concerning the New Testament, yet his treatise on the life of Paul is wonderful, and to be highly recommended; (4) Stalker’sLife and Works of Paul;(5) Malcolm McGregor’sDivine Authority of Paul’s Writings;(6) Monod’sFive Lectures on Paul;(7)The Epic of Paul,by W. C. Wilkinson, who wrote that fineEpic of Moses,and who is great in these epics; (8) the author’s two lectures,Paul, the Greatest Man in History, andThe Fifth Gospel;(9) Ramsay’s books on Asia Minor, andPaul’s Travels;(10) Hackett on Acts; (11) Lightfoot onGalatians;(12) Luther onGalatians;(13)Smith’s Bible Dictionary,article, "Paul"; (14) Paley’sHorae Paulinea.I read that when I was a boy. My father had some books which would now be considered "old," but they beat anything we can get hold of today, and this is one of them. Nothing has ever been published since to equal some articles by Paley.) (16) Various commentators on Acts and Paul’s letters; (17) a late but valuable book on Paul is Wilkinson’sPaul and the Revolt Against Him.
The New Testament bibliography of Paul consists of: (1) Acts of the apostles; (2) Paul’s letters; (3) 2 Peter 3:15-16, and (4) James 2:14-26. The New Testament passage that goes farthest back in the history of Paul is Acts 9:15 : "He is a chosen vessel unto me, . . ." The next passage going back in Paul’s history, is Galatians 1:15.
The following is the chronological data in the history of Paul, and probable conclusions:
1. At the first mention of his name, he is called "a young man" (Acts 7:58), and in his letter to Philemon, written during his first Roman captivity, he calls himself "Paul, the aged."
2. (a) Though a "young man" when first mentioned in the history, yet he was probably a member of the Sanhedrin (Acts 26:10), which necessitated that he must be at least thirty years old. (b) He was probably rabbi of the synagogue mentioned in Acts 6:9, which had the debate with Stephen, and which also called for thirty years of age. (c) The high powers conferred on him by the high priest (Acts 9:2) and the Sanhedrin (Acts 22:5) argues a man of reputation and assured position. (d) Daniel 9:26-27 teaches that the Messiah would confirm the covenant with many Jews for one week, or seven years, but that he himself would be cut off in the middle of the week; so that the confirmation of the covenant with many Jews must extend three and one-half years after the Messiah’s death; but this abundant confirmation with many Jews ceased with Paul’s persecution and conversion. (e) But Paul was converted when Aretas was king of Damascus (2 Corinthians 11:32), which reign Josephus dates. (f) From all which we may fairly conclude that Saul was about the age of our Lord.
3. (a) The outside evidence: We learn from 2 Corinthians 11:32 that Aretas was king of Damascus when Paul escaped there from after his return there from Arabia, which was about three years after his conversion; and also the date of his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian (Galatians 1:18). The Aretas date we get from Josephus. (b) The death of Herod (Acts 12:1-25) coincides with Saul’s second visit to Jerusalem (Acts 11:30; Acts 12:23-25), and Josephus gives us the date of Herod’s death. (c) Galatians 2:1 fixes his third visit to Jerusalem fourteen years after his conversion, which was the occasion of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1-41), A.D. 50. (d) Paul’s two years’ imprisonment at Caesarea, the outgoing of Felix and the incoming of Festus (Acts 21:1-40, Acts 22:1-30, Acts 23:1-35, Acts 24:1-27, Acts 25:1-27, Acts 26:1-32) furnishes dates from Josephus and Roman historians (A.D. 61), which, with the length of the voyage to Rome, aid us to know that he reached Rome about A.D. 62 or 63.
The profit and the delight of the study of history is most enhanced when we study the character, life, and labors of a great man in a great period of time. In every such case the thoughtful and candid student discovers that a higher power has prepared the man for the times and the times for the man – a fact less apparent, though no less true, in the case of ordinary men in uneventful times. Alexander the Great scattering the Greek civilization from Macedon to the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Indus; Caesar smiting Gaul, bridging the Rhine, and crossing over to Britain; Marlborough shattering the overweening power of Louis XIV at Blenheim, Oudenarde, Ramillies, and Malplaquet; Frederick the Great triumphing at Rossbach and Leuthen; Napoleon crumbling the monarchies of Europe; Bismarck welding feeble principalities into the Germanic empire, while Von Moltke’s strategy culminates at Sedan, Metz, and Paris; Columbus discovering America; the Declaration of American Independence, fruiting at Yorktown; Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay, with Schley’s triumph off Santiago – All these, as interpreted by the wisest students, manifest God in history as unmistakably, if not so expressly, as the call of Abraham, Moses giving the Law from Mount Sinai, Samuel establishing the School of the Prophets, David sitting on the throne of united Israel, or Ezra restoring Jerusalem and the scripture canon.
Indeed, every broad generalization of history, by its disclosure of God’s purpose and man’s preparation, snatches the scepter from both the uncertain hand of Chance and the relentless grasp of Fate, to put a diadem on the brow of Providence.
It did not just happen that Hebrew civilization, expressed in one word, "religion," was distributed over the world by the dispersion of the Jews, by their synagogues in every city, and by a propaganda that compassed sea and land to make one proselyte. Nor was it by mere chance that Greek civilization, expressed in one word, "culture," was next diffused throughout all the lands by conquest, colonization, trade, and language. Nor by accident did Roman civilization, expressed in the one word, "government," follow after to bind the whole world into unity. These all, and many other confluent forces, were but constituent and essential elements of that "fulness of time" in which he came, whose accusation was "written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin." Nor was it a fortuitous circumstance that Jesus of Nazareth failed to impart all his gospel to the twelve apostles, unable to receive its fulness and unprepared for its worldwide propagation. Which one of the Galilean fishermen was ever able to interpret, expound, and apply all the significance of earth’s greatest tragedy, the crucifixion on Calvary, or to set forth with equal clearness and correlation the respective parts of all the participants in that tragedy?
God did not intend Christianity to be like the Jordan River, which confines its flow within a narrow channel, but he designed it to become a river of life. Christianity would have been disseminated in its gospel merely to the Jew, but for Paul. But what part had the Jew, through the Sanhedrin and Herod? What part the heathen, through Pilate’s court? What part the devil, whose was the power of death and darkness? What part God, the Father? What part the Holy Spirit? What part the Son himself, and what part you and I? Were they fully prepared to answer these other burning questions:
1. Under what law was Jesus condemned – Jewish, Roman, or Divine?
2. Of what offense was he convicted – blasphemy, treason, sedition, or sin?
3. By what court was the operative sentence pronounced – the Sanhedrin, Pilate, or God?
4. What penalty was assessed – separation of soul from the body, or separation of the soul from God, or both?
5. By whom was he executed – the centurion or the Almighty?
6. Who of them could systematize the correlated doctrines deducible from this execution into an inexorable and universal plan of salvation?
7. Will this salvation be all of grace, or all of works, or of grace and works combined?
8. Was this the death of a hero, or martyr, inciting to imitation and saving by example, or was it the death of a unique substitute for sinners, vicarious and expiatory?
9. Was the fountain of salvation, unsealed by this death, to be confined in its flow within the narrow channel of a small Jewish river, losing itself in the Dead Sea, with no outlet, or must it become a river of life, whose healing tide, ever wider, deeper and more irresistible, could neither be dammed up nor turned aside by any barrier of race, color, sex, caste, or condition, until its inflow should heal all dead seas?
10. Was Christianity intended to crystallize into historic form as only one of many Jewish schools or sects, or must it become in development the world’s one "image of truth beside which the Jewish remnants are only as the shapeless fragments and powdered dust struck off by the sculptor’s chisel from the block of marble in carving the snow-white statue?"
11. Was the service of this new religion to perpetuate the weak and beggarly rudiments of a typical ritual administered by robed priests at obsolete altars, through lifeless liturgies and cumbrous ceremonies, or be rendered in tiny essays on tinted paper, aping some heathen philosophy, charming by its conceit, but powerless to awaken or to save, or must it be proclaimed via voice, by living heralds, face to face with dying men wherever found – in the home, on the street, in the field, or in the forum?
The requirements involved in the complete answers to these and kindred questions called for a new man and an independent apostleship. That man was Saul of Tarsus – a man prepared for his work by nature, culture, and grace. As antecedent probabilities we need not inquire what things were supposedly requisite to his fitness. We have something more reliable in the actual facts.
Let us rapidly glance at the most salient and significant of these facts which enter into his preparation or constitute his fitness for the apostolic office.
He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews – not a Hellenist – and specially qualified for his great work. A Hellenist was a Jew who had not been living in Palestine, but Paul did not Hellenize. He remained a Hebrew of the Hebrews. The orthodox Palestinian Jews not only retained the sacred speech, but were zealous in the maintenance of strict Hebrew traditions concerning their holy city, their Temple, and their law. On the other hand, most of the Jews of the dispersion had lost their Hebrew speech and manners in acquiring the Greek tongue and its culture. They were not merely liberalized and broadened by the spirit and genius of the Greek cities where they lived, but were loosened in attachment to many holy things of their ancient religion, by travel, trade, and cosmopolitan association with their philosophies and religions. If the Hebrew was too narrow, the Hellenist was too broad. But Saul of Tarsus, though a Hellenist, did not Hellenize. Born in one of the most famous university cities of the Gentile world, expert in the Greek language and literature, familiar from childhood with the trade, movement, culture, philosophies, and religions of foreign lands and nations, he was yet trained diligently in his childhood, according to Mosaic requirements, spent his boyhood in the secluded school of the synagogue, and was graduated from the sacred Jerusalem college. Thus profiting above all his associates in the Jewish religion, having sounded all its depths, climbed all its heights, traversed all its breadths, weighed all its merits, he was peculiarly qualified, in his own experience, to meet, resist, and overcome the deadly Judaizing tendencies that everywhere sought to sink Christianity into a mere Jewish sect.
He was a Roman citizen. This citizenship he did not purchase, but he was free-born. How this exalted privilege, once esteemed the world’s highest honor, came into his family, we may only conjecture. Certainly, not from his being born in Tarsus, which, though a free city in being allowed to retain self-government after subjection to Roman power, was not a Roman colony like Philippi.
Perhaps his father, or grandfather, was one of the Jewish captives led away into slavery by Pompey, and was afterward not only manumitted, but enfranchised by adoption into some noble Roman family. However it came about, the fact is certain, Paul could say, in the sentence immortalized by Cicero, "I am a Roman citizen."
Exemption from chastisement by the lictor’s rod and from other shameful indignities was not the chief value of this citizenship. It conferred access to circles of association from which a mere Jew was forever barred. Thus, unlike the original twelve, he was en rapport with the world’s three great civilizations. As a Hebrew he faced all Jews. As a Hellenist he faced all Greeks. As a Roman citizen he faced the world. He might not only appeal to Caesar, but preach the gospel in Caesar’s household.
There was an advantage and also a disadvantage in his being a Pharisee of the Pharisees. In national spirit, this constituted him a patriot, and not a Herodian. In religious spirit this committed him to a belief in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the final judgment. The Sadducean spirit could not give birth to an apostle.
Pharisaism also constituted him a legalist. The only way of life it recognized was that of obedience to the law of Moses. This obedience must meet, not only all the requirements of both the moral and ceremonial law, as written in the sacred books, but all additional requirements and subtleties of tradition imposed by rabbinical comment on the law. His theory of righteousness would be: "I need no regeneration by the Holy Spirit, because I am a child of Abraham. I was never in bondage to original sin. I need no suffering Messiah to vicariously expiate either my birth-corruption, or my actual transgression, seeing I am freeborn, and touching the law, have lived a blameless life. I need no continuous sanctification by the Holy Spirit, seeing that I keep myself without spot or blemish. I may well thank God that I am not as other men. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all I possess. I am as white as snow. I stand on my record under the great Mosaic Law: Do and live. I have diligently busied myself to establish my own righteousness, and need not to submit myself to the righteousness of another. If any man might have confidence in his record, and reasonably hope to be acquitted and not condemned in the final judgment, I more, since I have gone beyond all other men in the attainment of self-righteousness."
In other words, since Saul of Tarsus failed of life in this direction, let no other, till the end of time, hope to succeed. He followed that pathway to the mouth of the pit, and under his feet crumbled its last inch of standing ground.
Paul always obeyed the dictates of his conscience in matters of right and wrong. He was a sincere man. He allowed nothing to beguile him into doing what he believed to be wrong, or to restrain him from doing what he honestly believed to be right. He followed his convictions without shirking or faltering, into all their logical consequences. Even in his sins, conscience was king. If he persecuted by invading the sanctity of the home and dragging men and women to prison, judgment, and death, it was only because he verily thought within himself that he was doing God’s service.
Before determining the exact value of this qualification for apostolic office, let us first settle the intrinsic value of a verdict of conscience. Conscience is that inward faculty or monitor, divinely implanted in the very constitution of man, which passes judgment on the rightfulness of its owner’s motives and conduct. Its standard of right is the highest known law. It is, therefore, neither a law-maker nor a law-publisher, but a judge who interprets and applies whatever law is known. If the known law standard be faulty, or if the knowledge of a faultless law standard be imperfect, its mandates may not be expected to quadrate with abstract right. On this account, the decisions of one man’s conscience, and what is adjudged wrong in one country, may be accounted right in another country. Moreover, if the very nature of man become corrupt, his conscience also suffers in the fall, and may itself need to be cleansed in order to normal purity. And, what is equally important to know, if the mandates of any individual conscience be habitually slighted and disregarded, it loses its sensitiveness and becomes callous. Its fine moral perceptions become dim eyed. While conscience, being an original and necessary faculty, is never the creature of education or custom, neither of which has creative power, it may become the slave of either, or of both. All these considerations militate against the infallibility of its verdicts.
But, notwithstanding these necessary disclaimers, conscientiousness is an essential element in all true goodness or greatness. The insincere man can never be either good or great. Moreover, the characteristic of conscientiousness is the most reliable ground of hope for the repentance and conversion of one who is in the wrong. Being right himself, one may hope to gain the most rabid and violent opponent, if only the opponent be sincere in his opposition, but if his opposition be only a cloak for his covetousness, a mask for his selfishness, or a mere subterfuge behind which he seeks for personal ends, then he will not likely be receptive of truth or amenable to reason. It follows that, until death ends probation, a conscientious man is always salvable.
Mark well that a conscientious man can never commit the unpardonable sin – the sin against the Holy Spirit – and therefore, conscientiousness clearly delimits the scope of possible salvation. It is just at this point that Saul’s conscientiousness bears upon his fitness for his great apostleship, and makes his conversion a signboard marking the boundary line of possible salvation. He himself says, "Though I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief" (1 Timothy 1:13). That is to say, that if he had committed these sins against spiritual knowledge and spiritual convictions, his sin would have been unpardonable. In yet other words, any man this side of death may be forgiven, who has not rejected Christ after spiritual knowledge, and after having established strong convictions that he is the Christ. The positive side of the doctrine is thus stated in that great dissertation attributed to Paul: "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much surer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:26-29). Thus, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus located one pole of salvation.
Paul was also the chief of sinners. Not counting those guilty of the unpardonable sin, he was the greatest sinner earth has ever known, or ever will know. If we could take all men from Adam to Christ’s second advent, and grade them in single file according to the heinousness of their offenses, Saul of Tarsus would be the outside man, farthest from heaven and nearest to hell. The snatching of this man from the very brink of the pit, the plucking of this brand from the burning, to make him not only a Christian, but an apostle, gives ground for hope to all the prisoners of despair, and furnishes a model, beyond which Omnipotence could not go, of the superabounding grace of God. This is just what he says, "Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief; howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all his long suffering, for an ensample of them that should thereafter believe on him unto life eternal" (1 Timothy 1:15-16). His conversion, therefore, locates the other pole of salvation.
He was a great thinker and profound reasoner. Only John, of the original twelve, is called a theologian, and his theology is of the mystical order, to be understood and appreciated mainly by the man already saved. But Paul’s theology is intended to convince the unbeliever and overwhelm the gainsayer. He seems to have studied profoundly all the significance of the tragedy of Calvary, and to have formulated and correlated into a system all the doctrines which enter into the plan of salvation. If eloquence be rightly defined as "so speaking as not merely to convince the judgment, kindle the imagination and move the feelings, but to give a powerful impulse to the will," then Paul was profoundly eloquent. The letter to the Romans must remain to the end of time a monument of argument, towering higher, broader-based and more imperishable than the pyramid of Cheops. One such apostle was needed, that Christianity might commend itself to earth’s thinkers, and remain unshaken by the assaults of all opposing philosophies.
Paul was the greatest sufferer. Before the scales of his dazzling call fell from his blinded eyes, the Master said, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my sake." Somewhat early in his ministry, the catalogue of his sufferings stood "in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, the anxiety for all the churches" (2 Corinthians 11:23-28).
Our last look at him discovers "such a one as Paul the aged, burdened with fetters, and the last word we hear is, "For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
Next to his Lord "he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Chains bound his wrists, while stocks enclosed his ankles. His back was often bared to the Jewish scourge and the lictor’s rod. He was more storm-tossed than Aeneas, more wind-driven than Ulysses. If, by the turn of a helm, he shunned the maw of Charybdis, he must feel the grating of his keel on the granite edge of Scylla. While bonds confined him, ocean wrecked him that the viper might bite him. Mobs openly raved to rend him, while conspiracy lurked to assassinate him. Always danger sentineled his sleep, and death confronted his waking. He was tortured more than Tantalus by hunger that might not be appeased, and thirst that might not be quenched. Prometheus, bound on the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus, while vultures fed on his vitals, was not more a living sacrifice than Paul offered in his body, which died daily, and was ever under the sentence of death. He was lonelier in his responsibility than William Pitt, the great secretary, standing solitary against the world, or than Frederick the Great, with his world deluge of enemies pouring in on him from every side. And withal, the care of all the churches was heavier on him than the weight of the world on Atlas. But as the sandalwood tree perfumes the axe which smites it, so his sufferings exhaled the fragrance of intercession for those who smote him. On his lips the song would indeed have been eloquent: Must I be carried to the skies, On flowery beds of ease, Whilst others fought to win the prize, And sailed thru’ bloody seas?
Now, at last, his own words of faith are fulfilled to him: "For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). He who can part from country and from kin, And scorn delights, and tread the thorny way, A heavenly crown through toil and pain to win – He who, reviled can tender love repay, And, buffeted, for bitter foes can pray – He who, upspringing at his Captain’s call, Fights the good fight, and when at last the day Of fiery trial comes can nobly fall – Such were a saint, or more; and such the holy Paul!
He was the greatest worker. Rarely, indeed, do we find the thinker and the evangelist combined! The man who writes great books or matures profound philosophies is seldom a man of affairs. The mystic will likely be a dreamer, delighting in solitude and meditation. But Paul was no secluded monk, no Utopian idealist. He mixed with men. He loved the crowded city. Dr. Farrar seems to bewail that, unlike David, he never described the marvelous landscapes and the sea-views of his travels. May it not be that he was too much absorbed in the "manscape" to dwell on the landscape? Whoever traveled so much, preached so much, and labored so much?
Paul never had a vacation. Even in prison he wrote those letters which constitute the world’s heritage. Doubtless he rests well now.
Paul was also the weakest man. We are accustomed to associate robust health with great endurance. But Paul was never well. His body was a body of death. Great sickness was the occasion of one of his mightiest ministries. He moved about in weakness and trembling. He was buffeted by a thorn in the flesh so excruciating that three times, as his Lord in Gethsemane, he earnestly besought his Master to remove it, and make him well. The world marveled when the Prince of Orange on the one side, and the Duke of Luxemburg on the other side, both invalids, directed every movement of their opposing armies from litters carried on men’s shoulders, being unable to walk or ride. Paul was afflicted, doubtless, with acute and repulsive ophthalmia, and so oft-times must have been led by another. Poor groping man! How pitiable when left alone I With great sprawling letters must he write, when no amanuensis is at hand to receive dictation. Paul was a little man, like Alexander Stephens. He had no imposing presence like Sam Houston, Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, and John C. Breckenridge. "His bodily presence was weak." But surely he had the silver tongue and golden mouth of oratory, did he not? Ah! no; "his speech was contemptible," in the judgment of his enemies; or, as he admits, he was "rude in speech." Perhaps he out-stammered Moses. Durer’s picture of him, or the ivory German tablets of the eleventh century, is nearer to nature than Raphael’s cartoon.
A poor, little, afflicted, blear-eyed, bald-headed, stuttering Jew!
Somebody must always be present to minister unto him, or direct his steps, or write his letters. How can this man travel? How can he endure privation? How can he do a man’s work? With no gift or grace of elocution, how can he speak? William L. Yancey, Daniel Webster, Sargent S. Prentiss, Roscoe Conkling, W. J. Bryan – they are orators. But this man who rises in weakness, in fear and much trembling, whose stammering tongue cannot please fastidious ears, and who is estopped by conscience, will not speak with the enticing words of man’s wisdom – how can he be an orator? He could not possibly look well. There is not only nothing imposing in his presence, but there is something unpleasant, if not repulsive.
Sir Walter Scott, in Rob Roy, makes Die Vernon say that "if only a woman were blind so as not to see his outward appearance, she would certainly fall in love with Rashleigh Osbaldistone’s voice." But Paul had not even a voice. "His speech was contemptible." What on earth had he, then, to make him great?
He had a personality more striking and decisive than any other man of history. He had a Christian experience which he never doubted, and of which, as a fact, he made more than did any other man.
It comes out in every speech and letter. He had humility the lowest, and courage the sublimest. He had faith without wavering, love immeasurable, and hope without a cloud. He had exquisite sympathy for all the lost and the suffering, and the most lively appreciation of every word and deed of kindness. He had convictions which hell could not shake. He believed something. There was no palsy in his trust. He had a commission from God. He had high conceptions of, and loyal devotion to, duty. His fidelity to a trust could not be beguiled, purchased, nor intimated. The powers of the world to come possessed him at all times. The nearness, certainty, and eternity of heaven and hell he always realized. But more than all, he had the grace of God, which was made so perfect in his weakness that he could glory in his infirmities, and find strength in his very powerlessness. The faith of his converts stood, not in the wisdom or eloquence of man, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power of God. He had all the internal equipment, but none of the external graces of the great orator.
He was the firmest and yet the most flexible of men. Let classic authors eulogize the combination of the suaviter in nodo, with the fortiter in re. This is the man more courtly than an old-time Virginia gentleman, and more inflexible than Wellington, who illustrates the combination. A vital principle he never surrendered nor compromised. In matters of mere expediency, he would go any length to conciliate and to gain, and, fortunately for mankind, he had the common sense to know a principle when he confronted it. He never could have mistaken stubbornness for firmness, or opinion for principle. He discriminated well between liberty and lawlessness. He was always careful lest his exercise of liberty and privilege should be the occasion of a brother’s stumbling. In great love, he often declined to claim all his rights and dues. He excelled marvelously in adjustment and adaptation. In a perfectly innocent way, he was made all things to all men, if by all means he might save some. He put himself readily on the plane of either Jew or Greek. If one sought, however, to change his gospel into another gospel, he became as rigid as granite and as hot as a volcano. He would have buried an anathema into the face of an angel coming on such an errand. O, but he could stoop to the lowest, soar to the highest, weep with the saddest, rejoice with the gladdest, and pray for the wickedest.
He had a complete and independent gospel. He received it, not mediately, but directly from the glorified Lord. He had never read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, for they were as yet unwritten. He did not receive a syllable of his gospel nor a shred or his apostolic authority from any of the original twelve. We might as well call Peter the pope of Abraham and Moses as to call him the pope of Paul. The revelation to Paul was more complete than the revelation to Peter. The authority conferred on Paul was both independent and absolute. The pillars of the church at Jerusalem communicated nothing to him, but were constrained to recognize his authority, and to give the hand of fellowship to his independent mission. Peter never had occasion to rebuke Paul, but Paul was constrained to correct Peter. Every contention of Paul was sustained, not only by men, but by the Holy Spirit. And in his last letter Peter reckons Paul’s writings among the scriptures of God. The reformatory power for erring churches and teachers rests in Paul’s writings. There Augustine found it. There Luther found it. There Spurgeon and Whitefield found it. There must we all find the clearest data for determining Christian doctrine, Christian ethics, and church order.
In thus selecting for emphasis a few out of the many characteristics of Paul’s power, we have suffered from the embarrassment of riches. The half a score might as well have been a full score. We find one-half of the books and one fourth of the bulk of our New Testament written by this man. It is also evident that part of Luke’s Gospel was derived from Paul. In discussing such a man, there is danger of ascribing to the servant the glory of the Master. On this point Monod says, "Fear not from, however, a panegyric in which the saint of the day shall usurp the place reserved to his Master and ours. . . . It would be poorly apprehending the spirit of Saint Paul, to render him that which belongs only to the Lord. Could I forget myself to that extent, I should expect to see his image rush to meet me, crying out to me, as formerly to the inhabitants of Lystra, ’O, men, why do ye do these things? We also are men, subject to like passions with you.’ "
Let us look to see what lies behind and before us. We have studied an important part of the Acts of the apostles. The rest of the book will be devoted to a study of Paul, centering on his work. I will add a few notes on books to those already mentioned, as follows: Conybeare and Howson will furnish the background or historical setting of the scriptural picture. Stalker’s is the best summary of the subject; the more we study it the more its value appears. Dr. McGregor’s has no equal in the matter considered. Farrar’s surpasses all others in exegesis, though it contains some things much to be reprobated. Paley’s, an old book and favorite of my youth, is devoted to an argument on the evidences of Christianity, based on the undesigned coincidences between the Acts and Paul’s epistles. As most of these are by Pedobaptist authors, we may naturally expect some things to which the author may not subscribe.
And now, while none of us may aspire to Paul’s place in history, may we each, according to his gifts and God’s mercies, see to it that what history we make shall harmonize with his. May we in our day, be faithful to the deposit of truth left us by him and follow him, as he followed Christ.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the general bibliography of Paul?
2. Give the New Testament bibliography of Paul.
3. What New Testament passage goes farthest back about Paul?
4. What is the New Testament passage going back in Paul’s history?
5. What is the chronological data in the history, and what the probable conclusions?
6. When is the profit & delight of study of history most enhanced?
7. Illustrate from history.
8. Give a brief generalization of history on this point.
9. Illustrate this generalization by the significance of three words.
10. Did God intend Christianity to be like the Jordan River which confines its flow within a narrow channel?
11. Can you answer all the questions propounded by the author as necessitating a new man and a new apostleship?
12. Was he both a Hebrew of the Hebrews and a Hellenist, and what the qualifications for his great work?
13. Was he Roman citizen? How did he obtain and what its value?
14. What advantage & disadvantage of being Pharisee of Pharisees?
15. In what did his extreme conscientiousness consist?
16. What the intrinsic value of a verdict of conscience?
17. What is the exact value of this qualification for apostolic officer?
18. How does this conscientiousness of Saul of Tarsus locate one pole of salvation?
19. In what way was he the chief of sinners, and how does this locate the other pole of salvation?
20. How was he a great thinker and profound reasoner?
21. How was Paul the greatest sufferer?
22. Show how he was the greatest worker.
23. How was Paul the weakest man?
24. Explain his being the firmest and yet the most flexible of men.
25. Show that he had a complete and independent gospel.
26. In selecting characteristics of Paul’s power, from what may one suffer, and what the danger in discussing such a man?
27. What the testimony of Monod on this point?
28. What the best book commended for the background of this study of Paul, what the best as a summary, what the best on the authority of Paul’s writings, what the best in exegesis, and what the best on the evidences of Christianity?