The Testimony of Paul
ee apostle Paul is distinguished from the apostle Peter
by the widest personal differences, and may therefore be expected to give views of Jesus Christ and His work which probably escaped the notice of an unlettered peasant who only saw things in their broadest aspects, and was unaccustomed to the severe analysis either of character or of thought. One cannot but be curious to know how the same set of facts will be regarded by two minds so totally distinct in power and training. Paul had probably never seen Jesus Christ; certainly he had no personal knowledge of Him as derived from fellowship or continuous and close observation; nevertheless he would seem to have been as much interested in the new Teacher and His novel doctrines as if he had followed Him from town to town throughout His public ministry. The whole thing, Man and Doctrine, excited in Saul the most furious and relentless hostility; not an intellectual hostility merely, but a personal and most practical animosity: he made havoc of the Church, entering into every house, and haling men and women, committed them to prison (Acts vil. 3); he breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord (Acts ix. 1); many of the saints did he ‘shut up in prison, and when they were put to death he rw ee eee ee
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gave his voice against them; he pursued them oft in every synagogue, and being exceedingly mad against them he persecuted them even unto strange cities (Acts xxvi. 10, 11); beyond measure he persecuted the Church of God and wasted it (Gal. 1.13); he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious (1 Tim. i. 13). One cannot but feel that if such a man had been present at the crucifixion, some new torture might have been added to the agony of the Sufferer, and some brand of deeper infamy have been burnt into His hated cross. What was absent from Calvary was present in many cities, and what the Lord Himself was spared fell in terrible fury upon His followers.
Nor was this persecution the unreflecting and cruel work of a Jew of “the baser sort.” Every blow was studied. Every assault was dictated by a mind of unusual acuteness and culture. The whole campaign of opposition was deliberately and most skilfully planned by a man who “was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee” (Phil. iii. 5); a man who was a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee (Acts xxiii. 6); who after the most straitest sect of his religion had lived a Pharisee (Acts xxvi. 5); and had been taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God (Acts xxii. 3). No less a king was the Saul who came against the little city of the new faith and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it. That such a man as this should have been converted to the faith which he once attempted to destroy is either one of the most astounding facts in history, or one of the most astounding conceptions in romance. Which it was will appear from the reading of the records of the Acts of the Apostles. If he is less energetic after his supposed conversion than before it, the presumption of its historical truthfulness wili be in his dis-Lhe Work of Christ tn the Epistles. 113
favour; if he be less than himself, then he will not be himself at all; if he retire into elegant and scholarly seclusion, and meet opposition as cruel as his own with private notes stealthily conveyed to the sufferers whose lot he has adroitly shunned, we may fairly discredit the whole of his Christian pretensions, Elegant and scholarly seclusion! Hear this, and let it balance quotations already made: “In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings” (2 Cor. vi. 4, 5). “Are they ministers of Christ? Iam more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, 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 waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Cor. xi. 23-27). In a ministry of this kind the minister will need something more to sustain him than a few nice metaphysical distinctions, or a number of fine points in criticism, though neither of these will he overlook or undervalue. But where the character is so broad and massive, we expect to find the sources of its sustenance otherwhere than in considerations available only to minds of unusual subtlety and acuteness. Upon no dainty confection can such strength have been nourished, but upon solid and nutritious bread.
The witness before us, then, is a scholar trained under the most illustrious of Rabbis (called Rabban even by his brethren) — a man of unquestioned social standing; having
H a mind of extraordinary force, and moved by an energy almost appalling in inexhaustibleness and intensity: this man has been drawn to Christ, and will now tell us how he views the life and doctrine of his new Master.
1. If we encounter with strong suspicion his sudden appearance as a preacher of the faith which he once de- -stroyed, we shall only do what the early disciples themselves did. That swch a man should be doing such a work is an event which should not be allowed to pass as a mere matter of course. What account, then, will this man (whom we now recognise as the most illustrious convert ever made by Christianity) give of himself? <A little suspicion on our part will not be uncharitable. Suppose he should say, “I heard Peter preach a sermon which convinced me of the error of my way.” Our instant inquiry would be, “How did you ever bring yourself to listen to a Christian sermon? For you to listen was a miracle only second to your being converted: we are not satisfied; we do not deny your statement, but we are troubled by it; we may receive you through our wonder and fear, and may hope the best concerning you, but we cannot yet give you our heart’s whole trust and love.” Suppose he should say, “I have been thinking much about this new doctrine, and especially about the coming of Christ and His crucifixion, and I have reached the conclusion that I will persecute you no more, but help your cause by publicly avowing and defending it.” Our instant inquiry would be, “How did you get the right materials for thinking? Who supplied you with a true ’ version of the facts, and who guided your meditation upon them? We do not deny this mental miracle, but we are staggered by it, we are uneasy, we hope the best, and yet our hearts are pained with fear.” But suppose he should say, “I was exceedingly mad against you, and armed with authority and commission from the chief priests, I went to
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Damascus to seek Christian confessors that I might persecute them; but at mid-day I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me, and when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art Thou, Lord? And He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest;” and if in this vision he received from the Lord the beginning of the new life, what should we say then? Instantly we should reply, “This at least introduces a cause equal to the effect; this is either a great truth or it is a magnificent conception worthy of being true. We will watch your career with the most friendly and hopeful interest: this is verily a case in which the Lord alone could work, as He alone could still the tempest which other voices could never quell. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”
2. We follow this up by a distinct inquiry as to the doctrine which Saul was professedly commissioned to teach. He says that Jesus sent him to the Gentiles, “to open their eyes” (is this at all the kind of work which ministers have to do? It certainly is) — “to turn them from darkness to light” (exactly what had been done in Saul’s own case) — “and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.” We are bound to accept this as a clear and forcible summary of apostolic work, and by so much it confirms all that is personal in the account of his conversion, for this is a kind of confession which comes out of the heart, rather than out of the merely intellectual memory. Did Saul presume at once to preach? No. He received instruction and comfort according to his need, from Ananias and the disciples which were at Damascus. Then comes the point with which this inquiry is most concerned, namely, the substance of Saul’s teaching, and this is given most clearly in these words: “And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.” As he grew in knowledge, and in the comfort and joy of the Holy Ghost, he “witnessed both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: that CHRIST SHOULD SUFFER, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.’ In common with all other Jews, Saul looked for a Christ that should rule and reign, and bring back in heightened splendour all the monarchial glories of the ancient days, but now he was brought to see that the true Christ should suffer — a lesson which the world is slow to learn, not knowing, except in the letter, that the seed which is sown is not quickened except it die. The moment Saul saw that Christ should suffer, the light came, the horizon widened, and the old writings burned and gleamed with new meaning and hope. Then he who had seen “a light above the brightness of the sun at mid-day,” never ceased to think of the revelation — made to his soul as other than light; he called it “marvellous light;” he said, “God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ;” and he spoke in rapture of “the licht of the glorious gospel of Christ.” Truly the Damascus flame that paled the sun was an eternal illustration of the new heavens that brighten over the soul renewed and - sanctified! Jewish pride and hope had dreamed of the coming of One before whose descent the heights should lift up their hands, before the light of whose arrows the sun and moon abode in their habitation, even before the brightness of the gleam of His spear; but here was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” whom God had allowed
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to perish on a cross! Such a man might im: use upon the ignorant and the fanatical, not upon the scholars of Gamaliel or the choice men of the stock of Israel. But here is the very thing wanted — light, splendour, glory, “the gleam of whose lightning flashes darken the sun and moon,”! and read in the blaze of this higher mid-day, the prophets and Moses clearly revealed the fact, which lay in darkness before, that CHRIST should SUFFER! Once lay hold of this fact, and the Old Testament is illuminated from end to end, as when the sun is risen it shineth upon all things, showing their elevation and colour.
3, A man who was constantly travelling, and frequently writing to churches to direct them in thought and service, will probably present the doctrine which he thus learned in different lights, and if the various aspects complete each other and they make a harmonious whole, there ought not to be any difficulty in fully understanding the apostolic estimate of Christ’s work. We are now in a position to read the testimony of Paul not in a series of disconnected sentences, but distinctly in reference to his own account of the conversion which he professedly received from the Lord Jesus Christ. The sentences themselves will be detached from the immediate context certainly, but only for the purpose of showing whether they confirm and amplify the terms of the original commission. Paul himself has given the test by which his doctrine has to be tried, and by his own test he must lose or gain in this inquiry. Take such quotations as the following: “Jesus Christ was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification;” 2 “Who gave Himself for our sins;” 8 “God hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ;” 4 “He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down
eM 8 Wig kes aT OM V4 20, e Calsada. ,- 4) 2 Corav..lc: the middle wall of partition between us;”1! “Having made peace through the blood of His cross;” 2 “The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me;” 8 “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace;” 4 “Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity;” 5 “Christ died for the ungodly;” 6 “Christ hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet smelling savour;” 7 “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” 8 These passages, quoted from seven different epistles, are but a specimen of an indefinite number equally clear and decisive upon the point that Christ should SUFFER. So full is Paul’s ministry of the sufferings, the death, and resurrection of Christ, as bearing distinctly and exclusively upon the forgiveness of sins, that if you attempt to remove them from his discourses and epistles you leave literally nothing behind. His language upon the subject is not merely coloured or biassed; it overflows with the holy theme, and has no existence apart from it: the very speech is made holy by the blood of sprinkling, and is for ever saved from common applications by its consecration to the service of the cross of Christ.
Let me recall your attention to the precise object of these quotations, if you please. It is not to suggest a theological conclusion; nor is it to favour either side of a theological controversy; it is simply to inquire how far they apparently or really agree with the terms of the original commission with which Saul was professedly entrusted, which, you remember, was “to open the eyes of the Gentiles, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may
1 Eph. ii.14, 8 Gal. ii. 20, 5 Titus ii,14, 7 Eph. y. 2. 8 Col 1120, SU rupiLady Uae S Kom, v. 6. «5 Corie. 3. receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.” Contrast that call, if you please, with the call of the original disciples, and say whether it sounds like a sentence which a violent persecutor of the Christian faith could have maliciously invented for the purpose of getting the confidence of unsuspecting churches, that he might devour and consume them. “Follow Me” was addressed to peasants; this call was addressed to a scholar, a philosopher, a man of trained and matured mind: the first was a preliminary and initial call, the second was to the acceptance and ministration of a faith fully revealed, and established for ever as the chief of historical facts and the mightiest of the considerations that move the human will. The very wording of the two calls is an argument in favour of Christianity: Peter was told nothing; Saul was told everything: Peter learned the purpose of Christ little by little; Saul saw it in its completeness, radiant with lustre insufferable! If Saul imagined or invented the terms of his call, it was the most marvellous summary of prophetic and direct Christian teaching ever given; a miracle, indeed, hardly less than the vision itself! Is it not promised by the prophets that when Christ comes, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened;”1 and that He will be given “for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes” ?2 and when Zacharias prophesied in - the power of the Holy Ghost, did he not speak of the Highest as He who should “give salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light unto them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” ?8 And did not Christ Himself say, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”?! If
1 Isa, xxxv. 4. ei Eeae x10 6,173 3 Luke i, 77-79.
you put the whole of these passages together you will find that Saul caught the whole of them, and condensed them into that pregnant and mighty call which he accepted as the inspiration of his life. Is it likely that such a man would speak much about his Lord? Is it probable that such a call would impart a tone of invincible confidence to his spoken and written testimony? Is it lkely that such a man, under the inspiration of such a call, would rebuke his own pharisaism by familiarity, reverent and tender, with the hated cross that had wounded his pride and mocked his traditional piety? Has he not many arrears to discharge on this very ground of pharisaic horror of the cross? Is it likely that he will now try to sanctify the word cross and to make the word crucifixion a necessary term in all godly speech? Will the cross be an object to which he will refer as rarely as possible, and that for strictly historical purposes alone? Or will he say, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and IT unto the world” ?2 Will he declare himself to be “crucified with Christ”?
1 John viii. 12. 2 Gal. vi. 14. 3 Gal, ii. 20.
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