The Origin of Paul's Religion

by J. Gresham Machen

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.

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.

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.