The World Needs Paul

When I started the Reimagining Paul blog, I began with this paragraph:

A problem of perception exists between Christianity and society. One major contributor—perhaps the primary cause—is confusion about the central message of Christianity. I don't mean society is confused about our message. I mean we are. That central message is supposed to be Divine Love, but all Christianity's auditors hear is Divine Judgment.

Now, we all know two things: people who do not presently have a commitment to Jesus Christ generally don’t like being evangelized and people who do presently have a commitment to Jesus Christ tend to be weak in their faith and confused about what God is doing. To put it another way: the heathens don’t want to hear it and the brothers and sisters aren’t practicing it.

I am not overlooking my own flawed soul in this judgment. I have had a recent awakening, but I have plenty to repent for.

Here is what I think—the vast majority of people do not know what Christianity is supposed to be about. Almost everyone operates on the basis of “you get what you deserve.”

I sure hope not. For your sake as well as mine.

Hardly anyone understands that the message of the Gospel is “God is for us, all of us, and is fully committed to saving us from ourselves.” If he gave us what we deserve, at the very least we’d have to push boulders up a hill repeatedly for thousands of years (not eternity, the idea of unending punishment is demonic).

Paul has been made the bogeyman. He is widely regarded as a judgmental saint, a mouthpiece for an angry God threatening children and grandmothers with unending agony. He is imagined as a televangelist hustling religion to superstitious Romans. His goal must have been to build a multinational corporation for Christ with billions in assets.

Few realize that Paul was a blue-collar Roman, working with his hands and providing primarily his own support as he tirelessly worked to build communities of love and faith. Few appreciate what a Jewish genius he was and that he had a decent grasp on Greco-Roman philosophy and ideas too. Almost no one understands Paul’s participatory, transformational, apocalyptic Gospel.

From my conversations with people over the years, I have seen two false “Gospels” that are commonly believed. The first is the “good person Gospel” and the second is the “Four Spiritual Laws Gospel” (which could also be called justification theory or “the Romans Road” or many other names).

The “good person Gospel” is simple. “I am a good person,” says everyone. And God wouldn’t exclude me. This Gospel assumes that God overlooks a lot of evil and considers most people to be good. Well, it takes some naivete to believe that “most people” are “good.” In fact, it requires a certain level of gullibility to believe that “I am a good person,” no matter who you are. If most of us are good, why does society reek of greed, savagery, narcissism, addiction, a madness for power, and a ravenous appetite for pleasure? 

Not to mention, what kind of “heaven” is God building by pretending the masses are acceptably ethical as they already are? How will it be any different than the demented societies we see and experience presently?

The “Four Spiritual Laws” Gospel is what most Christians think the Gospel is. God still only gives people what they deserve. Everyone deserves hell, which is commonly viewed as perpetual, excruciating torture (at the hands of a “Loving God”). Even without the eternal hellfire, the justification Gospel is implausible and flat wrong.

The key assumption in the justification Gospel is that God has conceded to human beings an easier path to eternal beatitude. Becoming good—in the sense of moral perfection—is too much for us. God understands. So he is willing to accept “faith in Christ” as a substitute for moral perfection. So just listen to a Gospel presentation by a reliable Christian, try your best to believe what they are saying is true, and say a prayer to make sure God knows you have faith.

God will pardon your sin if you’re able to come up with the ability to believe that Jesus died for you and rose from the dead.

All of these distorted ideas about God and Jesus and the Gospel are why I say, “The world needs Paul.” The world needs the real Paul. The world needs to hear what Paul actually said. Here are some samples:

For while we were still helpless, 

at [the] right time Christ died for the ungodly. 

For one will hardly die for a righteous person; 

though perhaps for the good person 

someone would even dare to die. 

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, 

in that while we were still sinners, 

Christ died for us. 

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, 

we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him. 

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God 

through the death of His Son, 

much more, having been reconciled, 

we shall be saved by His life.

–Romans 5:6-10 NASB

Now if we have died with Christ, 

we believe that we shall also live with Him, 

knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, 

is never to die again; 

death no longer is master over Him. 

For the death that He died, 

He died to sin once for all [time;] 

but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 

So you too, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, 

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

–Romans 6:8-11 NASB

Therefore, my brothers [and sisters,] 

you also were put to death in regard to the Law 

through the body of Christ, 

so that you might belong to another, 

to Him who was raised from the dead, 

in order that we might bear fruit for God. 

For while we were in the flesh, 

the sinful passions, which were [brought to light] by the Law, 

were at work in the parts of our body to bear fruit for death. 

But now we have been released from the Law, 

having died to that by which we were bound, 

so that we serve in newness of the Spirit 

and not in oldness of the letter.

Romans 7:4-6 NASB

What then shall we say to these things? 

If God [is] for us, who [is] against us? 

He who did not spare His own Son, 

but delivered Him over for us all, 

how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 

Who will bring charges against God's elect? 

God is the one who justifies; 

who is the one who condemns? 

Christ Jesus is He who died, 

but rather, was raised, 

who is at the right hand of God, 

who also intercedes for us.

–Romans 8:31-34 NASB

As I said near the beginning of this essay, people outside of Christ generally don’t want to be evangelized and people who identify as Christ-believers have a dismal record of failure to be morally transformed. The world has always been hellish, and while natural disasters and famines and plagues may have some of the blame, the worst disaster on planet earth is humanity.

One necessary step to make a dent in this problem is getting the Gospel right. I say this not because accuracy is vital but because love and hope are vital! The ideas people have about the Gospel within and outside of the Church are not helping.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is participatory—he participated in our condition in order to bring us on a journey with him through death to resurrection. It is unconditional—he saves sinners, no matter how vile our deeds. It is benevolent—he will not consign people to a fiery prison but wants to save everyone (and he will, but that is an essay for another time). It is revelatory—which means we do not deduce it for ourselves, but God makes it known to our spirit mysteriously. It is apocalyptic—God is not bound by time and he already knows us as New Creations, with the result that we live in the Now and Not Yet simultaneously. It is Christocentric—we discover that Christ is before and above all things. It is philo-Semitic—which means Christianity is not anti-Judaism. And it is transformational—which means those who are “in Christ” will be changed morally.

These are the things Paul actually believed. The world could really use this philosophy. Of course, those of us who are in Christ cannot force or even persuade someone to believe. Only God can reveal God to a person. We can be God’s letter, his poem, his song. We can be the beginning of someone discovering the Love of Heaven.

People mistakenly cite St. Francis as saying, “Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” It turns out, we have no record of him saying that. But there is a Franciscan Rule that says, “Let all the brothers preach by their deeds.”

Yes, the world needs that. The world needs Paul’s love and hope and faith.