Introduction
There has been a long-running tradition in scholarship of complaining that Paul tried to establish his own religion apart from the teachings of Jesus. I claim this is a position of ignorance, and perhaps academic agenda, not because Jesus’ and Paul’s words aren’t different – they are – but, rather, because they simply haven’t understood how the two messages interoperate within the context of the larger plan of God. In the larger context of God’s plan for redeeming Israel and the world to Himself, their messages were a duality, with one integrally supporting the other. Jesus talked about life in the Kingdom of God and its requirements (e.g., “born again”). Paul talked about the means by which his churches had entered that Kingdom, through the power of the Holy spirit, and were to live with one another. The end goal of both was to yield a group of transformed people committed to fidelity to God who would be, therefore, judged “righteous” on the last day and take up residence with God for eternity.
Background
Beginning in the 19th century, scholars began theorizing that Jesus and Paul were presenting two entirely different descriptions of the vocation of following Christ, claiming that Paul’s message was developed to counter what the first-century Jewish-Christian groups pursued as a life of faith and Torah observance, starting with the church in Jerusalem and its reputed leader, James the “brother” of Jesus. F.C. Baur founded the so-called “Tubingen School” in 1831 in Germany that essentially pioneered this argument, and it continues to the present.
Too often, it appears that Paul’s critics don’t want to know what he said – to truly understand him. They presume they know what he said. They see his spiritualized characterization of Jesus and call it “Hellenistic Dualism”[i], in opposition to their claim of Jesus’ simple, ethical, “Jewish” teachings centered on the two loves — of God and neighbor.
Paul’s message was dominated by his conclusion that God had sent Jesus to teach us God’s will, and resurrected Him after His death – an experience unique in all of human history. So, Paul’s “gospel” was focused on conveying the meaning to humanity of this event in all of its cosmic glory.
In contrast, Jesus couldn’t very convincingly teach about the meaning of his resurrection when it had not yet happened (though He dabbled in it a bit – Mk 14:62). His focus was 100% on calling Israel back to faithfulness to their God and setting the expectations of the people of the quality of lives they would experience when they did repent of separation from their God and return to faithfulness to Him.
The question critics should have been asking is: “In what context are the messages of Jesus and Paul a duality – different but complimentary, descriptive of the same plan?”
The Supposed Jesus-Paul Dichotomy
Paul Creating a New Religion?
The charge brought by critics of Paul is that he in essence founded a completely new religion[ii] apart from Jesus’ simple teachings of the love of one’s neighbor. When they read Paul’s epistles they don’t find him repeating any of Jesus’ parables, or recounting highlights from His Sermon on the Mount; they don’t find him recounting any gospel-claimed miracles; and they don’t find him unequivocally endorsing fidelity to God through obedience to what had become, in his day, the “Law of Moses” – that is, the entire Pentateuch plus whatever other rules the Pharisees saw fit to enact and subject their people to.
In fact, they seem offended to find him claiming that, following Jesus’ death and resurrection as Christ, “works of the law” (by which I argue elsewhere[iii] he meant “Jewishness-keeping”) was inadequate to preserve the Jew within God’s chosen family. Rather, he said, faithful obedience to Christ/God was the basis for justifying one as a member of God’s family (as it always had been, going back to Abraham for his expressed trust in God.)
Paul’s critics don’t seem to understand that with Christ, the Jews’ perception of the basis of their faith was abruptly challenged – from faith in their tradition and system, to exclusively faith in their God. This was Jesus’ principal pleading, which we see both in His Kingdom teachings but also in His criticisms of the Temple system and Pharisees. And, this is what the people had historically refused, and continued to refuse, to accept.
Paul’s Ignorance of the “Historical” Jesus
Many critics make the bold claim that Paul knew virtually nothing of the teachings of the “historical Jesus” by which, of course, they mean the One of reality, as opposed to the One of embellishments of His story by later editors. Their evidence is the paucity of instances in his epistles where Paul quotes Jesus, as corroborated by one or more of the gospel authors.
And, they’re not completely incorrect. We have Paul repeating what he understood to be Jesus’ words in only a few places (1 Cor 7:10-11, 1 Cor 9:14, 1 Cor 11:23-25, 1 Thes 4:15-17). These do, indeed, seem to be teachings of Jesus as also understood by the gospel authors[iv]. However, N. H. Taylor[v] has documented a number of citations by Paul that are also found in the pre-biblical, oral, Q, or other extra-biblical (e.g. Gospel of Thomas) writings of his time citing the historical Jesus’ teachings. These passages include: 1 Thes 2:14-15, 1 Thes 4:15-17, 1 Cor 4:8, 1 Cor 4:12-13, 1 Cor 7:10, 1 Cor 9:14, 1 Cor 10:27, 1 Cor 11:23-27, Rom 2:25-29, Rom 8:15, Rom 13:7. So, the criticism that Paul knew nothing of the teachings of the historical Jesus seems to be shallow, likely ideological, and not based in fact, unless one assumes that none of Taylor’s extra-biblical authors (whose narratives Paul repeats) knew Jesus accurately either.
The role and context of Paul’s letters had utterly different purposes than Jesus’ messages in the gospels. Yes, he carried the message of Who Christ was, what He said, and what He did, just like the Gospels. But he delivered those messages in person in his travels, not via later letters. We have no first-hand record of what Paul’s evangelical message actually was as he entered each new town to make his κήρυγμα – kerygma – his proclamation.
However, having proselytized his various churches who had experienced the New Covenant-promised renewing of their hearts, he then followed up with them on matters of faith, right living, decorum and squabbles in their churches, and, importantly, the how of their transformation into citizens of God’s Kingdom, as well as the overwhelmingly profound meaning of gentiles being called to fidelity to Israel’s God (see below). This was Paul’s eschatological message of Jesus based on Christ’s resurrection and Paul’s own revelatory calling to announce Him to the gentiles.
Jesus Preached the Kingdom; Paul Did Not
Judging from the canonical gospels, Jesus preached continuously on the Kingdom of God – how to enter it, how life is lived there, the character of people who live there, etc. But He never gives a definition of it. He described it by metaphor (e.g., a mustard seed, seed scattered on different soils) through His ethical teachings, but without giving us a nice, comfortable, Western concept which we can easily relate to. It remains to most amorphous.
So, scholars and theologians have over the centuries provided their own interpretation of what, where and when they believe it was. Many have abstracted it into some nebulous spiritual environment, most equating it with “heaven” – you know; after you die. For example, George Johnston[vi] provides this abstract definition:
“‘The Kingdom of God’ means God in his royal redeeming work in each
of the tenses…past, present, and future.”
The Kingdom Jesus was speaking of is not an abstraction. He tells us it is the society inhabited by everyone who “does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 7:21). He also tells us that unless our “righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisee,” we will never enter it (Mt 5:20). Later, He says “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mk 10:23) which at least hints that entering this Kingdom is something living people do, not dead ones (as, If you’re dead, you’re not “rich”).
So, while Jesus’ message paints a glorious picture of the blessings of those within God’s Kingdom, He doesn’t promote a lot of confidence that any of us can experience it as the entry requirements seem very “high”. The citizens of this seemingly exclusive Kingdom have to be exceedingly righteous, focused on and obedient to their God. (Your experience may be different than mine, but I’ve only encountered a tiny number of people that fit this description.) How could God change this?
Jesus didn’t articulate how people would be transformed to enable their citizenship in God’s Kingdom, only that, implicitly, they would, following their repentance of their life apart from God. This would result in the Kingdom being populated by “the poor in spirit”, the “meek”, those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness”, “the merciful”, the “pure in heart”, the “peacemakers”, and those “who are persecuted for righteousness” all of whom were to be blessed.
In His characterizations not only of who is blessed by God, but how we are to treat each other in various life situations, He is apparently describing an existence that is distinctly “other” than our natural lives. This is the message to which Jesus called the common people of Israel: repent of your life apart from God and be transformed into citizens of God’s Kingdom.
(As a digression, it would be interesting to know what percentage of the people listening to Jesus on the hillside that day actually received His entire message. Likely most only got the “repent” part which, of course, was the most important part.)
Paul, it is true, didn’t use the term “Kingdom” or “Kingdom of God” much. But here’s where context matters. Jesus’ preaching was evangelistic – encouraging His hearers to aspire to live in God’s Kingdom He was describing and receive the blessings bestowed on its citizens.
Paul, for his part, is addressing his church members who already live in that Kingdom! So, Paul’s task was to deal with the practical issues of providing pastoral counseling to a group of people feeling their way along the path to full Kingdom citizenship, socially and spiritually. These are two entirely different ministries as any apologetic theologian and local pastor will attest.
Paul Preached Spiritualized Theology. Jesus Preached Love of God and Neighbor
Most critics of Paul are put off by his “Spirit” language (e.g. Rom 15:16,19, Eph 1:13) seeing it as utterly unlike Jesus’ message of simple, ethical treatment of one’s neighbor. These critics seem not to understand what Jesus’ Kingdom was all about, and therefore, what’s actually going on here. What, one wonder’s, do they imagine was the meaning of Jesus’ message to Nicodemus (Jn 3:3)?
Of course, Jesus preached the ethics of life in the Kingdom founded on the two loves – of God and neighbor. And He provided extensive parables and teachings intended to flesh-out the principles of life therein. It may not be stretching too far, though, to say that Jesus’ teachings were of its ideals. If everyone who was afflicted or oppressed repented and earnestly sought the Kingdom, they would be blessed.
Paul’s churches had been transformed and found that there was still enough human nature left that problems arose that they sought his counsel in resolving, things that can be thought of as quite pedestrian – the acceptability of food from pagan sacrifices, eating with non-Christians, handling squabbles in the church, etc.
So, while Paul preached the Spirit of God, because that’s what he and his church members had literally experienced, he nevertheless had to deal with common ethical and practical issues the remedy of which Jesus had only laid out as ideals to be sought after.
The Plan of God
Jesus and Paul each had distinct roles in articulating and implementing God’s overarching plan. That plan, as articulated in the Torah and Prophets, was as yet unfinished. Specifically, there were three key, as-yet unfulfilled, promises in Israel’s eschatological expectations. They were:
- The New Covenant Promises (e.g., of new/circumcised hearts, the gift of God’s Spirit, knowledge of God, etc.)
- God’s promise of regathering the Northern and Southern tribes of Israel to Himself (e.g., the “two sticks” prophecy, the “dry bones” prophecy)
- God’s promises to Abraham that his progeny would be a blessing to all the families and nations of the earth.
Let’s see what both men had to say about fulfillment of these divine promises.
The New Covenant Promises and the Kingdom of God
Jesus only explicitly mentions the phrase “new covenant” once, when, during the Last Supper observance, he refers to the cup as “the new covenant in my blood” (Lk 22:20). His disciples, hearing the phrase “new covenant”, would likely put two and two together to make some connection between Jesus’ blood and the prophets’ prophecies of changed/circumcised hearts, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and possessing the knowledge of God. They would have initially had no idea of the nature of that connection. Only after His death and resurrection would they recall these words and see the connection[vii],[viii].
However, He was quite explicit in stating that He was going to send God’s Spirit (which He identified as the παράκλητος paráklētos, the “advocate”, the “helper”). Jn 16:7 —
7Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
That cause-effect relationship is quite clear. Jesus sent the Spirit to effect the New Covenant.
It is crucial for us to recognize that what Jesus was presaging with His Kingdom message was God’s New Covenant, proclaimed by many of the Hebrew Bible’s prophets (Dt 30:6, Jer 31:31-34, Jer 32:38-40, Eze 11:19-20, Eze 36:24-28, Eze 37:21-23, Is 11:11-12, Joel 2:28). Without understanding this it is impossible to understand Jesus as more than a Galilean prophet imploring the Israelites to reform themselves to faithfulness to their God, just as countless earlier prophets had done.
The fact that Jesus’ message was a New Covenant message goes a long way toward explaining why the prophets in the Tanakh never spoke of something they called the “Kingdom of God” being implemented on earth, other than in a completely eschatological sense. Their focus seems to have been exclusively the personal heart change the New Covenant would implement that would lead to faithfulness to God and God’s salvation, not the nature of the faithful society that would be its result.
The Kingdom was not, and is not, about going to heaven when you die. Rather, it was about transformation to the life God intended for us, as attested implicitly by Jesus, and explicitly by Paul.
Paul elaborates on the role of the Spirit sent by Christ. In Ro 8:26 he relates a similar characterization of the Spirit. There he says: Ro 8:26-27
26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
He says the Spirit “intercedes”, presumably on our behalf, to help us in our “weakness”. Elsewhere in the New Testament this intercession to help us do something we otherwise would either be unable or inadequate to do for Him is called His “grace” (5485. χάρις cháris).
Jesus Himself gives us an example of this intercession to strengthen our weakness in Mk 13:11
11When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
There are other instances in the Hebrew Bible in which prophets, as God’s agents, intercede for the people (1 Sam 7:5, 2 Kings 19:14-19, Jer 32:16-25), or where the people simply threw up their hands in abject need that only an intercession by their God could remedy (Jdg 3:9, Ps 107:6, Ne 9:27-28). The image of intercession by God or His Spirit was not a foreign concept in the Hebrew Bible.
On the subject of the New Covenant message, then, the giving of the Spirit and the transformation of the Christ-follower in both Jesus’s and Paul’s words are easy to see and correlate.
The Regathering of Israel Back to Their God
In terms of reunifying Israel, Jesus says Mt 15:24
24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
His principle (and, during his life, only) calling was to “the house of Israel”, by which He meant the original 12 tribes (not only the lost northern tribes). But, given that the northern tribes of Israel had been ‘lost’ for 700 years, that’s quite a provocative statement and one that would have caused His listeners to question it. Just to underscore His “Israel-only” message, later Jesus sends His disciples out to take His gospel only to Jews (Mt 10:5-6). (Remember, “Christianity” hadn’t happened yet.)
So, without explicitly citing prophecies that God would restore “Israel” to Himself, attentive followers of Jesus must have at least wondered whether Jesus was here for just that reason, and perhaps that reason alone – the spiritual restoration of Israel (not just Judah).
Paul begins his explanation of this larger mission of Jesus (i.e. not just Judah) by expressing his heart for his brethren Jews in Rom 9:1-5, 10:1-4; that they would be “saved”. Finally, he gets to the “mystery” that had been revealed to him by Christ in Rom 11. Here he first explains that the key trait that faithful Jews and gentiles share is their faith in following God.
Throughout Rom 9-11, Paul refers to his brethren as “Israel”, not “Jews” or “Judah” as in the rest of Romans. This is a bit of double entendre on Paul’s part. On the one hand he uses the term to refer to those of descent from Abraham/Jacob who are faithful to God. On the other, he’s alluding to the long-missing northern tribes who disappeared into the surrounding pagan “nations” centuries ago, becoming themselves gentiles ix. His strong implication is that he sees his calling to the gentiles as God’s restoration of the (descendants of the) northern tribes to Himself to compliment the calling of the Jews that Jesus initiated.
Paul is quite enigmatic in explaining how it is that the faithful descendants of the northern tribes will be joined in God with the faithful Jews when he says Ro 11:25-26
25So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written,
“Out of Zion will come the Deliverer;
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
Paul’s use of the term “Israel” here is the smoking gun that unmistakably leads his readers to the prophecies of Israel’s reunification (e.g., Ezk 37:15-23, Zec 10:6-10) which until Paul’s revelation had seemed a hopelessly impossible task, short of the “end of days”. Yet here we have God conscripting Paul into the mission of calling the gentile descendants of the northern tribes who, along with faithful Jews, comprise Paul’s metaphorical Olive Tree (Rom 11:16-21).
Jesus seems to implicitly endorse this interpretation as following His resurrection He directs His disciples Mt 28:19
19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Suddenly, His focus too becomes “all nations”, like Paul’s.
The Abrahamic Blessings
First, Jesus never invoked God’s promise to Abraham to be a blessing to all the world’s families and nations. What He did do is hold up Abraham’s faith as an exemplar for the people’s faith (Jn 8:39-40) (which in fact acts to create their blessing). As all His hearers would instantly recall the story and the promised blessings, He didn’t need to actually repeat them.
Paul cites Abraham in several places in emphasizing the significance of “faith” (trust, allegiance – Rom 4:13-17). Paul explicitly identifies the fulfillment of Abraham’s blessings as a result of faith in Christ in Ga 3:6-9
6Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” 7so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.
and in Ga 3:14:
14in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Paul then goes on to explain that a) the blessing promises to Abraham were not undone by the giving of the Law, and b) that Jesus was in fact the “seed” of Abraham God was referring to. (Gal 3:15-18). Paul is saying that Jesus is the descendant of Abraham through Whom God’s blessings were promised to be delivered.
How would these blessings to all the families and nations of the earth be delivered? Through the spread of the message of Christ through people just like Paul. He, himself, then, was an implementer of these blessings through his service to Christ and His gospel.
Summary
What most critics have apparently missed is that Jesus and the Apostles (particularly Paul) had distinct, but complimentary roles in fulfilling the mission of the calling of God’s people back to their Lord.
In announcing the Kingdom of God, Jesus was announcing not only God’s New Covenant gift of changed hearts to His people, but it was the mechanism of the fulfillment of God’s promise to regather the people of the tribes back to Himself (most of whom were now gentiles[ix]) (e.g., Eze 37:15-23, Jer 3:17-18, Zec 10:6-10), and the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that his progeny would be a blessing to all the families and nations of the earth (Gen 12:3, Gen 18:18, Gen 22:18, Gen 26:4).
While Jesus’ message proclaimed God’s Kingdom through His provision of God’s Spirit to enable His people to live in it, it didn’t dot all the “i’s” and cross all the “t’s” as to how God was going to fulfill these promises. Paul filled in many of those blanks that the Gospels failed to explain.
For openers, Paul explained how God’s calling of the gentiles to Himself in the Diaspora was, effectively, a calling of those whose ancestry had some tie to the house of Israel – Ephraim. This was, in fact, his punchline in Ro 11:25-26.
In addition, virtually Paul’s entire ministry through his epistles is devoted to the exposition of the working of God’s Spirit – the Spirit “sent” by the risen Christ – to those who repented and sought life in God. If you don’t believe this, reread Romans and Corinthians alert to his references to the work of the Spirit in his churches. You’ll see it everywhere.
Once you see this, it’s a small step to connecting Jesus’ invitational messages to God’s Kingdom, and Paul’s “implementation” of the Spirit messages within his churches. This, in fact, is the basis of the complimentary relationship between Paul’s messages and Jesus’. Paul didn’t ignore, let alone disclaim, Jesus’ message. He was a key agent of its implementation.
Most thoughtful and knowledgeable scholars today understand implicitly that Jesus’ message and the subsequent messages in Paul’s letters were different phases of the same enterprise. Jesus explained how those of faith would experience life when they lived in submission to God by His Spirit within His Kingdom. Paul explained the mechanism by which his churches had been enabled to live as Jesus had described that New Life, via the indwelling of the Spirit of God (and what that had to do with God not only recalling Israel, but the “nations” as well, to Himself.)
In other words, Paul’s mission in his letters was not to parrot Jesus’ evangelical messages or travel itineraries. Why would he do that? He himself had already delivered to his churches his knowledge of Jesus’ message and life during his face-to-face time with them – sometime years long. His letters were, rather, to support these Christian groups in their adaptation to life in service to Christ – what that meant, and what it looked like in interaction between members and with their outside world.
And complimentarily, Jesus’s description of life in God’s Kingdom helped Paul to see and communicate the principles of this living that Christ had proclaimed to his followers.
NT Wright apparently sees things more or less as I do. The following quote re: Wright[x] summarizes his position with respect to the charge that Paul presented a different gospel than Jesus.
“He (Wright) claims that for Paul to simply reproduce the story of Jesus that has been presented in the Gospels would imply that he has sorely missed the point of Jesus’ mission. Paul and Jesus, according to Wright, function as distinctive ‘players’ in God’s overarching eschatological drama in the story of Israel. In this connection, their continuity can be maintained by conjecturing them as playing their respective and unique role in the story of God’s purpose for Israel. Foundational to Paul’s conviction was his belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah of Israel and that all of God’s purposes for Israel has been re-enacted in Jesus. Once Paul understood this, he saw no need to reproduce Jesus’ story in the Gospels. Rather, it was his particular role in this drama of God’s purpose for Israel, to make Jesus’ work known beyond the Jewish cultural and religious boundaries to the Gentiles:
‘When Paul announced ‘the gospel’ to the Gentile world, therefore, he was deliberately and consciously implementing the achievement of Jesus’.”
[i] Tabor, James, “Understanding Hellenistic Dualism”. “By this we mean a radical new dualistic view of both the cosmos and the human person that began to develop in the 5th century BCE. around the Mediterranean world.”
[ii] One of the things we need to dispense with immediately is the chronic misunderstanding that Paul held that after Jesus, the Torah was no longer to be followed. This is the opposite of what he himself says in 1 Cor 7:19.
[iii] A Fresh Look at Paul, Jesus and Paul, Paul’s Real Gospel
[iv] 1 Cor 7:10-11 = Mk 10:11-12, Mt 5:21, 19:9; 1 Cor 9:14 = Lk 22:19, Mk 14:22-24/Mt 26:26-28; 1 Cor 11:23-25 = Lk 10:7, Mt 10:10; 1 Thes 4:15-17 = Mt 24:30-31, Jn 5:28-29
[v] Taylor, N H, Paul and the Historical Jesus Quest, 2003
[vi] George Johnston, “‘Kingdom of God’ Sayings in Paul’s Letters.” In From Jesus To Paul: Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare. Peter Richardson, and John C. Hurd, eds. (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984), 156.
[vii] The preposition here rendered “in” (1722. ἐν en) can mean “in”, “on”, “at”, “by”. It could have the meaning “by means of” (the “instrumental” use of the term), supporting the idea of the blood enabling the new covenant. This interpretation argues for Jesus’ death as causal, which most equate with a sacrificial interpretation. Its other possible sense is associative: “in association with” yields no particular insight other than that the two events – the shedding of Jesus’ blood, and the advent of the New Covenant, are somehow connected.
[viii] I try to make the case in Paul’s Real Gospel that all of Paul’s epistles are saturated with the gospel of the Spirit – the one Jesus “sent”.
[ix] To understand this statement I highly recommend: Staples, Jason, Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites, Cambridge University Press, 2024, or many of his YouTube videos on the subject of his books.
[x] Palu, Ma’afu, From Jesus to Paul: Bridging the Gap
[xi] It is quite likely that at least some of Jesus’s followers would later recognize that He had been absolutely faithful to God — in accord with God’s desire for all of His children — and whose life, therefore, justified God pouring out of His New Covenant promises on all who trusted Him with their lives (in addition, of course, to justifying His resurrection from the dead thereby “defeating” death).
