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3.4 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Paul’s Conversion
Such an unconditional devotion of himself to the work of exterminating Christianity seems alone to explain his immediate dedication of his entire life to its advancement, when his conversion took place.
That conversion was on of the most remarkable transformations in history. Paul gives us no detailed account of the circumstances under which it occurred [at least not in his Epistles], but in Gal. 1:12 sq. he refers to it in such a way as to indicate with sufficient clearness its cause on its nature.
[The Book of Acts contains three accounts of a vision of Christ vouchsafed to Paul upon his way to Damascus, whither he was going to carry on the war against the Christians, which he had begun in Jerusalem. The first (9:3 sq.) is in the words of the author of the book; the other two (22:6 sq., 26:12 sq.) occur in speeches of Paul which he records. There are some differences between the accounts, but the verbal agreements are so close that most scholars assume the interdependence of the three. The account in chap. 26 is the simplest of the three, and bears marks of originality over against the others; and it occurs in a setting whose vividness and verisimilitude are unsurpassed, it is altogether likely that the author found it in his sources and that it constituted the original upon which, with the help of oral tradition, he built the other account in chapter 9 and 22. At the same time it is clear that he made some additions even in chap.26. The most important fact that the author added in chapters 9 and 22 was the agency of Ananias. Doubtless such a man played a prominent part in connection with Paul’s early days as a Christian disciple, though just what that part was in not altogether clear.
Critics have pointed out various difficulties in the three accounts. It has been maintained for instance that the statement in 9:17 that Paul received the Holy Spirit through the laying on of Ananias’ hands is inconsistent with his own account of his conversion. The descriptions of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, in 9:26 and 22:17 sq., have also been pronounced incompatible with his own statement in Gal 1:18 sq. (c.f. also 26:20, where the same idea of the visit appears). In view of such difficulties as these, it is safer to confine ourselves to Paul’s own account, and this may the more readily be done because he fives all that is essential to an understanding of the event.]
In the passage in question (Gal.) he was emphasizing the fact over against those who were attacking the validity of his apostolate and the truth of his Gospel, that he had received his Gospel not from man, but from God. “Neither did I receive it from man,” he says, “nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.” And then a little farther on he adds: “But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me . . . immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Evidently it was an immediate revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that made a Christian of him.
With the words of the Epistle to the Galatians agrees the statement of 1 Cor. 20:8, “And last of all, as unto one born out of due time, he [that is Christ] appeared to me also.” Paul therefore believed that at a particular period in his life the risen Christ appeared to him, and to that appearance he owed his Christian faith. [The reference to Damascus in Gal 1:17 indicates that the appearance took place in or near that city, as stated in the Acts.]
In order to understand what such a appearance must mean to him, and what effect it must have upon him, it is necessary to acquaint ourselves as fully as possible with his state of mind at the time the great event took place, and to inquire whether he had been in any was prepared for it by his previous experience.
The Galatian passage shows that Paul conceived of his conversion to Christianity as a sudden and abrupt event, as a transformation effected not by the influence or instruction of men, but by the direct interposition and sole agency of God.
The passage also apparently excludes the idea that his conversion was the result of a gradual change in his own mind, or the consummation of a process beginning with doubts and fears as to the truth of the Christians’ claims, and as to the wisdom and justice of his own course of action, and terminating in his final decision to accept Christianity.
Such a gradual process seems to be ruled out by his own statements. He was at any rate not conscious before the critical moment came of any leaning toward the new faith or of any lack of decision and determination in his attitude of hostility.
The event seemed to him absolutely sudden and unheralded; at one moment he was the determined enemy of Jesus, at the next he was his disciple. Nevertheless, though it is clear that Paul thus pictured his conversion, there can no doubt that his experience had been such not as to effect, but certainly to prepare him for, the change.
Such a transformation necessitates some preparation; without it the event is psychologically inconceivable. The preparation need not be direct, but some preparation there must be. What it actually was, we may learn from Rom. 7:7 sq., is a passage that is evidently a leaf out of Paul’s own experience before his conversion. It is clear from that passage that, zealous as Paul was in his observance of the Jewish law, and blameless as his conduct was when measured by an external standard, he had become conscious that all his efforts to attain true righteousness were a complete failure.
When this consciousness forced itself upon him we do not know, but it was evidently the result of his perception of the fact, which was entirely overlooked by the majority of his contemporaries, and may have been long overlooked by Paul himself, that inner as well as outer sins, sins of heart as well as of deed, were forbidden by the law; that the tenth commandment made covetousness and lust a crime, even though the lust or the covetousness never manifested itself in acts of sensuality or of dishonesty.
That Paul, trained as he was in the superficial, legal conceptions of the Pharisees of his day, should have recognized this fact, is a mark of the profoundness of his ethical nature, and distinguishes him from most of his fellows. Only a great religious genius could thus have penetrated beneath the husk of formality to the vital kernel within.
It is clear that he was no ordinary Pharisee. The condemnation, which Jesus passed upon the Pharisees as a class, could not have been pronounced upon him.
Even though a Pharisee, he was man after Christ’s own heart. Though he apparently knew nothing as yet about Jesus’ teaching, he had reached the principle of which Jesus had made so much, which all external observance of the law is worthless unless it be based upon the obedience of the heart.
Used by permission of the publisher.
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