Paul, the greatest expounder of Christianity?
The Apostle Paul is, by common consent, the theologian of the writers of the New Testament. Geerhardus Vos claimed that Paul’s was “the greatest constructive mind ever at work on the data of Christianity.”[1] Thomas D. Bernard calls Paul “the great doctor of the Church.”[2] Bernard sees this distinction between the writings of the other apostles and Paul’s:
If the others were the Apostles of the manifestation of Christ, [Paul] was the Apostle of its results; and, in the fact of passing under his
teaching, we have sufficient warning that we are advancing from the
lessons which the life, and the character, and the words of Jesus gave,
into the distinct exposition of the redemption, the reconciliation, the
salvation which result from his appearing. In this way it was provided
that the two correlative kinds of teaching, which the Church received at
the first, should be left to the Church forever in the distinctness of
their respective developments; for this distinctness of development in
the second kind of teaching is both announced and secured by its being
confided to St. Paul.[3]
Paul’s writings bring Christian doctrine to its fullness and
maturity. He was given the ability, like no other human author of
Scripture, to apply the redemptive-historical accomplishments of Christ
to the conditions and circumstances of first century Christianity.
Paul’s epistles have a unique vocabulary. It is the vocabulary of the
application of accomplished redemption. It is “in Christ” theology
brought to the contingencies Paul’s converts faced. What Edward M.
Blaiklock says of the entire corpus of the New Testament epistles
applies in a unique way to Paul’s:
The letters of the NT form the corpus of
Christianity’s theology, its Christology, its evangel, the nature of the
church, the state of man, the plan of salvation, the integration of the
Testaments, and Christian eschatology.[4]
The Gospels contain the facts of redemption accomplished–the life,
death, and resurrection of Christ (i.e., his sufferings and glory); the
Epistles, and especially Paul’s, contain the implications, consequences,
and applications of redemption accomplished. Paul is the greatest
expounder of the Christian gospel of justification by faith alone and of
the wonderfully glorious Christ-centered, resurrection-dependent
eschatological hope. This hope is dependent upon Christ’s resurrection
as the first fruits of a great resurrection-harvest to come. The Holy
Spirit is the pledge and down-payment that assures believers that what
God did to the Messiah in his resurrection, he will do to all those in
Jesus when he comes in glory. What God began to do in the life-history
of every believer, he will complete when Jesus comes. It is in Paul’s
epistles that these glorious redemptive realities are expounded and
Christianity comes to revelational-theological maturity.Richard Barcellos Grace Reformed Baptist Church Palmdale, CA
[1] Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1930, Reprinted 1991), 149.
[2] Thomas Dehany Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 155.
[3] Bernard, Progress of Doctrine, 155.
[4] Edward M. Blaiklock, “The Epistolary Literature” in Frank E. Gaebelein, Editor, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume I (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), 552.
No comments:
Post a Comment