Paul the Sower

In considering the question we must first rid ourselves of the idea that there was in this union, sometimes called the "mystical union," anything magical or mystical at all. It was a very real thing. Paul was a "new creature," but he knew that it was not by magic; that the change was in himself, and that no external influence could be the cause of it, although an outside stimulus was necessary as the initiatory impulse. Thus, the concrete beginning of Paul's experience undoubtedly was the vision on the road to Damascus, but Paul never considered that the incident in itself effected his salvation or conversion or transformation. He says: "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." This clearly implies that he might have been disobedient. In such case, although he had seen the vision, he would have been no different for it.

Even the death of Christ did not effect salvation or redemption. Paul never rested on "the finished work of Christ," as the saying is. Paul's conversion was an awakening to his ultimate function in the universe, his being-responsibility. It is true that God sent His Son to deal with sin; but why? In order that the ordinances of the law might be fulfilled¹ thereby? No, not at all, but fulfilled "in us," Paul says, Romans 8:3. There is a similar statement in Galatians 1:15, where he says: "God revealed His Son in me." Unless there is a revelation in the individual there is no effective revelation at all.

Now note, if you will, a statement in Romans 5:10, which is very important in understanding Paul's position.

"For if while we were hostile we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, the more certainly after being reconciled shall we obtain salvation in his life (in the life of Him)."

That was what counted. Christ's death might have been the beginning episode but it was nothing more than that. In Galatians he says, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ." Why? Because of Christ's effective sacrifice? By no means. But because "the world is crucified to me and I to the world." There again we have the point with Paul. The death of Christ is nothing in itself, if it is not effective in the individual.

I would point out also that Paul's view was not sacramentarian. The sacramentalists cite him as authority quite without warrant. With Paul no sacrament could effect anything. It was a seal, not the effective agency. In mediaeval times they thought that whether or not you would be saved depended on whether or not you had been baptised. But in all his letters Paul never refers to his own baptism. It could not have been central with him. He told the Corinthians that he was glad he had baptized only a few. In his letters he refers to the Lord's Supper only incidentally, in connection with abuses which had arisen in connection with its celebration. In this important Epistle to the Romans he never refers to the Lord's Supper at all. He does refer to baptism, but not in a way to afford comfort to the sacramentalist. He says, Romans 6:3, "Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Well, then, by our baptism we were buried with him in death." It was not the baptism that counted, but the fact of being buried with Christ. The sacrament was only the seal and outward sign of the fact and did not actualize the fact.

The reason that no external fact, even the death of Christ, can be the efficient agency of the new birth is, that to Paul the new life is not static, but a state of perpetual effort, which he pictures as growth, or building. "Growth" if we consider the Word as seed, we may conceive as "abiding in the Word," as Jesus says, incorporating it in our being by actualized perseverances. By "building," I conceive the actual fabrication of the higher body, the body of glory, the incorruptible body, the body which Paul designates as Soma in contrast to Sarx, the flesh.

The nature of this new life Paul states very explicitly in Colossians 2:6, 7: "As, therefore, ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, WALK IN HIM." You see the receiving is only preliminary. The real thing is living and acting in vital union with Him. Then Paul continues in that same sentence, "rooting yourselves in him, and continually building yourselves up in him." There we have it, both growth and building. It is very significant that at the very end of his career, in the Epistle to the Philippians, Paul is still striving, as he says, "that I may win Christ,—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection." What Paul even at that time wanted to know was, the force of the new life in himself. Nothing else mattered. He said in the 3rd Chapter of Philippians, verses 13, 14, "I count not myself to have attained; but, one thing.—I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus." And this was at the end of his life.

The passage, by the way, is interesting to me because of Paul's use of the word "calling." We hear in popular theology of calling, election, as a preliminary—a necessary preliminary—to the Christian life. And the horrible thought is that unless election happens to be predestined in the case of any individual, that individual cannot enter the life. But Paul here represents it, not as a preliminary, but as the goal, the actualization of the upward urge. The "high calling" is the ordinary translation, but the Greek means "the upward calling." The upward calling appears in us as aspiration. To answer this upward call, to fulfil our real being, is the essential underlying wish of every one of us, if we will discard irrelevant things. As Paul says, it was revealed to us before the creation of the world. That is the pre-existent Christ, the pre-existent Word of God. That is our predestination.