Romans (Lecture 5) The Conversion of Paul: A Pattern for Grace

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS [5]

Analytical Commentary on Romans
The Conversion of Paul: A Pattern for GRACE

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Copyright © BRI 2016 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"The great Rabbi Gamaliel had among his disciples one who, according to a passage in the Talmud, gave his master a good deal of trouble, manifesting 'impudence in matters of learning.' But his name is not given; he is remembered simply as 'that pupil'" (F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 1958, 81. See also J. Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, 1944, 310f; Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 30b).

I was more than delighted when in recent times a number of our students (presumably unknown to one another) approached me one after the other with requests that I put forth my views on Romans. I was delighted because Romans is one of my most all-favourite letters to be found in the biblical revelation. Above all else it exposes to us the Mystery of the Creative God and the simplicity that is to be found in Our Lord the Messiah Yeshua. In fact it was Paul who first articulated that simplicity in another of his letters (2 Corinthians 11.3).

"I am immensely apprehensive over you [Greek Christians], lest by any means, as the Reptoid deceived Havah [Eve] trapping her in and through his subtle and cunning strategies, your minds should be corrupted in relation to the simplicity that is in the Messiah and from that same expression of single-minded loyalty that you express sincerely, and with simplicity, toward the Mashiach" (Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

The primitive Jewish Messianic Christians perceived Yeshua to be the living, breathing, fleshly embodiment of the living God. Certainly the apostle (emissary) Yochanan (John) wrote of Yeshua as the ever-present WORD of God in human form (John 1.1-3,14). That Word or Logos outplayed his life here below by breathing into 120 of his disciples on Shavuot his eternal Spirit , the very same identical Spirit by which he brought forth a thinking intelligent universe into an existence at the creation of SpaceTime.

Make no mistake, God is the Unfathomable One, the Unborn Original, Complicated and Complex beyond any attempted articulation of human description. One has only to glance at the universe, and the wonders contained within it, to witness to the unmistakable truth of such an assessment. Yet in human form, God became very touchable in His Self-revelation as a human being, but not entirely, for God reserved (and continues to reserve) part of Himself as veiled in mystery.

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out" (Romans 11.33).

One Christian writer has written, and I have to agree with him, "We learn to live with God's unknown. What unsettles us is the part we know, His 'mysterious ways.'"

He goes on to stress that God's ways frustrated Job (Job 3.1). "After this Job opened his mouth to speak and there ushered forth from his lips a curse concerning the day he was born."

He mentions that God's ways angered David (Psalm 13.1). "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?"

He ventures that God's ways drove Habakkuk "up the wall" (Habakkuk 1.13). "Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; So why do you tolerate the treacherous, and why are you so silent when the wicked swallow up those who are more righteous than they?"  

Further, he notes that our continued trust in the living God of eternity "puts life's trials in hopeful perspective, bolsters faith in a world falling apart [and] when we bury our loved ones despite earnest prayers; when natural disasters devastate the poorest countries, compounding poverty and human suffering; when believers struggle to survive while the ungodly prosper, providence gives us firm standing... Cowper (England, 1731-1800) grasped this truth through personal experience. His profile includes lifelong depression, bereavement over his mother's death when he was six, as well as the deaths of four siblings, abortion of his marriage just days before the wedding, several suicide attempts, and years in an insane asylum" (Whaid Rose, Sing a Hymn of Providence, 2016).

Cowper's biographers relate the many incidents when the very young and gentle Cowper was brutalised by his peers at boarding school which incidents eventually unhinged his mind. Indeed, after a bungled attempt at hanging himself the rope broke and he was left lying on the ground, rope still about his neck fretting that he may well have committed the unpardonable sin for, as he thought, if he had died he would have been beyond repenting of his sin and all that would await him was hellfire. In July 1764, brooding for days in his misery, he picked up his dusty Bible and it fell open at Romans 3.24,25:

"Being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God."

Suddenly, the light of Paul's Gospel broke through his mentally unhinged heart and salvation became a reality. In his own words,

"Immediately [upon reading this text in Romans] I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement that Christ had made, my pardon in His blood, the fulness and completeness of my justification. In a moment I believed and received the gospel" (William Cowper, Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq., 1816, 67).

It was during his stay in that asylum that Cowper penned the following hymn.

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread,
Are filled with mercy, and shall break
In blessing on your head.

Judge not the Lord with feeble sense,
But trust him for His Grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."
, Light Shining Out of Darkness

The humble Cowper wrote the poem in 1773 and first published it in 1774 as a hymn in a book by his pastor, John Newton, entitled Twenty-Six Letters on Religious Subjects; to Which Are Added Hymns.

HUMILITY AND MEEKNESS

If any poet rightly ascribed a proper knowledge of God (which sentiments are assuredly to be located in Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians) it was William Cowper.  Now, I have spoken of Cowper as a man who was from birth, and through his experiences in early life, innately humble.

I am sure (with a little reflection) that we all have known non-Christian people , happy healthy pagans , throughout our journeys in life who we would consider to be naturally beautiful humble people.

The apostle Paul, I have noted, "was a man seized with headstrong ruthless ambition, and on some occasions refuted the will of the holy Spirit, and at other times showed himself to be arrogantly presumptuous, [yet] he was one of the most humble men in my opinion who ever walked the surface of the earth" (Lecture 4 of this current series). But, unlike Cowper, this humility did not come naturally. This attribute had to be developed into Paul's character throughout the apostle's entire life-experience. Most certainly, it never came easily for the great rabbi. Whatever the case in this matter of Paul, I believe this gradual development is witnessed in his ability to appropriately express himself most fully in his later letters. Indeed, it is a spiritually worthwhile assignment to take his early letters and to read them all in the approximate order in which they were penned over the years. We will see a progressive unfolding of that humility as evidence of how God shaped Paul's personality and character attributes most markedly.

Allow me to reiterate: There is a monumental difference between a natural proclivity of humility with which some are born and concerning which some are not (and we all need to come to terms with Anochi's expectations of humanity to develop and express humility) AND the gift of the Spirit known as meekness. The two at first appear to be very similar. According to the Greek Aristotle, meekness (Gk, praus) can be defined as "strength under control" (On Virtue & Vices). His perception was that it floated someplace between "bad temper" and "spineless incompetence." Although Aristotle uses the term which Thayer describes as "meekness" he actually means , I believe , humility.

Closely related to meekness, humility stands on self-knowledge and self-awareness. It has been explained as an attitude toward oneself more than toward others. An authentic humility is therefore an admission of WHO and WHAT we really are. The imperative need for self-knowledge and self-awareness is stressed throughout the Biography of God series of lectures. As I pointed out in a recent lecture on Romans meekness does not come except as a gift of the Spirit of God. Anochi I-Source as our God, believe it or not, is by His very nature "meek." God's SPIRIT is the Spirit of meekness. But humility is expected, by God, from the unconverted who populate this world (Ecclesiastes 3.10). And we all (including even those few who are born with a natural humility due mainly to genetic predisposition) come by humility as a consequence of going through troublesome trials of a traumatic nature.

One writer has assessed: "Everyone who [names the Name of Christ] has humility [also] has meekness and every person with meekness is likely also humble. Meekness is contrasted with humility as referring to behavior towards others, where humbleness refers to an attitude towards oneself but is still seen by others. Both are attributes of a godly person... God will not save those who are proud and have a pride-filled heart but He will only "save all the humble of the earth" (Psalm 76.9) as "he adorns the humble with salvation" (Psalm 149.4). Someone else opines irrefragably: "[meekness is] the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one"™s self-importance."

In 1 Peter 5.5, the apostle exhorts Messianic Christians in his day and age, and who are on the brink of the Jewish-Roman war to "clothe yourselves [please notice that this is something WE are expected to accomplish of and by ourselves] with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud [the proud are those who trust in their own success or personal sense of valuation gained from living what has been ascertained as the "good life" and in Peter's time were agitating for war with Rome], but [God] gives Grace [charis] to those who [already] possess and show humility."

And, consequently, meekness (from God via the Spirit as an act of charis) is merged with an existing natural , and naturally developing , humility.

THE BEGINNING OF PAUL'S SELF-PERSPECTIVES

"On Paul's journey, as he neared Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly blazed around him, and he fell to the ground. Then he heard a voice speaking to him: 'Shaul, Shaul, why are you persecuting me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' he asked. 'I am Yeshua whom you are persecuting,' was the reply. 'But now stand up and go into the city and there you will be told what you must do'" (Acts 9.3-6).

Christian scholar Charles Horne comments, "Before his conversion, Paul was a man of great intellectual attainment. He was a staunch Jew in both his religious opinions and his moral habits (Acts 26.4,5; Gal 1.14; Phil 3.4-6). He was a violent, sincere persecutor of the Christian Church. Paul had 'a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge' (Rom 10.2 ASV; cf Acts 26.9; Phil 3.6; 1 Tim 1.13). There were several preternatural accompaniments to Paul's regeneration. These were: the light from heaven, 'far brighter than the sun' (Acts 26.13 Phillips); the voice from heaven; and Paul's blindness, which was miraculously cured (9.17-18). It should be clearly understood that these striking circumstances were useful is arresting Paul's attention and in impressing on his conscience his spiritual need , but it was the truth itself, the simple truth as it is in Jesus, which effected Paul's conversion. His conversion was brought about by the communication of the truth through the vision and voice of the Saviour and the ministry of Ananias, made effective in the heart by the demonstration of the Spirit" (Charles M. Horne, Salvation, 1971, 67,68).

The case of Paul is most interesting in that it reveals that God intervened in his life in a dramatic way, although from Paul's own words he had been separated to the Lord, in reality, from the time of his birth (Galatians 1.15). God's hand had "separated me from my mother's womb." In point of fact, Paul had three separations to God in his life.

While the FIRST separation was , in Paul's opinion , at birth, the SECOND took place on the Road to Damascus when God had separated the rabbi from the world (see Acts 9). A persecutor of the Nazarenes (the early appellation given to the Messianic Christians by the Jewish community) Paul's second separation thrust him into alliance with the same Nazarenes he was prosecuting to the death. Later, when being interrogated in the Roman capitol of Judaea by the Caesarean governor Felix, Paul is accused of being "a pestilent revolutionary" as well as "a mover of sedition among the Jews" and "a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24.5).

There can be no authentic account of the rise of Christianity as a world religion if we consistently bypass (as traditional ecclesiastical historians are wont to do) any reference to the original Christian Nazarenes as the body-politic of the Jewish Messianic Movement of the later Second Temple period. In other words, the traditional historical distortion of a paganised Sunday-oriented sectarianism being imposed in our studious understanding as a sect of first-century CE Judaism and which has been literally thrust upon the annals of that same ecclesiastical history, must finally be jettisoned from our understanding of the rise of the primitive "Church" (if we must use that term). The casting aside of any knowledge of the Nazarenes in current Christian study as an integral and original embodiment of Christian identity is utterly without warrant! We shall discuss more fully the Nazarenes as we progress through this series of lectures.

In any event, at Antioch the THIRD separation occurred when the Ruach HaKodesh stated unequivocally: "Separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the Work" (Acts 13.1,2).

Alva J. McClain, for whom I have had much respect and love, took up this theme of Paul's separation in his wonderful volume of Romans. He writes, "Paul was a purchased slave [from sin], a called apostle, a separated preacher. We can't all be apostles, for there never was another apostle after those first ones. There is not any succession to that office. Yet in the true sense, we can apply those three terms to ourselves: purchased, called and separated. He purchased us with His own blood. He called us and now we are separated. Paul says that He foreordained, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified us (Rom 8:29-30). If you are a Christian, whether you live a separated life or not, you are separated nevertheless; and because God has called you, you ought to live a separated life. He bases saintliness on a fact. He says, in effect, "You are separated, now live up to it!, (Alva J. McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God's Grace, 1973, 37 Emphasis mine).

Paul later came to understand that each of us who have accepted Yeshua as Lord at this time have been elected in the creative mind of Infinite Intelligence since before the beginning of the world. We were accepted in Messiah (Ephesians 1.6) as well as being chosen in Him (Ephesians 1.4) by God the Father. IN Christ. Not apart from Christ. Only IN Yeshua.

In order to emphasise God's love and Grace in the salvation process and experience, Paul gave us a heart-warming message of assurance that he himself (and Paul did consider that he was the worst of sinners , 1 Timothy 1.15) was SAVED BY GRACE in order that "Yeshua haMashiach might show forth all long-suffering, FOR A PATTERN to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting" (1 Timothy 1.15,16).

The apostle Paul's salvation experience was a PATTERN of how God works with each of us. All of us experience, to one degree or another, a mighty intervention by the Lord God in the same way as God intervened in Paul's own life. Messiah is introduced to each of us in God's good time. All the world (and this includes all who have ever lived) will one day meet Mashiach in a personal way, and on a personal basis. We are drawn to the Messiah in our own individual way, according to our lot and circumstances in life. Each person who has ever lived will be given, according to God's Grace, that rich and wonderful moment when the attainment of Life will be experienced. We must all face a Vision, a Voice, a Power, in some sort of unique personal manner, on our own Damascus Road. None of us can escape the Damascus Road experience. It will come in one form or another.

The Lord, we are reliably informed, is not a respecter of persons. If this is the case, and I trust it is, then God's salvation is the revelation of Yeshua haMashiach on the human heart by Grace! All who have ever lived will one day have an opportunity to experience such a salvation. While there are a myriad of variations and methods by which conversions take place, there remains ONLY ONE WAY to salvation, through the Creator and the One Mediator, Yeshua the Mashiach.

The Gospel, if it is anything, is a declaration that it is God who saves us. God elects us. God chooses us. God calls us. God even gives us His Spirit in order for us to repent and to believe. Not of GRACE? Then not of God!

It is a frightening consideration that some of us think smugly that we have worked in cooperative union with the holy Spirit in making our decision for Messiah! It would be funny were it not so ludicrous. The salvation event was worked out on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth almost 2000 years past. Salvation is 100% God-focused, God-oriented, God-centred. Salvation does not depend on man's actions (good or bad) nor on man's thoughts, volition's, intentions, feelings, or "decisions." We all need to jettison the "sawdust trail" mentality. We all need to do away with the decrepit mind-set that insists that we must "qualify" for everlasting life. This thought is a travesty of monumental proportions and denies, ultimately, the blood of Yeshua the Son of God. The suggestion is utterly demonic to its very core.

What we ought to be doing is being appreciative of the pattern or blueprint of GOD given to us by the apostle Paul.

Recapitulating, the biblical revelation tells us that Paul was firstly separated to God from birth. God's hand was in evidence in Paul's life from the very start (Galatians 1.15). Paul's second separation occurred on the road to Damascus. God separated him then from the world (Acts 9). Paul's third separation came when the holy Spirit made plain to the Christians at Antioch a decree involving a severance and a commitment for Paul to further expand God's present Work of salvation (Acts 13.1,2).

HOW YOU WERE SAVED: THE PATTERN OF GOD'S SALVATION

The number "3" in biblical numerology is "making God's will known." For the first three hundred years the Church understood that man is saved by Grace, and Grace alone. Thankfully, the apostle Paul left us an example of how Mashiach saves , the pattern of his own salvation! But let's consider Paul's personal story in relation to repentance.

Paul, you will know from other lectures, was an agent of the Roman appointed puppet-government of Judaea and an integral member of the Herodian family. He was also a raging persecutor of the primitive and original Messianic Christian Community. He had already killed Stephen, the first recorded Christian martyr (Acts 8.1), but there were a number of others he successfully tracked down, imprisoned and murdered by his own admission (Acts 8.3; 22.4,5). Paul had also brutally attacked James, the brother of Yeshua, and nearly killed him on the steps of the Temple (The Clementine Recognitions, Bk.1, 70). Shortly after he decimated the Messianic assemblies and rendered James helpless (he thought he was dead) Paul received official papers from the Sanhedrin authorising him in his blind zeal to destroy the Christians as well as the followers of Yochanan the Immerser , or John the Baptist , in Damascus. These included the disciples of James who had fled there to remove themselves far away from Paul's increasingly vicious attacks on those he perceived to be enemies of the Jewish-Roman State. It was on his way to Damascus to primarily decimate the Yeshua Movement that Yeshua intervened and knocked him off his high horse... literally.

BACK TO THE TEXT

"Paul, a slave by nature of the emperor Yeshua the Messiah, a called apostle [ambassador], permanently set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through the intermediate agency of his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to his humanity and was demonstrated in the sphere of power to be Son of God relative to his divine essence by his resurrection from the dead, Yeshua the Messiah our Lord; through whom we have received Grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience to the Faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are also divinely summoned ones belonging to Yeshua the Messiah.

"To all God's beloved in Rome, who are divinely summoned saints: Grace to you and Shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah" (Romans 1.1-7 Tentative BRI/IMCF Version).

Paul informs us that he was especially sanctified, or permanently set apart, for the Gospel of God.

Yochanan the Immerser came with a Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Our Lord Yeshua followed him in preaching and teaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, at the conclusion of the Lukan Acts it is written that Paul expounded on the kingdom of God in conference with Jewish religious leaders. It was that same Gospel Yeshua preached.

"And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all who came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, with all confidence, no man forbidding him" (Acts 28.30,31).

The Gospel of the kingdom of God was no new novelty. It was in Paul's own words "promised before" in the Jewish Scriptures , long before the ambassador Paul sat down to write about it. And note that in the Lukan Acts that Paul does not hesitate to associate the Person of Yeshua the Messiah in direct relation to that Gospel of the Kingdom of God. We cannot dare to disassociate Yeshua from that Gospel. For, he is integral to it. But Paul speaks of "the Gospel of God" (Romans 1.1) and a little further on he speaks of it as "the Gospel of Christ" (Romans 1.16) and then entirely personalises it as "my Gospel" (Romans 2.16).

Alva McClain notes, "The gospel of God; the gospel of Christ; and 'my' gospel. What do [these terms] mean? Simply this: the gospel is of God because God gave it; the gospel is of Christ because it is about Christ; and it is the gospel of Paul because Paul preached it."

But Paul goes beyond the elemental facts of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God which Daniel beholds as a future event, and which the other biblical prophets all speak of in eschatological visions of a future glory. He even eclipses the message which was spread through the messengers of the Kingdom , both Yochanan the Immerser and the Lord Yeshua himself. He brings to the various embassies (ekklesias) of that Kingdom here on earth an entirely new grasp of the love of God for humankind.

The Ruach HaKodesh entered the mind of the great ambassador of the Kingdom of God and opened that mind to the vistas of a new possibility that not only perceived the GRACE of God but which was capable of articulating and communicating his insights in a form that would align to 21st century CE understanding of the intelligent thinking universe. Paul experienced a powerful miracle involving a widened MINDSCAPE that peered into the very MIND OF GOD HIMSELF and he passed that vision onto each of us who name the Name of Christ.

Grace has two profound aspects, as far as attributes of God's creative love is concerned.

Firstly, the actual conquest of sin in the human heart.

Secondly, the all-merciful and awesome power of God over the sin which is never entirely overcome in any human heart. It is the power of God in man , this sanctifying Grace of God , which makes the believer into a new creature and the Messianic Community, collectively, into a NEW RACE.

This is the Pauline doctrine of the Superman which surpasses the imagination of Friedrich Nietzsche. And Grace is at its root.

Our next lecture in this series will speak to some of these considerations as we explore Paul's Letter to the Christians at Rome.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE FIVE

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