Steven L. Childers

A. The Importance of Paul’s Message

The difficulty and complexity of understanding Paul’s core message of the gospel in his New Testament letters, and especially in Romans, can be very intimidating. The apostle Peter shows the enormous challenge of understanding Paul’s thought by writing, “His [Paul’s] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:16).

Nonetheless, the difficulty of Paul’s thought or the mountains of differing scholarly opinions throughout the generations must not deter us from understanding his message with greater clarity. There is too much at stake.[1] Although caution should be taken against adopting a rigid or narrow understanding of Paul’s message, precise clarity concerning the heart of it is essential.[2]

B. The Uniqueness of Paul’s Message

In order to understand the unique nature of Paul’s message, we must go beyond merely analyzing Paul’s individual letters or individual “gospel texts” in his letters. Instead we need to understand Paul’s larger theological corpus in pursuit of essential concepts and motifs. In this process care must also be given to understanding the unique historical context of Paul’s letters[3] and how Paul’s message fits with the overarching message of the other inspired biblical writers.[4]

Paul’s letters in the New Testament should not be seen as giving an exhaustive treatment of his message. Paul’s essential message transcended the sporadic glimpses he gives us in his letters. Nevertheless, sufficient New Testament writings have been preserved by the Holy Spirit to give us a relatively clear understanding of the basic tenets of his message.

The unique nature of Paul’s message is shown by his reference to it as “my gospel” (Rom. 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim. 2:8) and “our gospel” (2 Cor 4:3; 1 Thess.1:5; 2 Thess. 2:14) He has a very definite view of the content of his gospel.

Paul even pronounces a curse on any other message that is contrary to his. He writes to the Galatians: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned” (Gal 1:8-9). Paul’s very definite understanding of the gospel is also evidenced by the fact that in about half of his references to the gospel it stands by itself without qualification.[5]

C. The Origin of Paul’s Message

Paul claims that his gospel came to him directly by a revelation of Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:2-10) and not by means of any human source. Paul writes, “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11-12).

Paul’s claim of receiving the gospel directly from Jesus Christ does not nullify his reception of this gospel message also from the apostles and others in his day.[6] Paul makes clear that his message is in essence the same as the other apostles (1 Cor. 15:11; Gal. 2:6-10).

The apostle frequently refers in his letters to preaching traditions apparently held in common by Christians in his day (Rom. 6:17; 1 Cor. 11:2, 23; 15:3-5; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6).[7] Michael Green writes, “It is the same gospel the world over, to Jew and Greek alike, though it may be couched in different terms and even thought forms.”[8]

D. The Interpretation of Paul’s Message

Discerning the core content of Paul’s gospel message has preoccupied scholars for generations.[9] The result is many conflicting and contrasting views.[10] The two polarized extremes are defining Paul’s message too narrowly versus defining it too broadly. In an attempt to move away from any doctrinal-propositional core to Paul’s message, some scholars deny that that there even is one.[11]

In Christian theology, sound doctrine is teaching that agrees with the Bible. But how can we know if our beliefs are in agreement with the Bible? Don’t we need to rely on the expertise of the clergy and bible scholars to understand the meaning of the Scriptures? The short answer: No.

The historic Reformation concept of the sufficiency of Scripture (Sola Scriptura) affirms that the Bible’s teachings are clear to every reader or hearer of ordinary intelligence, without requiring special instruction. Theologians refer to this as the perspicuity of Scripture. This means that if we have access to the Scriptures in a language we understand, we don't need the clergy to explain its meaning to us. The Bible alone can give us sound doctrine, through the illuminating work of God’s Holy Spirit.

So we must be on guard against clergy and scholars who use their expertise in Bible and theology to teach for or against certain views of Paul’s message that cannot be clearly understood and affirmed or denied by the plain reading and reasonable understanding of Scripture.

On the other hand, the church as a community has made significant progress in understanding the Bible. And as a result of many controversies in the church’s past, written statements of biblical doctrine, called creeds and confessions, have emerged. It is arrogant and even foolish to neglect learning from historical writings and traditions, but we must always see them under the Bible as our higher authority.

With so many Christian creeds, confessions, doctrinal statements, and commentaries written since the time of Jesus, which ones should we affirm? Although the Bible is infallible, our understanding of it is not. Sometimes we make mistakes in interpreting the Scriptures. This is why we must learn how to apply sound principles and methods of interpretation, called hermeneutics, in our study of the Bible.

However, no matter how sound and biblical our theology may become, Paul reminds us that our knowledge of God on this side of eternity is always limited: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). Paul did not allow the awareness of his incomplete knowledge of God to keep him from pursuing a deeper knowledge of God.

Therefore, by God’s grace, and in reliance on the Holy Spirit, we must use all means available to us to interpret the Bible correctly and avoid the polarized dangers of embracing a rigid, narrow message or the view that there is no message at all.

[1] “The mission of the church cannot succeed without the unity of the church in the truth of the gospel” (Beker 1980:306).

[2] “A mood of uncertainty about the heart of the gospel, the Lord of the Church, and the Savior of the world, is unworthy of Christians and bodes ill for the future of missions if it is allowed or encouraged to persist” (Webster 1966:20).

[3] Richard Longenecker writes, “Nor is one entitled to treat the collection of his [Paul’s] letters as a volume on systematic theology, for though he thought theologically, everything the apostle wrote is set in the context of history and polemic” (1971:87).

[4] Douglas Moo presents an integrated synthesis of Paul’s thought with other biblical authors. Moo, Douglas J. A Theology of Paul and His Letters: The Gift of the New Realm in Christ. Edited by Andreas J. Kostenberger, Zondervan Academic, 2021.

[5] Michael Green writes, “You can spread the good news of it, teach it, announce it, chatter it, make it known, or put it forward for discussion. Similarly, it could be heard, received, accepted as reliable tradition and so on. There was a recognizable shape to it” (1970:54).

[6] J. Gresham Machen writes, “When he (Paul) says, therefore, that he did not receive his gospel from men he does not mean that he received no information from Peter or Barnabas or Mark or James or the five hundred brethren who had seen the risen Lord. What he does mean is that he himself was convinced of the decisive fact--the fact of the resurrection--not by the testimony of these men, but by the divine interposition on the road to Damascus, and that none of these men told him how he himself was to be saved or what he was to say to the Gentiles about the way of salvation. Materials for the proof of his gospel might come to him from ordinary sources of information, but his gospel itself was given to him directly by Christ” (1925:146-147).

[7] “Paul’s gospel given him by revelation was not a gospel differing in kerygmatic content from that of the early church” (Longenecker 1971:88). As there could be only one Christ so there could be only one gospel.

[8] Green, Michael. Evangelism in the Early Church. Rev. ed, W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2004, p. 54

[9] Contemporary scholarship finds much of its origin in Ferdinand Christian Baur’s work on the historical investigation of the Pauline epistles, Paul, The Apostle. Charles H. Dodd makes a significant contribution to the study of Paul’s message in his work, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments (1949).

[10] With a pointed hint of sarcasm, Green cites multiple cases of scholars since Dodd who have sought to define a fixed message of the gospel. “Footnotes to Dodd have been added in plenty, of course: A.M. Hunter sees a basically three-point gospel throughout the New Testament, as does C.T. Craig, only unfortunately the three points are somewhat different! Floyd Filson and T.F. Glasson both contend for a five-point kerygma, though here again their five points are not identical. Gartner suggests a seven point message, and Geweiss gives a detailed exposition of the united kerygma of the early Church” (1970:60).

[11] Rudolph Bultmann denies that the Paul’s gospel even has a specific content. In his Theology of the New Testament, Bultmann writes, “Paul’s theological thinking only lifts the knowledge inherent in faith itself into the clarity of conscious knowing. Paul’s basic position is not a structure of theoretical thought” (1955:190).

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