Kairos Le C.

Lasta

Rel 61 - D

May 2, 2011

CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN PAUL

(Sentence Outline) I. The person in the New Testament who, next to Jesus, has influenced the ethical thought of Christians profoundly is Paul, and it is he, more than any other apostle, who helped to transform the new faith from a Jewish sect into a world faith. a. Before Pauls conversion, he had been a member of the strict Jewish party of the Pharisees where he studied the ancestral law in the school of Gamaliel and had been extremely zealous in his effort to keep its requirements. b. Paul devoted himself zealously and effectively to the suppression of the heresy in and about Jerusalem when the new sect of the followers of Jesus arose and proclaimed as the long awaited Messiah an itinerant preacher from Galilee who had scandalized the religious leaders of the day by his highly critical attitude towards the Law and the temple. c. The central and inclusive concept in Pauls understanding of Christianity is salvation. i. Pauls thought was much more closely akin to the Hebrew than to the Hellenistic conception of salvation. d. As Paul analyzed the moral situation of man from his standpoint as a Christian, he saw that all men are in bondage to forces of evil. i. It is the dilemma of knowing the good but not having the will to do it, 1. The reason why mankind is caught in this moral dilemma, Paul declares, is that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin. a. Sin entered the world through Adam, and sin has held all alike captive. i. Pauls point is not that all of Adams descendants have received a tainted inheritance because he sinned; rather, his point is that the reign of sin is universal and the proof of this judgment lies in the fact that all have sinned. ii. Along with the fact that sin is universal, Paul sees another universal phenomenon: death - whether physical or spiritual - is due to sin.

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b. Just as sin became universal because all men sinned, so righteousness is made available to all men because of the righteousness of God revealed in Christ, but it is actually imputed to men only through faith. 2. As the result of his slavery to sin, man is no longer free to follow his true nature and destiny, and his way of life is in contradiction to the nature of the moral universe in which he lives. e. Both Jesus and Paul were pessimistic about the possibilities of unredeemed man, but both were triumphantly optimistic about the possibilities of men who responded to the grace of God. f. Thinking sin as a rebellion against God is not an attack by an alien power. i. Paul speaks of sin as a power that is external to man, he personifies evil, but he does not mean thereby a force of evil which had its origin independent of Gods creative power and will. ii. The ethical thought of Paul rests on the double foundation of the convictions that God rules and that man is involved in a universal rebellion against that rule. g. Not only is man in bondage to sin, according to Paul, but before the coming of Christ man was in bondage to law that is, to systems of morality that were essentially imperative in character. i. Paul sees that the moral law whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles has brought condemnation. 1. The law reveals mans servitude to sin and his guilt, for it shows him wherein he has violated the will of God. 2. The guilt and fear bring further confusion and restrictions to his spirit so that he further transgresses the law. ii. The heart of Jesus criticism of the legalism of the Pharisees was his insistence that a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit and no amount of outward conduct can make men really good if their motives are wrong. 1. The law which was intended to bring life ends up bringing death. iii. The presupposition of the moral law is a law of reward and punishment. Paul would indeed have been a pessimist had he believed that there was no answer to this poignant cry; it is clear and triumphant in Romans 7:25-8:2. a. Through His life, death and resurrection, Jesus, revealed that life under the law had rested upon a false understanding of the nature of the moral and spiritual order in which we live.

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b. It is clear that salvation is through faith and by the grace of God rather than by the righteousness of men according to the law. c. The law had indeed been given to Israel as part of the divine plan of salvation, but because of mans sin it had become the occasion of further sin and brought condemnation. i. It has been given as a guide, not as a substitute for trust in Gods goodness. ii. Once sin had effected an entrance into the human race, it continued to dwell there, exercising a tyranny over man from which there was no escape until Christ came. 1. In Christ, the dominion of sin both over himself and over mankind was broken because, while he died to sin, death no longer held sway over him because he arose the victor over death. 2. They care also reconciled unto God in that they are restored to fellowship with Him whereby they know Him to be their heavenly Father and themselves to be His children. d. Christ has revealed that life is more ultimate than death and that the righteousness of God is more powerful than sin. i. Those who live by faith in Jesus Christ rest in confidence that they will not be judged on the basis of their merit but rather that they will be justified by grace. For Paul, the totality of Jesus life, his teaching, his death, and his resurrection constituted the event through which God had made Himself known to men in such a way that a new relationship to Him was possible. a. The advent of Jesus had marked the beginning of a new era in human history, an era which is characterized by the presence of a new spirit, namely, the spirit of sonship to God, of hopelessness and love. b. Like the author of the Fourth Gospel, Paul was, however, more concerned to interpret the meaning of Jesus life, death, and resurrection than to give a historical account of these events. i. In the death of the sinless Jesus on the cross there were two things which were made plain. 1. The depth of mans sins and his unworthiness of the divine love. 2. The utter goodness and grace and love of a God who showed His love for man while we were yet sinners. c. It is the possession of the Spirit which makes it possible for the promise of the cross to be fulfilled in the present experience of life live in the new age.

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d. The term mysticism is frequently applied to Pauls conception of the indwelling Christ of Spirit, but it should be remembered that Pauls mysticisms is always held check by the memory of the historical Jesusof his life, his teaching and his death. e. The life of a believer is characterized by his having the Spirit as a present possession. f. Paul looks upon the realization of salvation as a progressive process. i. Salvation is a process whereby character is transformed. g. Two fundamental aspects of the ethical life of the believer. i. Paul refers to the accepted moral standards, whether of the Mosaic Law or of the natural law, which embody the ethical wisdom of different people and which offer practical moral guidance. ii. Paul uses the category of law to refer to the moral will of God which man is free to make his own but which he cannot ignore except at his own peril and which he cannot change. h. Pauls whole concern with ethics and morality and his complete repudiation of the antinomian tendencies of some of his followers at Galatia indicate the extent to which he recognized the objective structure of the moral order with which man must somehow come to terms if he is to achieve true freedom. i. The terms slave and law reflect the fact that the Christian s action must conform to the nature of the moral order which God has created; the terms son and freedom reflect the way that the moral life looks from the inside to the man who has been transformed by Christ and has made the law of Christ his own. i. The Christian is summoned to fulfill the law of Christ, but what this law requires can be finally comprehend only through the Spirit. ii. Acceptance of the lordship of Christ means, therefore, the acceptance of a more demanding law, but it means, first and foremost, a transformation of the self so that the drive toward goodness no longer comes from the outside, but from within the heart of man. While it is clear that for Paul, as for Jesus, the essential intent of the legal codes of the Old Testament is to be fulfilled by the Christian, there is a striking difference between the ways in which they summarize the essence of this legislation. a. Pauls formulation of the unity of Christian ethics in its orientation toward the neighbor seems at first glance identical with some secular humanitarian reductions of love-for-God to love-for-neighbor. b. Paul insists that one cannot know what Christian love for ones neighbor means until he has first learned this from Christ, and much less can one actually love his

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neighbor with Christian love until he is freed and empowered by the Spirit so to love. c. Paul defines faith as a relationship of trust and complete self-surrender to god or Christ. i. Faith worksor expresses itselfthrough love. d. There is a similar distinction between faith and agape in the thought of Paul. i. Faith includes in itself the whole devotion of love while at the same time the term itself emphasizes the responsive character of mans proper relationship to God. When Paul speaks of love as the fulfillment of the law, he uses the Greek word agape to designate the particular kind of love to which he refers. a. Eros, Greek word, used to designate the kind of love which seeks to possess its objects. b. Agape was used by Christians to designate self-giving love which has its source in the redemptive goodness of God. c. Philia, Greek word for love, meaning primarily friendship which involves mutual consideration and affection. Paul is concerned to describe the bearing of agape upon the practical relations of the Christian with this fellowmen, especially with his fellow believers. a. Paul frequently spells out the meaning of agape even more concretely in terms of the mutual responsibility of all the members of the Christian fellowship for each other. i. Those who are weak in faith are to be welcomed in order that they may be strengthened. ii. Those who are strong in faith and love are warned against pride and boasting and vaunting their liberty before those who for reasons of conscience still observe certain ceremonial regulations which now seem useless. 1. Those who are strong have a heavy responsibility for the moral upbuilding of the weak. b. The individual believer who lets the mind of Christ dominate him form day to day is morally autonomous. Paul has much less to say about the relationships of Christian to non-Christians than about their relationships to each other. a. The moral standards of non-Christian neighbors are to be respected.