Paul’s Political Gospel, Pt. 3
Saul the Pharisee
would have shared the vision of salvation elaborated in the previous
post. The Pharisaic hope was in the God of Israel fulfilling his promises
to set Israel free from oppression and to restore the nation to its rightful
place as God’s chief agent of salvation and rule over creation. The God
of Israel would return and install the nation as the throne from which he ruled
over the nations.
Because he was
passionate about this hope, Israel’s current domination and oppression at the
hands of Rome was intolerable. It needed to be set right. This
desperate need set the agenda for the Pharisees. As Saul read the
Scriptures of Israel, therefore, he understood that the nation had been sent
into exile for unfaithfulness to God, for idolatry, for neglecting the Mosaic
Law and its practices. The logic made perfect sense to him and it fired
his zeal. If unfaithfulness to the Mosaic Law led to exile, then renewed
faithfulness to the Law at the national level would surely move God to act on
behalf of Israel to deliver the nation from its enemies and bring about
salvation.
So Saul’s aim as a
Pharisee was to bring about a renewed nation, to present to God a purified
people, newly zealous for the Law, every bit as passionate as Saul for the
“traditions of the fathers” (Gal. 1:14). He was convinced that once the
nation was pure and obedient, God would be moved to send Messiah who would
bring God’s salvation.
Saul’s aims as a
Pharisee, therefore, involved an intense pursuit of a national campaign for the
honor of the God of Israel, advocating for faithfulness to the Mosaic Law.
This is what Paul, years later, has in mind when he said that as a
Pharisee he was passionate for the “resurrection from the dead.” While
this was redefined after his conversion, Saul’s entire life was devoted to
seeing the promises to the fathers fulfilled. This provided the drive for
the Pharisaic passion for purity and holiness.
It’s important to
understand that for Saul “resurrection” meant far more than God raising the
righteous dead. It was a shorthand way of referring to all of God’s
eschatological (or, “end-times”) activity. Not only were the dead to be
raised, but all of the end-time transformations of creation would take
place. God’s very life would be poured out on creation resulting in its
total transformation. The wicked would be judged, Sin and Death would be
destroyed, the new age would replace the old, and the Kingdom of God would come
in all its fullness.
Now, we can’t be
sure that Paul ever heard or saw Jesus before his conversion, but he likely
knew of his claims to be the Messiah. Jesus’ death, however, confirmed to
Saul that this Jesus was most certainly not the Messiah of Israel, especially
because of his death on a Roman cross.
In Gal. 3:13, Paul
cites Deut. 21:23 , that “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” Saul
would have contemplated Scripture’s (and, by extension, God’s own) verdict on
Jesus: he was cursed by God, rejected as Messiah. That a movement would
have sprung up around this person was blasphemous and intolerable, since it
could only be characterized as complete disobedience to the God of Israel,
rejecting God’s own verdict on Jesus and his claims. For Saul, such a
movement was a mortal threat to his fundamental Pharisaic aims and
ambitions—Christians were standing in the way of God fulfilling the promises to
the fathers! He could not afford to ignore this movement or maintain any
kind of neutral posture toward it.
It is no surprise,
then, that Saul’s first appearance is at the murder of Stephen, recorded in
Acts 7:58-60. Luke portrays Saul watching over the coats of those putting
Stephen to death after his speech to the council (Acts 7:2-53), giving hearty
approval (Acts 8:1). A wave of persecution against the church immediately
follows this event, in which Saul plays a leading role. So great was his
zeal that he traveled around Judea, “breathing out threats and murder” (Acts
9:1) in attempts to “destroy the church of God” (Gal. 1:14). He must have
developed quite a reputation as a persecutor of the church, since after his
conversion hardly anyone in the first generation of Jesus-followers wanted to
have anything to do with him.
Before his
conversion, then, Saul’s political outlook was one in which the God of Israel
was going to judge the nations and save Israel. This would come as a
result of the presentation to God of a nation conforming to the Mosaic
Law. This set Saul on a religio-political mission of coercion and
violence. If you asked Saul the Pharisee, “What is keeping God from
coming in power to save his people and to judge the nations?” He would
answer, “It’s the presence of sinners in Israel, tax-collectors, prostitutes,
the disobedient—their lack of faithfulness to the Law and conformity to the
traditions of the fathers—they are preventing God from saving
Israel and bringing about the resurrection from the dead.”
We need to take
note that Saul’s political vision was indeed largely shaped by Scripture—the
freeing of Israel from oppression, the restoration of shalom, the
transformation of the people into a just nation. But there were several
elements that had become perverted and distorted. Saul had become captive
to an “us” versus “them” mentality, shaped as he was by his cultural
prejudices. He longed for God’s vengeance against foreign nations rather
than their redemption. And his political mode had become corrupted
because of his zeal. He was violently coercive toward others, seeing
others as the problem he needed to solve on God’s behalf. Once people got
on board with the Pharisaic agenda of a righteous polis, only then would
Israel experience God’s blessing. Saul was not only coercing other Jews,
he was also trying to force God’s hand. He truly believed that he could
get God to send salvation based on works of righteousness.
Comments
Post a Comment