to the will of God as expressed in his revealed law, and implies life eternal as its reward. The honest
and earnest pursuit of righteousness is the connecting link between the two periods of Paul’s life.
First he labored to secure it by works of the law, then obedience of faith. What he had sought in
vain by his fanatical zeal for the traditions of Judaism, he found gratuitously and at once by trust
in the cross of Christ: pardon and peace with God. By the discipline of the Mosaic law as a tutor
he was led beyond its restraints and prepared for manhood and freedom. Through the law he died
to the law that he might live unto God. His old self, with its lusts, was crucified with Christ, so that
henceforth he lived no longer himself, but Christ lived in him.^375 He was mystically identified with
his Saviour and had no separate existence from him. The whole of Christianity, the whole of life,
was summed up to him in the one word: Christ. He determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified for our sins, and risen again for our justification.^376
His experience of justification by faith, his free pardon and acceptance by Christ were to
him the strongest stimulus to gratitude and consecration. His great sin of persecution, like Peter’s
denial, was overruled for his own good: the remembrance of it kept him humble, guarded him
against temptation, and intensified his zeal and devotion. "I am the least of the apostles," he said
in unfeigned humility that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of
God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not
in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me."^377 This confession contains, in epitome, the whole meaning of his life and work.
The idea of justification by the free grace of God in Christ through a living faith which
makes Christ and his merits our own and leads to consecration and holiness, is the central idea of
Paul’s Epistles. His whole theology, doctrinal, ethical, and practical, lies, like a germ, in his
conversion; but it was actually developed by a sharp conflict with Judaizing teachers who continued
to trust in the law for righteousness and salvation, and thus virtually frustrated the grace of God
and made Christ’s death unnecessary and fruitless.
Although Paul broke radically with Judaism and opposed the Pharisaical notion of legal
righteousness at every step and with all his might, he was far from opposing the Old Testament or
the Jewish people. Herein he shows his great wisdom and moderation, and his infinite superiority
over Marcion and other ultra- and pseudo-Pauline reformers. He now expounded the Scriptures as
a direct preparation for the gospel, the law as a schoolmaster leading to Christ, Abraham as the
father of the faithful. And as to his countrymen after the flesh, he loved them more than ever before.
Filled with the amazing love of Christ who had pardoned him, "the chief of sinners," he was ready
for the greatest possible sacrifice if thereby he might save them. His startling language in the ninth
chapter of the Romans is not rhetorical exaggeration, but the genuine expression of that heroic
self-denial and devotion which animated Moses, and which culminated in the sacrifice of the eternal
Son of God on the cross of Calvary.^378
Paul’s conversion was at the same time his call to the apostleship, not indeed to a place
among the Twelve (for the vacancy of Judas was filled), but to the independent apostleship of the(^375) In his address to Peter at Antioch, Gal. 2:11-21, he gives an account of his experience and his gospel, as contrasted with
the gospel of the Judaizers. Comp. Gal. 3:24; 5:24; 6:14; Rom. 7:6-13; Col. 2:20
(^376) 1 Cor. 2:2; Gal. 6:14; Rom. 4:24, 25.
(^377) 1 Cor. 15:9, 10; comp. Eph. 3:8: "Unto me who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given;"1 Tim. 1:15, 16:
"to save sinners of whom I am chief," etc.
(^378) Rom. 9:2, 3; comp. Ex. 32:31, 32.
A.D. 1-100.