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1994-11-24
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CHAPTER 3
PAUL OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The old Saul died and the new Paul was resurrected.
Paul writes,
We were therefore buried with him through
baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may live a
new life. (Romans 6:4, NIV).
The Book of Romans is not only essential Christian teaching,
it is also a spiritual autobiography of Paul. Thus did Paul
describe his conversion. The old man had served a vague
impersonal concept of God. The new man had been confronted
by a person on the road to Damascus: the Lord Jesus Christ.
[Robert O. Ferm, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHRISTIAN CONVERSION
(Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1959), pp. 96-97].
Christ now became Paul's supreme object of devotion:
Paul frequently described himself as the "slave" or
"servant" of Christ (Rom. i, 1). He was a man
under a new authority which, paradoxically, had
rendered him free. Before his conversion he was a
slave of a different kind, demanding of himself
even as of others, conformity to the absolute moral
ideal which he believed to be revealed in the Law
of his fathers--the Torah. (ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA, 1969, S.V. "Paul, Saint, " by Elias
Andrews).
Underwood adds:
There is a great contrast between Paul, the over-
anxious Pharisee and the jubilant Christian
apostle. The despairing cry, "O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me form the body of this
death?" is replaced by the song of victory,
"Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ." The new and
buoyant sense of moral ability is an unfailing
spring of joy to the apostle...." (Underwood,
CONVERSION: CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN, pp.
153-154).
What a marvelous deliverance, from the shackles of sin and
guilt and purposelessness! How he loved and appreciated
Christ!
Paul's vertical relationship changed when he met Christ.
His relationship with the Father was restored.
As a result of experiencing God's love and freedom, his
horizontal relationships were radically changed for the
better. At first the Christians found it hard to believe
that the one who had persecuted them so, now loved them. His
love for his fellow Jews was so intense that he wished that
he could be accursed from Christ for their own deliverance
and salvation.
END