What is the ethic of Paul? (major themes: freedom, ethics, Holy
Spirit)
Background
l Paul was a Pharisee before
he became a Christian. He is quite explicit about the value to be attributed to
the OT traditions (For everything
that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the
endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might
have hope. Romans 15:4), and his practical exhortations reflect this
background.
l Paul saw himself as apostle to
the Gentiles, which is why Rabbinic Judaism is not more prominent. Many of
the images Paul uses are Hellenistic instead.
Ethics
Faith:
l This is receptivity to what God
has done in Christ (I have been
crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I
now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me. Galatians 2:20).
l Good works are not prior but posterior
to faith (For we are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do. Ephesians 2:10).
l Faith realises itself in obedience.
New Covenant:
l Pauline ethics has to do with life
in the Spirit, not life disguised as though it is a continuation of life
under the Law.
l Life in the Spirit means far more
than just ethical behaviour. We are an eschatological people, who
live the life of the future in the present.
l The whole of life under the
new covenant is now lived in and by the Spirit, including worship, one’s
relationship to God, and everyday life itself.
l As the renewed presence of God,
the Spirit, having given life to his people, now leads them in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
l Paul called upon Christians to
exercise a new discernment, not conformed to this age but ‘transformed
by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12:1-2). This discernment invoked
some fundamental values, most notably freedom and love, which are
intimately associated with the work of the Holy Spirit.
Freedom:
l Judaizers (Itinerant Jewish Christians)
argue that for believers in Christ to be identified with God’s people they must
also observe Torah.
l Paul argues the Spirit, and the Spirit
alone, identifies the people of God under the new covenant.
l Pauline freedom is both freedom
from and freedom to.
l It is freedom from the Law
as the means to salvation:
n Freedom from some of the ceremonial
requirements of Jewish Tradition, freedom from bondage to sin. Paul did not
require Jewish Christians to act like Gentiles or Gentile Christians to keep
the law of Moses, but he did require them to ‘accept one another’
(Romans 15:7).
n The failure of the covenant of
law, was that even though the Torah came by the way of Spirit-inspiration
(Romans 7:14), it was not accompanied by the empowering Spirit.
n It is unable to set people free.
n The New Covenant, by the means of
the life-giving Spirit, is written on “tablets of human hearts”
(2Corinthians 3:3).
n The promised new covenant has
replaced the old, and the gift of the Spirit proves it.
n Truly meaningful righteousness
is a righteousness coming from an obedient heart, rather than dutiful
observances.
n God’s intent with the Torah was for his character
to be revealed in the way his people worshipped and lived.
n Paul sometimes speaks of the Law
in a negative way, and sometimes affirms Torah as good. The Law of Moses was ‘good’
(Romans 7:16). The Law brings knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).
n Faith does not nullify the law; rather it establishes or upholds
it (Romans 3:31).
n The Law as a means of achieving
right standing with God has had its day, to be replaced by faith in Christ.
l It is freedom to participate in
a relationship with Christ: the freedom to act righteously.
n Those who are led by the Spirit
are not under Torah (Galatians 5:18).
n The fruit of the Spirit is
the Spirit’s producing in our lives the righteousness of God. This is
the new form of revelation.
n The goal of Torah, God’s
own righteousness reflected in his people, is precisely what the Spirit can
do, which Torah could not.
n When Paul addressed the Colossian’s
heresy (Colossians 1:9-11), rather than giving them Christian rules to live
by Paul gives them the Spirit.
l A responsible freedom, and
not licence.
n Paul usually uses the term “sanctification”
to refer to Christian conversion.
n For Paul, “holiness” is abstaining
from some sins absolutely.
Love:
l Love as a fulfilling of
what had been contained in the Law (Let
no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for
whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8).
l Love is the central value
of Christian faith and life (1Corinthians 13).
l The mind renewed by the Spirit
leads us to understand that love must rule over all.
Community:
l Pauline ethic is not
focused on the isolated individual, but to indicate that Christian faith
is to be lived and expressed in relation to others. It is not an
individualistic, one-on-one brand of personal holiness.
l It is living the life of the
Spirit in Christian community and in the world. Paul’s instructions
are in second person plural, with the whole church in mind. But the
instructions are expressed in such a way that they are experienced and obeyed
at the individual level.
l It is far easier to be a
Christian in isolation than it is to live out one’s faith in the context
of all those other imperfect people who make up God’s church.
l To be in isolation makes it too
easy because it turns Christians into easily performed codes of conduct
having to do not with caring for one another but with stuff like food
and drink.
l To be unified by love for the
one Lord. (For just as each of us has
one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same
function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs
to all the others. Romans 12:4-5)
l There are more extortions in Hebrews
13: brotherly love, hospitality to strangers, sympathetic identification
with the imprisoned and oppressed, respect for marriage, and freedom from the
love of money.
Humility:
l Paul was captivated by the person
of Christ, therefore the humiliation of Christ became a central
motif in his ethical teaching. We are to have the mind of Christ
(Philippians 2).
l All status symbols are no
better than garbage. He had little time for status and wished to affirm
the human dignity of all as there is a new identity in Christ. (There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither
slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. Galatians 3:28). Paul did not lead a slave revolt etc but did not
simply accept without qualifications existing social roles and relationships
either.
Suffering:
l The ethic of joy in suffering.
l Life was not meant to be easy.
l Those who suffer through
faithfulness are following in the footsteps of the Lord (I consider that our present sufferings are
not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8:18).
Civil obedience:
l Pauline ethic has a strong sense
of civil obedience (Romans 13).
l Tension between present and future:
n The present evil age
continued.
n We are citizens of heaven,
whose triumph is awaited.
n Spirit ethics is neither
ethical perfectionism nor triumphalism.
n Life in the Spirit is ethical
realism, life lived in the already/not yet.
The nature of Christian
ethics for Paul
l The purpose: Glory of
God (1Corinthians 10:31).
l The pattern: Son of God
(1 Corinthians 4:16-17), into whose likeness we are predestined to be transformed
(Romans 8:29).
l The principle: Love,
because that’s the essence of who God is.
l The power: the Spirit
Was Paul a relativist in his
approach to ethics?
You have been asked to
address a conference for evangelical graduate students on the subject, “Paul and
Ethics”. You are told the majority attending have been taught in their churches
that Paul was not “into” ethics. Therefore
he did not emphasise justice and other broad ethical issues. Rather he focused on personal salvation. Your
task is to show Paul had a “heart” for ethics. Outline your address.
There is a New Covenant so
there is life in the Spirit, which means far more than just ethical behaviour.
It makes us an eschatological people. The Law as a means of achieving right
standing with God has had its day, replaced by faith in Christ. Faith does not
nullify the law but rather it establishes or upholds it. The Spirit gives a new
form of revelation. With the presence of God, the Spirit leads his people in
paths of righteousness, and there is a new discernment which involves the
renewal of our minds. Freedom and love are intimately associated. There is
freedom from the Law as a means of salvation because the New Covenant is
written on "tablets of human hearts". The goal of the Torah, God's
own righteousness reflected in his people, is precisely what the Spirit can do,
which Torah could not. Love is the central value, and a mind renewed by the
Spirit leads us to understand that love must rule all and love is a fulfillment
of what has been contained in the Law. So when Paul addressed the Colossian's heresy,
rather than giving them Christian rules to live by Paul gives them the Spirit.
What is the ethic of
Jesus?
Principles of Jesus’ ethical
teaching:
Living as Kingdom of God
people:
l The Kingdom of God involves repentance
(Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has
come near. Matthew 3:2).
l The Kingdom of God is focused on
the powerless (Blessed are you who
are poor, Luke 6:20-21).
l Our social responsibility (Sheep and goats…I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to
visit me. Matthew 25:31-36).
l The Kingdom of God is near
(Mark 1:15).
l Jesus broke through the nationalistic
dreams of the seers for Israel’s revenge against ‘the nations’.
l In the great reversal of God’s
good future, the blessings of God would fall first not on Israel but on those
in Israel conventionally thought least likely to receive them: the poor, women,
children and ‘sinners’.
Radical obedience to and
trust in God:
l Jesus spoke as ‘one who had authority’.
Christ is authoritative because he is God incarnate.
l Allegiance to God was placed above other
possible commitments such as family or possessions (If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and
children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be
my disciple. Luke 14:26).
l Obedience includes inner
attitudes as well as outward acts (Anger
and lust in Matthew 5:21-30). God placed a claim on the whole person,
not just some limits on their external behaviour.
l Radical concern for the good of
the neighbour. The Golden Rule: love your neighbour as yourself (Mark
12:31).
n The ethic of Jesus attacked the self-centeredness
of the individual but at the same time it did not deny the individual’s
immense value.
n His estimate of God’s concern for
a single individual is best expressed in the parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke
15:1-7).
A reward motif:
l It is most prominent in Matthew,
but appears also in other Synoptics.
l The term ‘reward’ may be a
misnomer since it is clear that these come more from the grace of God
than from the ‘merit’ of the person involved. We are unworthy servants.
l A strong eschatological
element with respect to reward.
The Sermon on the Mount:
Central teaching of Jesus:
l The single largest block of
moral teaching given by Christ.
l Scholars say the Beatitudes
are prescriptions of moral practices appropriate to his disciples as
salt and light.
l 6 examples of true righteousness
(Matthew 5:21-48)
n Taken from the traditional
teachings from the Ten Commandments in the OT: Jesus prefaces his teaching by
affirming the continuing authority of that word.
n The six examples all deal with
relationships. Interestingly there was restriction on revenge in the OT but
Jesus takes it further to do not resist.
l 3 Jewish religious practices
n Alms, prayer and fasting, Matthew
6:1-15.
n All stressing the inward secret
aspect at the expense of the false external action.
l Other teachings: wealth and
security, judgement, the foolishness of giving good things to the unworthy, the
goodness of our heavenly Father, the Golden rule, the two ways, and the
importance of practicing what has been heard.
l Important ethical issues:
n Radical difference between the common human
values and those of the Kingdom of God.
n Motive and intention (in the 6 examples).
n Matching inward devotional
life and outward actions.
n Trust in God.
n Practicing what is taught by Christ
l Bonhoeffer
n The Sermon on the Mount had
converted him from being an ambitious theologian to being an actual Christian.
n When Hitler came to power,
Bonhoeffer was beginning to write his book Discipleship. It was while he
was focusing on his concrete interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount
that he made the crucial decision to oppose Hitler.
n One only learns to have faith
by living in the full this-worldliness of life. This-worldliness
referring to: living fully in the midst of life’s tasks, questions, successes
and failures, experiences, and perplexities. Then one takes seriously no longer
one’s own sufferings but rather the suffering of God in the world.
n Bonhoeffer develops love, not
renunciation, as the central theme. Love is “a real belonging-together and
being-together of people with other human beings and with the world, based on
God’s love that is extended to me and to them.” The Sermon on the Mount calls
for self-denial not as a principle of renunciation, but as
a call “to love one another, thus to reject everything that hinders
fulfilling this task”.
n Jesus is no Platonic idealist;
Jesus is a Jewish realist.
n Sermon on the Mount from Matthew
5:21 to 7:12 have been misinterpreted as dyadic antithesis instead of
the transforming initiatives. For example, 5:21-26 has been
misinterpreted as an antithesis commanding us never to be angry, which would be
an impossibly high ideal. These are actually fourteen triads: Beginning with a traditional
instruction. Then offers a realistic diagnosis of vicious cycles and
power dynamics that cause injustice if we handle them inappropriately. Then
concludes with a constructive alternative.
n Martin Luther’s translation
of Matthew 5:38-42 as “do not resist evil” led him to develop his two-realms
ethics, limiting the Sermon on the Mount to individual relationships.
Such a compartmentalised ethics had disastrous effects in
history, causing many Christians to think they should not resist Hitler.
n Jesus taught in the tradition of
Hebrew prophets: he frequently revisited evil, including Pharisees and authorities
and Satan.
n Jesus advocates justice for the
poor, inclusion of enemies, and peacemaking rather than violence, and he
confronts the domination of the Pharisees.
n The transforming initiatives point
us toward participating in the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst, the
breakthrough of the reign of God, the presence of God.
The imitation of Christ:
l Two fundamental theological
difficulties associated with an ethic of the imitation of Christ
l Exemplarism which shows Christ as one who is
outside us and historically distant from us.
l Christ may indeed be the great
moral educator of mankind, but the human capacity for moral education
gives every indication of being sadly limited, conditioned and
restricted by forces over which we have little control (Romans 7:15-24).
l Pelagian view: perfectionist illusions,
unrealistic and un-Christian view of human nature.
l The idea of the “imitation of
Christ” suggests that we imitate him externally, like a human ability to
imitate an external example, of a salvation dependent on our efforts. The idea
of “being conformed to Christ” is a better wording because it speaks of
an internal process of transformation by which the real presence of
Christ within us gradually changes us as we are conformed to him.
l It’s about being Christlike,
not by imitating but by being changed by the grace of God, to achieve
something that otherwise lies completely beyond our grasp.
The politics of Jesus
l No Zealot. Rejected vengeful
nationalism.
n The enemy was to be loved, not destroyed.
n He entered Jerusalem riding no war horse but a donkey.
l No Sadducean collaborator.
n The temple cleansing, a political act in protest against those who
used their authority in the temple to make themselves rich as the expense of
pious pilgrims and the poor.
l No political programme in Jesus’
announcement of the Kingdom. But there was a political posture:
n A posture ready to condemn the pride of power of those who
‘lord it over’ their subject (Mark 10:42-44).
n A posture that seeks peace and turns against the Zealot’s
desire for revenge.
n Seeks justice and turns against Sadducean collaboration in
exploitation.
Resources:
Clifford, Ross.
Lecture notes on the ethical thought of Paul and the ethical thought of Jesus.
Fee, Gordon D. Paul, the
Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody: Baker Academic, 1996.
Hays, Richard B. The Moral
Vision of the New Testament. New York: Harper One, 1996.
New Dictionary of Christian
Ethics &Pastoral Theology. Editors David J. Atkinson and David H. Field.
