Paul and Jesus

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. (2 Corinthians 11:22–23)

I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. (2 Corinthians 12:11–12)

Here we can see that this rival group is appealing to its Jewish heritage, which Paul also could muster forth from his own background, but more important, the others are claiming to be “true” apostles, as opposed to Paul’s role as “apostle to the Gentiles.” Paul resorts to bitter sarcasm, calling them the “super-apostles” but asserting that he has labored harder, suffered more, has had more extraordinary revelations, and worked greater miracles than any of them. We have seen a less heated version of Paul’s need to defend himself as “last but not least” when he compares his own apostleship with that of James, Peter, and the Twelve, declaring, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he [Christ] appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle . . . but I worked harder than any of them” (1 Corinthians 15:8–10).

Most telling as to the wider issues at stake is the language he uses to describe the threat to his flock:

For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. (2 Corinthians 11:4–5)

This sounds almost identical to the way he opens his letter to the Galatians:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel . . . But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached, let him be damned! (Galatians 1:6–8)

The entire letter to the Galatians makes clear the threat these apostles represent to Paul. They are observant of the Torah themselves, and though not requiring conversion on the part of Gentiles, they apparently present the option in a favorable light, and some of Paul’s followers have responded positively.

Paul’s most extreme characterization of these apostles shows the degree to which he has given up on any possible reconciliation of their views:

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Corinthians 11:13–15)

It is hard for us to imagine today that Paul might have the Jerusalem apostles in mind here—actually calling them servants of Satan. But this language should not surprise us because Paul has already written to the Galatians that anyone who preaches contrary to what he preaches is to be damned—even an angel from heaven! What he means here is not that Peter, James, and the Twelve are demonic or Satanic, but that if they are tearing down what he has built up as an apostle to the Gentiles, one empowered directly by Christ, they have served the cause of Satan, no matter what their association with Jesus might be.

We know that James, Peter, and the Twelve would have been appalled at what Paul says about the Torah and the revelation to Moses at Sinai. Although Paul’s letters, other than Romans, are written directly to his intimate personal followers, it is likely that delegates from Jerusalem visiting his congregations, including Peter himself, had learned enough to realize the implications of Paul’s gospel and his exalted claims to apostleship—namely the repudiation of the Jewish faith and its replacement with Paul’s new covenant religion, in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile any longer.

It is quite telling that in his last letter to one of his churches, to his followers in Philippi, written when Paul was in prison in Rome, Paul’s language against his Jewish opponents is unbending, and if anything has become more bitter, even as he affirms once more his own status and place in the eyes of Christ. These are among the last words of Paul and they stand as testimony to all that he lived for and died for, and how he paved the way for a new religion called Christianity: