God’s A-Pauling Choice of Ambassador
Question: Why did Jesus call the most Jewish, religious,
indoctrinated student of good works, the Champion of the religion of Judaism,
to be his distinctive ambassador of hope to the Gentile world?[1] The Jewish people had been given the most glorious
covenant the world had ever known, with Ten Commandments etched into stone by
the finger of God himself.[2] The Gentiles were all the poor suckers who didn’t
know that the Jews had already got the prize and the game was over. So, why
would God use someone who appeared to be the best of the best to reach those
that man had thought were the worst of the worst?
After all, weren’t there other disciples who were more
Gentilish in their ancestry? Weren’t there maybe some Jewish disciples who had
kind of a tarnished record of living up to the law of God that the Gentiles
could relate to more easily? Wouldn’t the infidel Gentiles relate better to the
failures of Peter, or the hot-headedness of James and John? Isn’t the best
testimony of the gospel to show some extreme transformation from sin-to-sanctification
so that sinners had some hope that they could be saved?
Paul certainly doesn’t fit the description of someone who
was living a bad life and was suddenly overcome with the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Paul was living as good a life as a good man could live. He had the
highest and best covenant God had ever made with man (prior to Jesus’ coming
and giving us something magnificently better, that is), and he excelled at
putting it into practice, or so he thought.
What Paul did fit was the profile of someone who could
prove to the world that being a good man, by a standard of goodness written in
stone by the finger of God, was hopeless at ever attaining the in-the-image-of-God
righteousness the human soul longs for. Instead of the stereotypical message
of, “God saved a bad man like me, so you can be sure he can save you as well”,
God used a very good man, the best of the best, to announce to all sinners that
there isn’t even such a thing as a good man whatsoever. Fact is, anyone who
sins in even one point of the law is guilty of sinning against the whole law.[3] Paul was as guilty as me.
And so, Paul could go to the Gentile world with his gospel
of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and tell them that “though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent
opponent… I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the
grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ
Jesus.”[4] This good man, who had tried to win God’s approval
through keeping the Ten Commandments, was really a blasphemer of God because he
had denounced God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was really a persecutor,
rather than a protector, because he had persecuted the church that Jesus, the
Son of God, the Messiah, was building in the world. And, he was an insolent
opponent because he was rude and mean and obnoxious in opposing the work God
was doing to establish his kingdom in the hearts of people who were receiving
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
From that vantage point as a blaspheming, persecuting,
insolent opponent of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul could speak of the amazing
mercy and grace he had received from God, and how this mercy and grace overflowed
into his life along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, the very
person Paul was opposing and persecuting.
Paul now had every right and experience to declare to the
Gentile world, “The saying is
trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”[5] While Paul had left his life of sin when Jesus
called him into the kingdom of God, he still saw himself as the foremost
example of a sinner. Whereas he had once thought of himself as the foremost of
the righteous, he had really been the foremost of the unrighteous. He once
thought the Messiah would come and pat him on the back for his good behavior,
but now praised God that he had both sent his Son into the world to save
sinners, and sent his Son to open his eyes so he could see his sin and receive
this great salvation.
From there, Paul explains why he is such a great witness to
Gentiles. He writes, “But I received
mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display
his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for
eternal life.”[6] His explanation is simple: he was the foremost of
sinners, and God’s mercy to him displayed the perfect patience of Jesus Christ
towards sinners, so that all the rest of time had this amazing example of God
delivering a man from sin by believing in Jesus Christ and inheriting eternal
life.
What is Paul’s message to us Gentiles? How would Paul’s
testimony of almost two millennia speak to a German/Hungarian/Canadian Gentile
of the twenty-first century (or any other variation of Gentile)? Paul’s
testimony says that, the same grace, mercy, love, and perfect patience
demonstrated to an arrogant, blind, ignorant, mouthy, rebellious, religious
hypocrite is there for every sinner who is drawn to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ unto eternal life.
Of course, we have plenty of examples of prostitutes,
drunks, tax collectors, and sinners of all kinds coming to Jesus so that every
other kind of sin is covered as well. In fact, it is to the glory of God’s
grace and mercy that Paul himself could list the kinds of sins that keep people
out of the kingdom of God, while still seeing himself as the foremost kind of
sinner. He wrote,
Or do you not know that the
unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither
the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice
homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.[7]
Paul could declare that this was true of all those kinds of
sinners, knowing that he would never have inherited the kingdom of God because
of his extreme sins against the Lord Jesus Christ. But, while he could speak of
God’s wonderful grace, mercy, love and patience towards him, he could then
write the church with this wonderful reminder: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of
our God.”[8]
This past-tense expression is the wonderful hope of every
sinner who is drawn to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We could list every sin,
from worst to least (if there is such a thing), and put Paul at the top of the
list as the foremost kind of sinner, and then tell anyone who matches any
description of sin or sinner that this could be their “such WERE some of you”.
It is as though Paul, who once thought he stood at the top
of the list among the righteous, and then realized he was really at the top of
the list among sinners, had the greatest opportunity to tell us Gentiles that
there is a way to be washed clean as he was washed clean. There was a way to be
set apart unto God as holy (sanctified) that no commandments written in stone
could ever accomplish. There was a way to be justified from sin that the Ten
Commandments could never do, and it was all “in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” just as
much for Paul as it was for any Gentile who ever received the gospel.
The message is clear: the foremost of sinners was found by
the one and only Savior, and commissioned to tell every other sinner that
salvation is for them, whether they be Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or
female, rich or poor, creationist or evolutionist, deist or atheist.[9] Anyone who hears the gospel of Jesus Christ can
repent of their own sin, receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and live a
life of freedom that will constantly give glory to the grace, mercy, love, and
perfect patience of our Lord Jesus Christ.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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