These two posts by Dr. James Tabor are a great presentation of Pauline theology.
Paul’s Six Greatest Ideas: Part One
Paul’s Six Greatest Ideas: Part Two
Extracts from those posts are below.
- A New Spiritual Body. – For Paul the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead was a primary and essential component of the Christian faith. He states emphatically: “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). His entire understanding of salvation hinged on what he understood to be a singular cosmic event, namely Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus, however, is not what is commonly understood today. It had nothing to do with the resuscitation of a corpse. Paul must have assumed that Jesus was peacefully laid to rest in a tomb in Jerusalem according to the Jewish burial customs of the time. He even knows some tradition about that burial, though he offers no details (1 Corinthians 15:4). For a full exposition of this line of thinkings see my post titled “Why People are Confused about the Earliest Christian View of Resurrection of the Dead.” [See Michael Heiser’s review of his post here that Tabor recommended.]
- A Cosmic Family and A Heavenly Kingdom. – According to Paul this new genus of Spirit-beings of which Jesus was the “firstborn” is part of an expanded cosmic family (Romans 8:29).
- 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. NRSV
- A Mystical Union with Christ. – Paul completely transformed the practice and understanding of baptism and the Eucharist to his Greek-speaking Gentile converts. Although rituals of water purification were common in Judaism, including the ceremonies of immersion practiced by John the Baptizer and Jesus as a sign of repentance, Paul’s adaptation of baptism moved beyond ceremonial signification. Baptism brought about a mystical union with what Paul called the “spiritual body” of Christ, and was the act through which one received the impregnating Holy Spirit.
- Already but Not Yet. – Paul operated with strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did. He was quite sure that he and his followers would live to see the return of Christ from heaven. Life in the world would go on, but not for long. Everything was soon to be transformed. At the same time there was a sense in which everything continued as it was.
- Under the Torah of Christ. – As a Jew Paul decisively turned his back on the Torah revelation given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, with all of its laws, customs, and traditions. In other words, Paul abandoned his Judaism. He would have never put it that way, though, since what he advocated he called a new and true Judaism, making the first obsolete. He maintained the Torah had now been replaced and superseded by the new Torah of Christ (Galatians 3:23-26).
- 23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. NRSV
- The Battle of the Apostles. – Paul understood his own role as an apostle, “last but not least,” as he put it, as the essential and pivotal element in God’s cosmic plan to bring about the salvation of the world through Christ. Though he expressed grief over his former life as an opponent and persecutor of the Jesus movement, stressing that he was unworthy even to be an apostle, he nonetheless believed that his call to be an apostle was a singular and extraordinary event (1 Corinthians 15:9-10). Unlike the other apostles who had been chosen by Jesus at the beginning of his preaching in Galilee, Paul believed that he had been set apart and called before he was even born—while still in his mother’s womb (Galatians 1:15).
