Was Paul a Kabbalist Mystic?

Mark Hicks

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Hi Friends —

If you haven't heard of EP Sanders, click here to see what Bart Ehrman has to say about him. Sanders was a New Testament scholar who studied the Apostle Paul, a first-century Jew. Most Christian scholars learn about Judaism from Christians. And what they get is a Christian perspective. Sanders did something few Christian scholars ever do: he went to Jerusalem and learned first-century Judaism from Judaism's most learned Rabbis. What he found and publicized has rocked New Testament scholarship for the past 50 years. It certainly rocked Bart Ehrman. And I hope it rocks you.

So here is a summary of what Sanders has to say: how Paul has been misinterpreted by Evangelicals for 500 years and what Paul really said about being saved. I have added my understanding of how the Sanders research supports much of the Fillmore teachings about our "participation" with Christ and how it provides a deeper understanding of Metaphysical Christianity's debt to mystical Judaism.

Following the summary is a the text of a paper I wrote earlier this year about the Sanders' research. It's academic, but it has footnotes, and it's easy to read. There is also a link to download a PDF. Christianity is changing. Research and academic engagement is turning out new understandings all the time. The doors of academia are open to metaphysical Christian ideas as never before.

Paul and Calvinism

EP Sanders asserts that the apostle Paul never taught that salvation is given to those with "faith in Christ" but rather that salvation is given to those who "participate with Christ.” What does that mean? What does it mean to participate with Christ? Sanders admitted that he did not know. He simply asserted that Paul never promoted salvation by faith alone.

His research challenged 500 years of Calvinist theology. It "launched a thousand articles" in academia, particularly Evangelical theologians who defend the Lutheran perspective of Paul as promoting salvation by faith in Christ. Most of the responses from scholars are not convincing.

Sanders believed that when Paul writes about being "in Christ,” he is writing about a total "transfer" of the believer from one owner to another. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ with me." Not the Christ in heaven, but the Christ within, the Christ that first accesses a person and then works from within to transform the individual (and, as I will explain further down, to transfer the individual, metaphysically, from Gentile to Jew). Paul often talks about being "in the Spirit." What he means is not that we come to possess a spirit, but that the Spirit comes to possesses us. That may help us understand why Charles Fillmore so closely identified himself with the apostle Paul.

Paul and Judaism

EP Sanders' work has substantiated Paul's mission was not to convert the Jews. Initially, Paul wasn't trying to get Jews to Jesus. Instead, he was desperate to get Gentiles into Judaism, without fully conforming to Jewish law. Why? Paul saw Judaism as the path to salvation (by the covenant, not the law) and he was convinced that God appointed Jesus so that Gentiles would be "grafted" into Judaism by mystical union with him, transforming individuals from Gentile to Jew.

A Jew, as every good Jew knows, is always saved by remaining within the covenant. So Paul's gripe with the Jews was not that they rejected Jesus but that they rejected Gentiles. Eventually, Paul gave up and taught that the path to salvation was "participation" with the Christ within. That is why Paul repeatedly spoke of being "in Christ" and "in the Spirit".

And you know what? Charles Fillmore also saw Judaism, metaphysically, as a path to salvation. He never saw Jews or Israel as a religion inferior to Christianity. In fact, metaphysically, Judaism holds a primary place in Fillmore teaching. According to Charles, Gentiles are "Worldly thoughts--thoughts pertaining to the external, or thoughts that function through the senses. The Gentile is the unregenerate state of mind in us."

Further, Charles says Jews, "in their highest aspect [the consciousness of covenant with God] symbolize divine ideas, or spiritual consciousness" and Israel is "as a nation, in its highest significance, symbolizes ...the thoughts that have been wrought in Truth and righteousness make the spiritual mind." Law changes, but a covenant is unbreakable, even a covenant of spiritual consciousness.

What this means for the Fillmore movement

This paper does not explore the alignment of Paul and Charles Fillmore. But my study is ongoing. Here are a few things I'm learning. Annotating the Fillmore Study Bible Old Testament brings to the surface many hints of Jewish mystical teaching. Esoteric Judaism and Kabbalah certainly have a privileged place in Christian New Thought—Emma Curtis Hopkins and the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary are filled with Hebrew mysticism. Ed Rabel confirms somewhere in his Old Testament lectures that Fillmore teachers intensely studied Kabbalah in the 1930s.

Academic scholars assume that Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah originated in the 13th century. However, many Rabbinical scholars trace written Kabbalah back to first- and second-century Rabbis who documented oral traditions and traced oral Kabbalah back to Moses. Paul was a student of Gamaliel, a first-century Rabbi. Is it not possible that Paul learned Kabbalah from Gamaliel?

One resource that is well worth reading is Aryeh Kaplan's Meditation and Kabbalah, freely available on The Internet Archive. While you're there, take a look at Kaplan's other books, particularly The Real Messiah? A Jewish Response to Missionaries.

Sanders, Fillmore, and Kaplan have just about convinced me that I am not a Metaphysical Christian. I am, rather, a Metaphysical Judeo-Christian.

Mark Hicks
Sunday, December 1, 2024

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Possession by the Holy Spirit as Participation in Christ

Mark Hicks
BS622 Literature/Theology of the New Testament - Mark Hicks
May 13, 2024

Thesis.

This paper seeks to clarify what Paul means in his many references to being “in Christ.” My thesis is that, for Paul, to be in Christ is to be possessed or occupied by the Holy Spirit. My focus will be six pericopes from three Pauline letters: Romans 6:1-16, Romans 8:1-17, 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Galatians 3:1-5, and Galatians 5:22-25.

My point of reference will be E.P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977), which spawned many studies that have come to be known as “participation in Christ.” Craig Hill has asserted that “few have drawn or deserve attention on the scale of [Sanders], which for nearly three decades has been both continuously acclaimed and constantly resisted. It is the face of Pauline studies that launched a thousand texts.”1

Building on Albert Schweitzer’s work, Sanders’ monograph asserted that being in Christ was something other than a state of being justified by faith. Instead of justification by faith being the foundation of Paul’s theology, Sanders asserted that it was “participation in Christ.”2 But Sanders, like Paul, was not clear on what he meant. Sanders admits in the Conclusion,

But what does this mean? How are we to understand it? We seem to lack a category of ‘reality’ - real participation in Christ, real possession of the Spirit - which lies between naive cosmological speculation and belief in magical transference on the one hand and a revised self-understanding on the other. I must confess that I do not have a new category of perception to propose here.3

This has led researchers to explore many options. We need clarification of Paul’s use of the term in Christ because his use was varied and not clearly explained. Biblical exegete Constantine Campbell wrote:

The structure of Paul’s thought involves many interconnected themes, which are obviously not presented to us in a systematic fashion. Scholars have spent considerable energy over the years trying to delineate the logic of the relationships between themes— a fact that reveals the complexity of the task. In particular, some strands of scholarship have sought to identify the ‘key’ to Paul’s theological framework. Scholars have believed that by correctly identifying this key, they would then be able to ‘unlock’ Paul’s mind and thus both understand what he really means and delineate the matters of most importance to him.4

One option as the ‘key’ to Paul’s theological framework is “Possession by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit appears in much of Paul’s writings, often as something that resides in an individual and also in a community. I have chosen six pericopes for study because they portray the Holy Spirit’s intimate relationship with the disciple: possessing the disciple, providing guidance, empowering action, and assuring salvation.

My point of reference and guide for this study will be E.P. Sanders. Following Sanders’ method of reviewing source materials instead of secondary research (discussed below in Methodology), I will review two of his sources, Adolph Deissmann’s St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (1926) and Albert Schweitzer’s The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931). In 2008, on the occasion of a conference reviewing Sanders’ life work, Sanders concluded his address by praising the earlier scholarship “before the turn toward Luther, which [Sanders said] has narrowed that scholarship to its detriment. For a long time I thought that Deissmann had written the best book on Paul, and these days I rather miss the company of these now ancient Germans. I should look at some of them again.”5

Therefore, I have chosen to delve into these ancient sources, a path less trodden in contemporary scholarship. While these sources may be dated, they offer substantial insights that have not been fully explored in post-Sanders studies. This unique approach promises to unveil a coherent and convincing argument that has yet to be fully realized. I will strive to draw, as much as possible, from the wisdom of those who responded to Sanders and Schweitzer, adding a fresh perspective to the ongoing scholarly conversation.

Methodology.

I have chosen to build my study on the work of E. P. Sanders because of his innovative research methods. In the 1970s and 1980s, he explored what one must do to become a member of a religious tradition and what one must do to remain in good standing in the tradition.6 His research methods rested on three principles: (1) he sought answers by comparison, in this case, comparing Paul’s writings with those of Palestinian Judaism; (2) he focused his comparisons on the source materials instead of secondary research; and (3) he limited his comparisons to what the writings said and ignored as much as possible theological abstractions.7 I hope to acquire some of his research skills by doing this study.

began his study by going to Israel and learning Palestinian Judaism from the rabbis.8 Besides falling in love with their wisdom and character, he understood that Paul’s ministry and writings were not so much a break with Judaism as it was an extension of Judaism that permitted Gentiles to become “grafted” into the Abrahamic tradition without fully conforming to Jewish law.9 The rabbis appreciated that a Christian scholar had chosen to learn Judaism from them instead of from Christian sources. Most importantly, Sanders’ innovative work has led to many “New Perspectives on Paul.”

This paper could have reviewed these many “new perspectives.” There is plenty of excellent material to draw from—too much for a short survey. To shorten the list and provide some consistency in content, I have chosen to follow the method of Sanders by reviewing the primary source of these new perspectives, which is Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Schweitzer’s The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, and Deissmann’s St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History. From that foundation, I will draw from several well-regarded contemporary scholars who have reviewed his work.

Research

The Simplicity of Paul’s Message

Both Deissmann and Schweitzer imply that first-generation followers of Jesus saw or believed something that later disciples did not understand. Schweitzer notes that Paul’s message relied on a religious understanding that existed in the time of Jesus and Paul but not later generations. Ignatius, a 2nd generation theologian, had adopted much of Paul’s language but little of his content,

The problem why Paul’s teaching did not appear strange to the Christians of the first generation has its counterpart in the similarly puzzling fact that it did become strange to the immediately following generations. In his Letters Ignatius … appears on a superficial view to be completely under the influence of Paul. … But … He never explains the being-in-Christ by authentic Pauline conceptions! He never quotes any sayings about the dying and rising again with Christ; and he never develops the teaching about righteousness through faith. He takes over the idea of being-in-Christ, but with out its Pauline content. For this he substitutes new and simpler ideas of Hellenistic origin.10

Schweitzer concludes that Ignatius and the Johannine school found it necessary to adopt Hellenistic beliefs in response to the delay in the return of Christ:

Ignatius, in fact, and the Johannine school which was nearly related to him, Hellenize Christianity as if Paul had not already done so. For them—and after all we must credit them with some sense for what was and what was not Hellenistic—the idea of having died and risen again with Christ is not Hellenistic, otherwise Christianity would have taken it over along with the idea of being-in-Christ, instead of substituting for it a view which is derived from the Logos idea.11

This reveals that our search for the key to understanding Paul’s understanding of participation in Christ will be found in something unique to first-generation religious culture. Deissmann would agree:

What is best in St. Paul belongs not to theology, but to religion. It is true, St. Paul was the pupil of theologians, and learnt how to employ theological methods; he employs them, indeed, as a Christian missionary. But we must not for this reason rank the tent-maker of Tarsus along with Origen, Thomas Aquinas and Schleiermacher. His place is with Amos, the herd-man of Tekoa, and Tersteegen, the ribbon-weaver of Mulheim. St. Paul the theologian looks backward towards Rabbinism. As a religious genius St. Paul’s outlook is forward into a future of universal history.12

Our task, therefore, is to seek to understand Paul’s focus as a Christian missionary concerned with immediate practical matters, not as a theologian. This is in line with Sanders’ assertion #3, referenced in Methodology above: We should limit our comparisons to what the writings actually say and ignore as many theological abstractions as possible. Do so, and let’s look at the world behind the text.

The World Behind the Text: Principalities and Powers

Both Deissmann and Schweizer vividly depict a first-generation religious culture deeply engrossed in the concept of principalities and powers, manifested in the form of angels who wield control over the Law:

(Deissmann) The world of St. Paul is a cosmos—in the truest sense a world.13 … Throughout the whole of St. Paul’s world, from east to west and from west to east, run traditions, thousands of years old, of visible manifestations of the deity, of the deceit and wickedness of daemons, of divine strength taking the form of man and compelling the powers of darkness.14

(Schweitzer) Paul is not alone in holding—though the Scripture says nothing of this— that at the law-giving in Sinai (Ex. xix. and xx), Moses did not receive the Law direct from God but from the Angels. … That the Law was actually given by Angels is asserted by Paul in Galatians in the words “ordained by angels though by the hand of a mediator” (Gal. 3:19-20). … But from this theory, that the Law was given by Angels, Paul … advances to the statement, which occurs only in him, that the obedience rendered to the Law was rendered not to God but only to the Angels. By means of the Law men were placed in pupilage to the World-Elements (Gal. 4:3, 9), who kept them in dependence upon themselves, until God, through Christ, set them free from the curse of the Law (Gal. 4:1-5).15

Schweitzer assesses that this obsession with principalities and powers led Paul and his disciples to a clear understanding of the future coming of Christ:

In general, the view of Jewish eschatology is that the evil of the world comes from the demons, and that angelic beings have, with God’s permission, established themselves between Him and man kind. In its simplest form the conception of redemption is that the Messianic Kingdom puts an end to this condition.16

The apparent reality of principalities and powers that control human destiny and even the Law itself is what scholars today refer to as the world behind the text. This gave rise to a distinct spiritual need: hope.

The World Behind the Text: The Return of Christ

Deissmann declares, “There are two poles as it were to St. Paul’s hope of Christ.”17 One pole is the eschaton, and the other is the hope of immediate human transformation. He believes Paul is more concerned about immediate transformation: “To represent the hope of St. Paul as ‘eschatology ’ deprives it of its perennial freshnes … [t]hus in St. Paul there run side by side with each other Eastern, native Jewish, and Western, Hellenistic and cosmopolitan expressions of hope, and the great popular preacher feels no compulsion to harmonise them theoretically.”18

Central to Paul’s teachings is his hope of Christ’s return. Schweitzer argues that this hope is the key to understanding Paul’s conception of participation, suggesting that Paul and his disciples sought freedom from the angels, the principalities, and powers. This underscores the significance of Paul’s hope in his theological framework.

He held the conviction that His presence in the world meant the beginning of the downfall of the demons’ tyranny. But the eschatological view is also a determining factor in Jesus’ conception of the significance of His death. His death contributes to the destruction of the power of ‘the Evil One’, because it has for consequence His elevation to the Messiahship.19

It just may be that Deissmann’s remark about “two poles” provides a reference for understanding the eschaton and several other concepts, such as justification and righteousness.

Paul’s Answer: Possession in Christ Mysticism

Deissmann concludes his chapter on St. Paul The Man, “Whoever takes away the mystical element from St. Paul, the man of antiquity, sins against the injunction of St. Paul ‘Quench not the Spirit.’”20 Deissmann elaborates on what the Spirit means to Paul:

With the assurance of Damascus, ‘Christ in me,’ and that other assurance of equal content, ‘I in Christ,’ there is concentrated in the deep and to religious impulses extremely sensitive soul of the convert an inexhaustible religious energy. In all directions St. Paul now radiates ‘the power of Christ’ that possesses him.21

There are two distinct aspects in this statement that set it apart: the participation is with Christ, not God, and, second, it is an experience of being possessed. Schweitzer labels this as Christ-mysticism and also refers to possession:

Although he so unhesitatingly equates the possession of the Spirit of Christ with the possession of the Spirit of God, Paul nevertheless never makes the being-in-Christ into a being-in-God.22

Possession plays a pivotal role in comprehending Paul’s concept of participation. But why does Paul emphasize participation in Christ rather than participation in God?

According to the Eschatological view the elect man shares the fate of the world. Therefore, so long as the world has not returned to God, he also cannot be in God. … Not until the coming of the Messianic Kingdom will men be Children of God.23

This reveals Paul’s understanding that participation in Christ is transitory, distinct from deification or unity with God. He declares, “They are chronologically successive, Christ- mysticism holding the field until God-mysticism becomes possible.”24

In the Spirit as Reality

Sanders comments on the reluctance of modern scholars to recognize Paul’s perspective as anything beyond metaphor:

It is possible that modern scholars have been too strongly struck by Paul’s view of participation and union to give it precise justice. The ‘discoverers’ of the view, such as Deissmann and Schweitzer, may justly be accused of giving it too much prominence as a unique, creative and ultimately (to modem man) incomprehensible view.25

He says modern scholars, like Bultmann, hold that in Christ/in the Spirit “there is ‘no magical or mysterious transformation of man’; rather, ‘a new understanding of one’s self takes the place of the old’.”26 Sanders stresses that while modern scholars may see ambiguity in participation, Paul was firm:

While the Christians are waiting for God’s son from heaven (I Thess. 1:9), they have the Spirit. While there may be some ambiguity in Paul as to whether life is present or future, there is no ambiguity about the Spirit. It is the present possession of the Christians and their guarantee of salvation.27

Somewhat defending Bultmann, Richard B. Hays offers “Four Suggestions about How to Understand ‘Participation in Christ,’” which can accommodate modernist understanding. They include participation as belonging to a family, participation as political or military solidarity with Christ, participation in the Ekklēsia, and participation as living within the Christ story.28 However, Stanley K. Stowers responds that Hays is “overwriting Paul’s thought with modernity.” He accuses New Testament scholars of assuming Paul’s lack of systematic theological explanation provides them license to impute misguided notions of Paul’s intent.29

While I do not deny that Hays’s suggestions may have merit and may provide spiritual support for modernist thinkers, there is no reason for anyone who senses the existence of a transcendent spiritual reality to question Sanders’s statements. I will show that Christians who possessed the Spirit were equally possessed by the Spirit. Further, being possessed by the Spirit means being “in Christ” or, quoting Schweitzer above, “in Christ-mysticism.”

The Pattern of Participation in Christ

Six pericopes imply the following: that the Holy Spirit gains access to the disciple through faith (Galatians 3:1-5), possesses the disciple and forms a spiritual union with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:12-20), opens a communication channel with God the Father (1 Corinthians 2:6-16), transfers the disciple from flesh to Spirit (Romans 8:1-11), establishes a new agency in the disciple and encourages ethical living (Romans 6:1-16), and reveals a new creature in the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-25).30

Sanders criticized Christianity for comparing itself with Judaism on its own terms. “What is needed” he says, “is to compare Paul on his own terms with Judaism on its own terms, a comparison not of one-line essences or of separate motifs, but of a whole religion with a whole religion.” His solution is to identify how a religion is perceived to function, which he calls “patterns of religion,” and compare patterns between religions instead of doctrines, rituals, etc. The pattern he identified was “how one enters the community and how one remains in the community.”31 He declares that, for Paul, “One enters by becoming one with Christ Jesus, and one stays in by remaining ‘pure and blameless’ and by not engaging in unions which are destructive of the union with Christ.”32

Following Sanders, the six pericopes discussed below provide a pattern of what Paul believes to be participation in Christ. They function as one unit in a progression that begins with openness and concludes with assurance.

Gaining access to the disciple: Galatians 3:1-5

Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? (Galatians 3:2) does God supply you with the Spirit (Galatians 3:5)

The context for this pericope is the Galatians having been exposed to outsiders who propose that true followers of Jesus must conform to the Torah. The issue, therefore, is “Who should the disciple listen to?” or “Who has access to the disciple’s mind?” Two verbs in this pericope are significant to understanding how faith provides openness to Spirit: receive in v2 and supply in v5. Sanders writes, “That Christians received the Spirit by faith rather than by works of the law” means faith does not justify (make righteous) but provides openness to the Spirit.33

Taking possession of the disciple: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor. 6:15)

This is the first of two pericopes addressing the depth of being possessed by the Spirit. Possession is not metaphor, but reality, and it begins with possession of the body. Constantine Campbell writes, “A spiritual union exists as a flesh union exists in marriage34, and Sanders writes, “The phrase appears as a verbal contrast to ‘one flesh’ with a prostitute, and there is no reason to think that being one Spirit with the Lord is in any way different from being the members of the body of Christ.”35 Paul, trying to be as convincing as possible, is actually appealing to the sexual instinct to portray possession.

Opening a communication channel with God: 1 Corinthians 2:6-16

But we speak God’s wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:7). But we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).

This, the second of two pericopes explaining how one participates in Christ, describes how the Spirit must possess the disciple’s mind and open a communication channel with God the Father. Paul asserts that no one outside of Christ has such access to divine wisdom. Stowers writes, “The divine pneuma communicates between those in Christ and God.” In this and the previous passage, we see a complete infiltration by the Holy Spirit of the disciple’s body and mind.

Transferring the disciple from flesh to Spirit: Romans 8:1-16

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 8:1-2).

This is what Sanders refers to as Transfer terminology.36 One study Bible says of this pericope, “The opening words are an emphatic transition from condemnation in chap. 7 to deliverance in chap. 8. No condemnation does not mean believers are free from the struggle against sin, but that they are free from the sentence of death and judgment on the last day.”37 Sanders agrees, saying it “provides for a transfer of lordship that Paul can express the transfer in terms of liberation or freedom from bondage. One is free from the power of sin (or the law) and free to live for God.”38 We often assume this passage means freedom from God’s judgment, but we learn from Deissmann and Schweitzer that what people of the day feared was not God but rather the principalities and powers who controlled the Law and, therefore, their destiny.

Establishing a new agency in the disciple: Romans 6:1-16

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3)

For whoever has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:7)

No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. (Romans 6:13)

Douglas Campbell writes that participation in Christ is articulated baptismally, stressing that Paul’s disciples have been immersed into Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection,” thereby rising to “new, reconstituted minds [and] a new agency freed from single lusts and from the sordid suggestions of evil powers.”39 Sanders says “the verb dikaiomai, which in I Cor. 6.11 means ‘acquitted’ (parallel to ‘washed’ and ‘sanctified’ ), is used in Rom. 6:7 as a parallel to ‘set free’ in the context of a discussion of death with Christ as setting one free from the power of sin.40

Why is this important? And why does Paul continue with verse 13, insisting that his disciples refrain from sexual impropriety? It is important to Paul because such behavior threatens the disciples’ union with Christ. Sanders writes, “It is not the transgressions qua transgressions which exclude one (as a punishment for them), but the fact that they establish unions which are not compatible with union with Christ.”41

Having been transferred from flesh to Spirit, the disciple must now honor a new agency, the Holy Spirit. That agency is exclusive. The disciple maintains that agency by remaining chaste.

Revealing a new creature in the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-3

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-5)

According to John Barclay, a presenter at the above-mentioned conference honoring E.P. Sanders, Paul believed that the agency established by the Holy Spirit has a strong relationship to “good works.” Barclay writes, “As Galatians 5:13-6:10 demonstrates, Paul regards the Christian moral life as impossible apart from the Spirit, which provides not only instruction but also empowerment for a moral life. The fruit for which Paul looks is, after all, the fruit of the Spirit.”42

Barclay points out, which he learned from Sanders, that the importance of good works is as important for Palestinian Judaism as it is for Paul. Both adhere to the notion that good works are a price for remaining in the community and that they, by themselves, do not earn salvation.43 At the same conference, Sanders revealed a timeless message learned from his study with the rabbis: “I fell in love. The first things I noticed about the rabbis were their humanity, tolerance, and good humor. … Besides the desire to understand the sacred text, which makes them very much like New Testament scholars, toleration of disagreement was their strongest and most consistent characteristic. … I did not grasp how close we were on the Jewish side.”44 .

Conclusion

This study may say more about New Testament biblical scholarship than it says about the new perspective regarding Paul’s understanding of what it means to participate in Christ. This is significant to me because my study of the New Testament depends on its relevance in ministry and my life. The concluding section of the research above, In the Spirit As Reality, touches on the debate behind the study: are we talking about metaphor or reality here?

Historical exegetes like Deissmann and Schweitzer helped launch a trend of scholarship that may be transitioning to something new. The scholarship was a study of the historical Jesus, which bracketed metaphysical and mystical understanding of the Gospel. Sanders’ methodology may have provided a way to move beyond historical Jesus research by returning to the sources, limiting theological constraints and allowing traditions to speak for themselves.

Concurrent to this apparent trend in scholarship is the rise of Pentecostalism, a movement deeply rooted in a much-simplified form of Christian soteriology: salvation through possession of and by the Spirit. What I see in much of modern biblical and theological scholarship is complexity. That is fine as long as the new complexity provides for greater simplicity in practice. I have attempted to give a practical explanation of the new perspective about Paul that supports the metaphysical and mystical experience of post-modern Christianity.

Bibliography

  • Campbell, Constantine R. Paul and Union with Christ : An Exegetical and Theological Study. Zondervan, 2012.
  • Campbell, Douglas A (Douglas Atchison).“A Participationist Eschatological Account of Justification: Further Reflections.” Revue Biblique 125 (2) (2018): 249–61. doi:10.2143/ rbi.125.2.3285118.
  • Deissmann, Adolph, St. Paul : A Study in Social and Religious History, Translated by Lionel R.M. Strachan. 1926. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912
  • Gorman, Michael J, Apostle of the Crucified Lord : A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017. https://research-ebsco-com.smsu.idm.oclc.org/ linkprocessor/plink?id=853b30f5-a3c8-31e0-aa38-1a1ff7e31a47.
  • Harrelson, Walter. 2003. New Interpreter’s Study Bible. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.
  • Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. https://research- ebsco-com.smsu.idm.oclc.org/linkprocessor/plink?id=0671ca81- fcf9-3a6d-99b7-5603be99bd73.
  • Sanders. E.P., Paul : The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought. Mineeapolis: Fortress Press, 2015. https://research-ebsco-com.smsu.idm.oclc.org/linkprocessor/plink? id=9aaecab2-4b72-37ee-89d4-a6055d906691.
  • Sanders, E. P., and Mark A. Chancey. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. 40th anniversary edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017
  • Schweitzer, Albert. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. H. Holt and company, 1931
  • Skinner, Christopher W, Nijay K. Gupta, Andy Johnson, and Drew J. Strait. Cruciform Scripture : Cross, Participation, and Mission. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmansm 2021. https://research-ebsco-com.smsu.idm.oclc.org/linkprocessor/plink? id=527a6f1f-1393-33be-8d52-1816bf3d7856.
  • Udoh, F. E., ed. Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities : Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

Footnotes

  1. Craig Hill, On the Source of Paul’s Problem with Judaism in Udoh, F. E., ed. Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities : Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008. 311.
  2. E.P. Sanders, Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought. Mineeapolis: Fortress Press, 2015. 453-63.
  3. E.P. Sanders and Mark A. Chancey. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. 40th anniversary edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017 522-3
  4. Constantine R. Campbell, Paul and Union with Christ : An Exegetical and Theological Study. Zondervan, 2012. 435
  5. Sanders, Comparing Judaism and Christianity, in Udoh, Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities : Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008., 32
  6. E.P. Sanders, Comparing Judaism and Christianity, 22-3
  7. Ibid., 14-5, 22.
  8. Ibid., 18-9.
  9. Ibid., 25.
  10. Albert Schweitzer. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. H. Holt and company, 1931, 39
  11. Ibid.
  12. Adolph Deissmann, St. Paul : A Study in Social and Religious History, Translated by Lionel R.M. Strachan. 1926. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912, 6
  13. Diessman, 38
  14. Ibid. 43-4.
  15. Schweitzer, 56.
  16. Schweitzer, 55.
  17. Deissmann, 190.
  18. Ibid.
  19. Ibid., 57.
  20. Deissmann, 82-3.
  21. Ibid., 139.
  22. Schweitzer, 5.
  23. Ibid., 12.
  24. Ibid., 13.
  25. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 450.
  26. Ibid., 453-4.
  27. Ibid., 450
  28. Richard B. Hays “What is Real Participation in Christ?” in Udoh, F. E., ed. Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities : Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008, 339-47.
  29. Stanley K. Stowers, “What is Pauline Participation in Christ?” in Udoh, F. E., ed. Redefining First- Century Jewish and Christian Identities : Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008, 356.
  30. All biblical texts from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
  31. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 12, 17.
  32. Ibid. 548-9.
  33. Ibid., 458.
  34. Constantine Campbell, 303
  35. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 458.
  36. Ibid., 463-72.
  37. Harrelson, Walter. 2003. New Interpreter’s Study Bible. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2021
  38. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 468.
  39. Campbell, Douglas, 254.
  40. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 503.
  41. Ibid., 503.
  42. John Barclay, Grace and the Transformation of Agency in Christ in Udoh, Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities, 382-3.
  43. Ibid., 373.
  44. Sanders, “Comparing Judaism and Christianity”, 19, 23

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