For this commandment that I command you this day is not too hard for you . . . But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. . . . therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live . . . (Deuteronomy 30:11–19)
In Paul’s experience such is not the case. God’s standard of judgment—to reward those who do good, whether Jew or Gentile, and punish those who do evil, whether Jew or Gentile—becomes moot because ultimately there are none who can do the good (Romans 2:9–12; 3:9–10). The giving of the Torah to Israel at Sinai ironically only served to “increase sin,” since it set forth standards that were even more demanding than those of the Noahide laws (Romans 5:20). Everything was calculated in God’s plan to bring humankind, both Jew and Gentile, to Christ, since it was only in Christ that the “flesh,” along with sin and death, could eventually be destroyed.
I don’t mean to suggest here that Paul was indifferent to sin and moral failure in his claim that all one could do was struggle. It all has to do with whether one is in Christ or outside. The Law of Christ, which operates by the Spirit of Christ dwelling within a person, is a strategy of resistance, activated by “yielding” to the Spirit and not to the flesh. Those who live “according to the flesh,” without actively engaging in the struggle, he says, will be excluded from the kingdom.
IMITATE ME
Even though Paul believes his followers have been baptized into Christ and thus have received the Spirit of Christ, he likens their utter failure to grasp the implications of the freedom in Christ, under the Torah of Christ, to stunted spiritual growth. He writes the Corinthians:
But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men. (1 Corinthians 3:1–3)
Paul’s language is most interesting here. To be “of the flesh” is to behave in ordinary, normal, human ways, whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, whereas to be “of the Spirit” is to leave behind petty human regard for self-promotion. As we have seen, the list of problems in the Corinthian group that have been reported to Paul include bitter divisions into factious groups, taking one another to court in lawsuits, going to brothels, a case of incest, drunkenness, eating at idol temples, and abusing the sacredness of the Lord’s Supper.
Paul’s disappointment stems from his perspective of the exalted “heavenly” status of these Spirit-engendered followers. He finds it hard to comprehend how such a cluster of weaknesses would even arise in the first place. He says, for example, “To have lawsuits at all with one another is a defeat for you,” implying that they have not even taken the first tiny step toward any kind of spiritual maturity (1 Corinthians 6:7).
Paul’s approach is a complex mixture of sharp rebuke, shaming, admonition, and encouragement, but in the end, since the freedom under the Law of Christ seems so elusive to the group, he demands that they look to him as a kind of “second” Christ:
I am not writing you to shame you, but to admonish you as beloved children. For if you have numerous guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers, since I begot you in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. I urge you, imitate me! This is why I sent Timothy to you . . . to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them in all the churches. Some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will arrive soon, if the Lord wills, and I will ascertain the power of these puffed up ones, not their talk. For the Kingdom of God does not exist on talk but on power! What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? (1 Corinthians 4:14–21)
This language implies far more than the idea of “follow my example.” What Paul suggests here is that he has effectively become an extension of the Christ-Spirit in the world—at least for those he has “fathered” through his Gospel. He tells the group that when he arrives to visit them he will come with the power of Christ behind him, and like a parent will either treat them with gentleness or punish them with a thrashing. This sense in which Paul sees himself as an extension of Christ is very clear in his instructions of how to deal with a man who is having sexual relations with his stepmother:
For though absent in body I am present in Spirit, and I have already pronounced judgment as present, in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my Spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1 Corinthians 5:3–5)
Here we see that Jesus is present in power through Paul’s “Spirit,” which I put in upper case to indicate that he has become the operational locus for the Spirit of Christ. This rather bizarre ceremony, a kind of “reverse exorcism,” will effectively put the guilty man “outside” of Christ, back in the realm of Satan, who is the “god of the world.” Like baptism and the Lord’s Supper, such a Spirit-empowered activity is far from symbolic. In such a state the man can be buffeted and attacked freely by Satan, whose powers he had once escaped, with the hope that he might realize his error and perhaps return to the fold. Socially such a one was to be shunned. Paul sternly demands that they are “not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11). Here Paul not only speaks “in” or “for” Christ, but in a representative sense he is the Christ-Spirit, manifest in the world. To disregard him is to disregard God, who has given him this position. Faithfulness to God is indeed faithfulness to God’s message, with all its implications. But in a practical sense this faithfulness is demonstrated by submission to Pauclass="underline"
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
If anyone would like to argue, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:16)
If anyone considers himself to be a prophet or a spiritual one, let him acknowledge that what I write you is a command of the Lord. If anyone disregards this then he is disregarded. (1 Corinthians 14:37–38)
Paul’s precise mode of exercising his apostolic authority varies according to the degree of resistance he anticipates encountering. In 1 Corinthians and Galatians, where he is addressing serious problems among his followers, and some in the group are openly challenging his authority, he is dogmatic, unbending, and even threatening. In his letter to the group at Thessalonica he has confidence that his instructions will be well received, so he tends to be more gentle:
But we were gentle among you, like a nurse caring for her children, so being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share not only the gospel of God with you, but our very selves, since you had become so dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:7–8)
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12)