A Man Called Paul

II. God’s Purpose

The reason why I am spending so much time on all of this is that this mighty man of God was raised up by God to fulfill God’s purpose in two special ways.

First, Paul was to defend the gospel against the Jews.

Paul deals with this in almost every one of his letters. He, of all men, was the man whom God had raised up to defend the gospel against the Jews and Judaism.He tells us that he even had to stand up to the apostle Peter Galatians 2:11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? 15 "We who are Jews by birth and not ’Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified Peter was beginning to go astray on the issue of the gospel and Judaism. He was afraid of the Jews, and so he began compromising the gospel a little here and a little there. And who can tell what might have happened to the Christian church were it not that the apostle Paul was able to stand up and confront the apostle Peter, and to win him back again to a true understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

There is no question that the apostle Paul’s knowledge of Judaism, which he had gained in his home and also in his upbringing and training at the feet of Gamaliel, was of immeasurable value. He knew the position of Judaism better than its proponents knew it themselves. And so, as a Christian, he was able to deal with it and show its fallacies and finally refute it.

Let me put it another way. The difficulty with many honest and sincere people at that time was this— how were they to reconcile the teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures with this new teaching, with this new gospel, with this new faith. The charge which the Jews especially brought against the gospel was that it was something false, that it was not from God at all, that it was a complete contradiction of everything that was taught in the Old Testament, that it was an innovation, and therefore they warned people against it. One of the great tasks that Paul,had to do , was to bring together the teaching of the Old Testament with what became the New Testament.

After his conversion, Paul went into Arabia for several years. There he undoubtedly spent his time meditating on this very thing. He was enlightened by the Holy Spirit. He went right through the Old Testament Scriptures that he knew so well. And he found Christ in them everywhere, so that when he came to write these letters to various people and churches, he could produce quotations, he could use them at the right point, he knew the Jewish case inside out because of his upbringingand his background. It was all invaluable to him in his defense of the gospel against the Jews and Judaism.