Paul: Christ's Apostle God's Priest

Paul: Christ’s Apostle and God’s Priest

You may recall from the Book of Acts, chapter 9, that the Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, was on the way to Damascus in Syria to arrest followers of the Way (as the early disciples of Christ were called). With letters from the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem, he crossed out of Judea’s borders into another province to arrest citizens and bring them back to Jerusalem for imprisonment and trial. Extradition was not much of an issue, and I assume the Roman authorities looked the other way to preserve some peace with the Jews.

Then Saul was knocked off his horse by a heavenly flash-bang and as he was trying to get his bearings, Jesus appeared to him in some of his glory, asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul had to check out that this was Jesus, and then received some new orders to go to a believer’s home, the house of Judas on the street named Straight.

Paul was still blind from the intense, soul-searching and eye-damaging light of the Glory of Christ breaking onto him when Ananias came to the door. Ananias knew this Saul, and heard of his mission to put the followers of Jesus in fetters for a march back to Jerusalem. He prayed and got the answer that Saul had been set aside for special service as God’s chosen instrument to “proclaim my name among the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he is to suffer for my name.”

As soon as Ananias prayed for him, scales fell from Paul’s eyes and he could see again. He was baptized in the name of Jesus, was filled with the Holy Spirit and was no longer the Jesus-Hating Pharisee of three days before. He ate, then began meeting with the disciples in Damascus; as soon as Sabbath rolled around, he was preaching Jesus as the Son of God in the Synagogues, and explaining why he was the promised Messiah. Soon the unbelieving Jews plotted to kill him, and the believers lowered him through the city wall in a basket.

Saul was taken in by Barnabas in Jerusalem when the other disciples were still too afraid of him. Barnabas took Saul to the apostles, confirmed his vision of Jesus and call to ministry, and how he had already proclaimed Jesus fearlessly in Damascus. Soon Paul was preaching Christ in Jerusalem among the Greek-Speaking Jews; but another plot against him let the believers to sneak him down to Caesarea and got him on a boat to his family home in Tarsus, in modern Turkey.

When, a few years later, the church was born in Antioch in Syria with both Jewish believers and Gentile believers, first Barnabas went to build them up, and many more were added to the church. The load became great enough that Barnabas went to Tarsus, found Paul, and brought him back to spend the next year instructing the encouraging the church in Antioch.

This began the mission of Saul on behalf of Jesus Christ; later he would drop the name of the first king of Israel and take up the name of Paul, which means “small”. In light of the majesty of God and the glory of Jesus the Savior, Paul understood he was a pawn in God’s proclamation of the Good News of salvation.

Perhaps gifted by God as one of the most intelligent of all the early Christians, Paul wrote nearly half of the letters we have in the New Testament. Not because he was trying to replace the Old Testament laws and writings he had grown up with, but simply writing to churches about the meaning of Jesus Christ according to the Old Testament scriptures. He would have been astounded that his letters would have formed some of the core teachings of the faith and included and bound together with the Jewish Tanach into what we know as “The Holy Bible.”

It is estimated that Paul, during his ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, traveled maybe 10,000 miles, a lot on foot and some by sea in about 20 years or so. And as he mostly walked the Romans Roads built for the Roman army and imperial purposes, he stopped in town after town to share Christ.

Maybe some of you who have a practice of running every day look at that number and say “No big deal, given that much time.” I live about 1 1/2 miles (about 2.4 kilometers) from a Target and 99 Cent Store, and the idea of walking that far to shop has always been a little daunting. I never really liked walking. But now, after walking more because of our Beagle dog “Treena”, it no longer seems so improbable, although I still don’t like walking much.

If Paul walked at the rate I walk, about 1.6 miles every day, over a year he would have chalked up his 500 miles and in 20 years that would be 10, 000 miles. But that is not quite how ministry works. And when your work is far afield, you don’t stop for an over-nighter after less than 2 miles.

Paul had days, weeks, months and even years at some locations, when he wasn’t on the road. If you take out the years at Ephesus, Corinth, Antioch, Tarsus, Galatia, Caesarea and Rome, and Paul had maybe 5-7 years he was actually on the road. So we could say “only” about 2000 miles a year. That’s only a 10K run every day except the Sabbath.

Anyway, I’m overthinking this for you. On a journey, I expect Paul walked about 15-18 miles a day when he was between ministry stops, like a Roman soldier would have done. That means that he could have covered the distance with only about 2 years worth of every day, all day travel.

So why do I think that’s important rather than just a bit of trivia? For me it explains why, through all his ministry work and care for the churches, he didn’t really think it odd to consider another trek back from Jerusalem through Galatia and Macedonia to Illyricum, then a few hundred miles down the boot of Italy to Rome, and finally back north, skirting along the Mediterranean coast until he got to the region of Gaul, or Spain as it is known today. For Paul, this represented the Western reaches of the Roman Empire of his day.

Paul wasn’t called to go southwest to Egypt, or northeast to the Balkans or Northern Europe; He didn’t journey to the Persians or all the way to the Arian peoples of India. God had already sent others to those regions, to those places that were outside the borders of Rome. Paul’s mission to the Gentiles seems to be practiced within the sphere of Rome. And a ministry in the heart of the empire was important to the growth of the Gospel.

>>>As we come back to the 15th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, in verse 14 we read some . . .

Encouragement from Paul

as he begins to close the letter. Although Paul has never been to Rome, but has had a lot of opportunity to get reports from the church there. It is mostly Gentile, but among the fairly large Jewish population there were many converts to Jesus Christ as well.

Speaking as one of them, instead of an aloof teacher of theology or Pharisaical law-giver, Paul says...

Romans 15:14 CSB

14 My brothers and sisters, I myself am convinced about you that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.

This is an important encouragement, for since Chapter 12 Paul has been laying out the proper response to the Grace of God in our daily living. His language shows he is including himself in their fellowship, setting aside old Jewish regulations to keep separate from the Gentiles in worship and fellowship.

You have to define a people or group of people as an enemy in order for that to enter your cultural ethos. You begin with an us-them identification, then an us against them way of thinking, and finally a kind of they are trying to take something from us idea that can enter into the minds of all of the “usses” in the description.

The Jews had developed the Synagogue system of religious instruction and reflection on the Scriptures while in Babylonian captivity for 70 years. There, separated from the Temple in Jerusalem and unable to make the sin-offerings, the sacrifices, and the atonement sacrifices, they made study a sacrifice. Only the Jews had the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, their Tanach or Book, so everyone else was excluded. So the us and them were the ones with the Book of God’s interaction with mankind and the ones that didn’t have that instruction or favor from God. So the Jews of the Exile were the “us” and the rest of the nations, the Goyim, became known as the Gentiles. Only two kinds of people in the world. Us and Them. And Them aren’t for Us.

But Christ has dissolved the barrier between us. The Son of the Creator God loves the world—all the Goyim, including the Gentiles and the Jews— are under the grace of the Cross. The promise to Abram that through his seed all the peoples of the earth—all the Goyim—would be blessed is yes and amen in Jesus.

Paul dissolves the divisions in two ways: first he says “brethren” or “brothers and sisters” to translate the word inclusively, which means he is willing to share a meal-table with them. Then he says, “I am convinced you are full of goodness.” In other words, you are not the evil tools of Satan or the means of the destruction of my values. Instead, within you and in full measure is goodness.

Paul also says “You are full of knowledge” which means they have gotten the essential teachings of the Way of Jesus taught to them. Finally, Paul writes, “You are able to instruct one another” which means the student has become the teacher, and new disciples are being well instructed, from a good heart and an educated mind in matters of faith in Jesus Christ.

>>>Yet, even though he can encourage them with these words, there is a reason that Paul has written the Church of Rome. It is not just to tell them the basics about living for Christ in a world that is stained; Paul has also written as a. . . .

A Priest of the Gospel of God

Hear his words from verses 15-17 about his purposes:

Romans 15:15–17 CSB

15 Nevertheless, I have written to remind you more boldly on some points because of the grace given me by God 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the gospel of God. God’s purpose is that the Gentiles may be an acceptable offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. 17 Therefore I have reason to boast in Christ Jesus regarding what pertains to God.

As an apostle sent by Christ Jesus to be a minister to the Gentiles, Paul was shaken from his more narrow Jewish world-view and sent out into a wider world to bring the Gospel of God about Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. That Gospel had gotten to Rome probably 10 years or so before Paul wrote this letter, and the church was doing well. But because of the gifts God has given him to explain the discuss life as a Christian, Paul says it is good to be reminded.

“I have written to remind you more boldly on some points,” Paul says, without excuse for his language or forcefulness, or his apparent immodesty of knowing better than they, in order to give testimony of what God had already done for him:

“Because of the grace given me by God” means that Paul knows it is undeserved, it is unearned by his pre-Christian study or status, but it is instead a gift of God that he has the ability to write what he has, and it would be an abrogation of duty to ignore it.

And Paul is clear about his call here as well: “To be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the gospel of God.” Paul is using priestly language from the service at the Temple as he writes. This word for minister is not the same as in the book of Acts, where the word is the same as it is for service; but instead, it is the word for one who performs the sacred and ritual worship of the Temple. He ad-ministers those sacred rituals that define service as a priest. His ministry is to serve God through Christ Jesus as the perfect sacrifice for sin to Gentile disciples, as a priest of the gospel of God.

That world for priest, again a different word from minister, is one who specifically does the holy service of sacrifice at the temple. So Paul in fact expresses to his Gentile believers the sacred sense of his call to the altar of God as he does what he is charged to do, to present them before God as a Holy and acceptable offering.

This isn’t about making the Gentile believers into a literal sacrifice; Christ is the one and only blood sacrifice for sin; this is more about his own responsibility to do a priestly duty for God as Paul’s heart’s desire is that the Gentiles are made righteous by Christ, made holy by the Spirit, and acceptable to God as is a grain offering at the Temple because Paul has completed his task.

Paul the Apostle of Christ is acting as the priestly minister so that they are cleansed and made holy by the Spirit, no longer ritually defiled as are others in the world. Paul’s missionary work among the Gentiles is the like a temple offering; winning the souls of the Gentiles to Christ is Paul’s own holy work he prays is acceptable to God.

For the Roman Christians, in Romans 12:1, Paul had urged them to make their own sacrificial commitment as an act of worship, “holy and pleasing to God.” It is the Holy Spirit’s work to set them apart, or sanctify them, as the people of God’s possession, fully a part of God’s people.

>>>A man can’t accomplish this. It must be the Holy Spirit. So in Romans 15:17 Paul does not take the credit. His accomplishments are for God, and it is Christ’s part that Paul is proud of. So Paul goes on to say it’s. . .

“Not Me, But Christ”

Once Paul was on a career path among the Pharisees in Jerusalem, “rising above many” of his peers in his practice of the principles of these religiously conservative lawyers of the Jews. In that mode, it wasn’t about God getting the glory but about personal accomplishments and pride. And Paul was good at it. But now, as an Apostle of Christ on mission to the people whom his old party had cast off, Paul knows it’s not his own doing at all. So in Romans 15:18-19 Paul’s words are more humble than he old peers:

Romans 15:18–19 CSB

18 For I would not dare say anything except what Christ has accomplished through me by word and deed for the obedience of the Gentiles, 19 by the power of miraculous signs and wonders, and by the power of God’s Spirit. As a result, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum.

“I would not dare say anything except what Christ has accomplished,” is an understanding Paul came to after years of his work for Christ. Paul understood the Grace of God lavished upon him. It was different than the expectation of reward he had before, when he was legalistically following the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament to be a part of the crowd that would force God’s hand to deliver his people from Rome.

Under Christ, Paul knew it wasn’t Rome that was the problem, it was sin. And that sin can only be forgiven and atoned for by the blood of Christ. Nothing Paul could take credit for; and made humble before God by an act of God’s mercy, he knew he had been affective in ministry to many, but it was “not me but Christ working through me” Paul understood now.

It is the Gentile believers who have become obedient to God, now fulfilling the call of Christ Jesus who himself said (John 6:29) that doing “the work of God is to believe in the one He has sent,” and

John 6:40 CSB

40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

The obedience of the Gentiles is to Christ, not to Moses. This could only happen

Romans 15:19 CSB

19 by the power of miraculous signs and wonders, and by the power of God’s Spirit. As a result, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum.

as Paul describes a great arc circling northwest from Jerusalem toward the top of the boot of Italy. All of his going and doing was only effective because of what God was doing through him “by the power of signs and wonders.

These signs and wonders were healings to free others from disease or injury and earthquakes to free Paul from prisons and the power of the Spirit of God to bring Paul himself back from the brink of death after being stoned by the Jews of Macedonia. Paul has faithfully discharged his mission for the benefit of those who were not Jewish but are now Christians.

>>>The call of Paul never diminished; no matter what the challenges, no matter how hard the struggles, no matter what he suffered for the name of Christ Jesus, Paul was still driven . . .

To Preach the Gospel in New Places

. . . instead of just being a visiting preacher in someone else’s church, which is why he hadn’t yet come to Rome in person.

Romans 15:20–22 CSB

20 My aim is to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, so that I will not build on someone else’s foundation, 21 but, as it is written, Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. 22 That is why I have been prevented many times from coming to you.

So it’s not that Paul didn’t want to see the people in the church in Rome, he has just not slowed from his mission to the Gentiles enough to have the time or the leading of the Holy Spirit to go there.

His statement that he did not want to build on someone else’s foundation is not so much pride in his own work but a release of the work that others were doing for Christ. In other words, he was making a statement that he trusted what others were doing for Christ, even as he was driven to go on to new places.

Repeating another verse of Isaiah (52:15), Paul reflects on the mission of God that the Jewish nation had set aside in their own conservation of what was left when they were taken into captivity in Babylon 600 years before.

>>>Called to take up the call to the rest of the Roman world, Paul kept busy and didn’t make it to Rom. But that would soon change, for . . .

Paul’s Hope to Visit the Roman Church

would soon come to pass, he believed, saying,

Romans 15:23–24 CSB

23 But now I no longer have any work to do in these regions, and I have strongly desired for many years to come to you 24 whenever I travel to Spain. For I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while.

It’s not that every person along the way has been converted to Christ, but that the communities of Christians which have been established are mounting their own missions to the people around them. And, and any missionary knows, the fruit of the mission is that others continue the mission of sharing the Gospel.

Now it’s time for Paul’s long-time desire to visit Rome to become an active hope again, but not so he can settle down in Rome, as if it were the end of his journeys. Paul clearly says he will “drop by” on his way to new mission fields he feels called to in Spain.

There is a little bit of a fund-raising goal mentioned too, as he hopes not just to visit Rome but to be “helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while.” Paul has continually received assistance for his missionary travels from other congregations he has established, so he forewarns the Roman congregation so they will be ready to help.

Paul’s practice when he settled in a place is to work his trade learned as a young man of being a tent-maker, or sewer of fabrics. But he has no plans for that in Rome. There are other fields to serve, and Paul is not ready to quit.

But first, . . .

An Errand in Jerusalem

After hearing of the poverty of Jerusalem Christians, whose widows had been turned away from the food banks and whose working men had been laid off because of their faith in Jesus, Paul had been collecting gifts from the Gentile churches he had set up. Now it was time to hand-deliver these gifts to Jerusalem. So he tells Rome,

Romans 15:25–27 CSB

25 Right now I am traveling to Jerusalem to serve the saints, 26 because Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. 27 Yes, they were pleased, and indeed are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual benefits, then they are obligated to minister to them in material needs.

Not only is Paul carrying the offering, but he is carrying it to fulfill a purpose for the Greek and Macedonian churches to express their gratitude to those near the Temple in Jerusalem to thank them for sharing the gospel and the immeasurable gift of salvation through Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah of the promise to the Jews.

This was more than philanthropy, this was, in Paul’s words, an obligation because of the the spiritual benefits of knowing Christ. This kind of obligation continues for us, for the material needs of the saints in poverty and the needs of the ministry continue. That is why we solicit your gifts, and ask for your support. Not for a feather in your cap but to meet the needs of people and of the ministry.

>>>And now Paul is finishing his his plans, which, by the way, God will change when he gets to Jerusalem. But for now, Paul tells them, . . .

After I’m Done, I’ll Come

Romans 15:28–29 ESV

28 When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. 29 I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

These are Paul’s plans. Directed by God but not fully revealed to Paul, the journey to Jerusalem is needed in order to get Paul to Rome as God had designed.

Paul thought it would be a long trip taken to spend a few days and bring the gifts of the churches to home base. Then he would start off for Spain and come by Rome.

God had different ideas about how this would happen, so that, as Luke writes in Acts, the gospel of God would be proclaimed to Kings.

Paul made it to Jerusalem alright, but in a riot at the Temple he was arrested for his own safety, and soon after taken by Roman escort to Caesarea, where he remained in custody for a couple years before he finally appealed his case to Rome and was put on a ship as a prisoner under the authority of a Roman guard.

Read how this story works out in Acts chapters 21-28, where Paul becomes the central performer in the great drama of the Gospel as God has designed it.

Instead of stopping by as a visiting missionary, Paul would eventually get to Rome in a different fullness of the blessing of Christ: under chains, in house arrest, with his plans for Spain arrested with his his own confinement.

Paul as Apostle and Priest is For Our Good Too

As Christ’s Apostle to the Gentiles and as God’s Priest to them, Paul fulfilled a unique role, from which we still benefit. Christ has used this former Pharisee to spread the gospel, to describe the gospel, to serve the mission of Christ and to begin a legacy of faithfulness that would come down through the ages, generation by generation even to us.