Paul and Jesus

Paul’s greatest revelation is largely unrecognized. It was his main inspiration and motivation but few have even heard of it. He describes it as “the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages.” The Greek word mysterion means “secret” and Paul believed that he had been specially chosen to reveal it (Romans 16:25). God purposely hid the secret from the beginning of time and only now, through Paul, was it being revealed. Paul says that if any of the rulers of the world had understood it they would not have crucified Jesus:

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery [mysterion] that has been hidden that God decreed before the ages, for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:7–8)

So what was this hidden cosmic secret? It has something to do with what Paul describes here as glorification—but what does that mean? And why does he call Jesus the “Lord of glory” in this context?

If you took a poll among Christians who are reasonably informed about their faith, asking them the one great teaching for which Paul is most remembered, most would probably say “justification by faith.” Paul emphatically declared, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and that humans can be “saved” only by grace through faith in Christ, not by their good deeds (Romans 3:21–24). For the most part the theologians would agree. From the great Catholic thinker Augustine to the Protestant Martin Luther, Paul’s doctrine of “justification by grace through faith” has been considered the heart and center of his gospel message.

As central a teaching as “justification by faith” was to Paul, it could not be the secret revelation hidden through the ages to which he refers. To be justified means to be forgiven of one’s sins. It is a legal term, equivalent to an undeserved pardon granted a convicted criminal. Grace, as Paul uses the term, means unmerited favor. But grace was nothing new and it was definitely not hidden. Paul argues in his letter to the Romans that God has always dealt with humans in this way, including Abraham, the father of the nation, and David, its first great king (Romans 4:1–8). Without the grace and forgiveness of God, no human being could stand before the Creator at the Day of Judgment.

Justification, or being forgiven of one’s sins, is connected to another major concept of Paul—the notion of salvation. As with many of Paul’s terms, the English word has been used so often in theological contexts that its common meaning is easily missed. The Greek word soteria refers to being rescued. It is not a special religious word. Paul writes in Koine, the commonly spoken Greek of his day. Years ago I remember reading a letter from a sailor in the Roman navy. It was written in Greek on a scrap of papyrus and had been dated to the second century A.D. The sailor was writing home to his father, giving the family greetings, and he thanked the god Serapis that, although he was shipwrecked, he had been saved from drowning in the sea—using the same Greek word Paul used.¹

To understand what Paul means when he writes about salvation we need to ask—rescued from what and rescued for what? Paul teaches that humans can be saved or rescued from the “wrath” of God’s judgment by having their sins forgiven (1 Thessalonians 5:9; Romans 5:9). But he sees this as merely a means to an end. To be saved, or forgiven of sins, is an essential first step, but it is only a means to a much greater end. It cannot be the center of Paul’s message; in fact it is subsidiary to a larger revelation—the mystery held secret since before the Creation.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he spends the first seven chapters covering all the ins and outs of justification. It is no wonder people can get the impression that this is his main idea. Finally, when he comes to chapter 8 he tells them the secret—the hidden mystery involving the very purpose for creating human beings in the first place. He covers that in one chapter.