Paul’s teaching can be summarized under seven heads.
1. Two gods in place of one
Paul taught that God is two: God the Father and God the Son.10 Jesus Christ is treated as the Son of God, nearly equal to him and nearly of one substance with him. The doctrine of the Trinity was defined three centuries later; Paul laid the foundation on which it was built.11
2. Crucifixion and resurrection as the price of sin
According to mainstream Christian understanding, Jesus Christ was crucified, died and was laid in a tomb. He is then said to have risen on the third day and ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.12
The crucifixion is believed to have redeemed the sins of all humanity, because human beings are held to be born in sin through the Original Sin inherited from Ādam, without exception.13 Paul insisted that no one could be counted a true follower of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him) unless he believed with all his heart that ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was raised after the crucifixion.14
9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.1
3. Faith in place of deeds
Paul often promoted his own teaching, which in many respects contradicts the original commands of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. ʿĪsā ibn Maryam stressed helping the poor as the path to perfection of faith. In the Gospel according to Matthew he says:
21Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.2
Paul instead stressed “faith” as the chief condition of salvation:
8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:3
Paul raises love as an important element, but the concept stays abstract and issues in none of the concrete charitable action ʿĪsā ibn Maryam stressed. Across his teaching, belief per se becomes the basis of salvation, and the works at the core of the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam fall away.
4. The law abolished and cursed
Paul also taught that the law of the Torah ceased to be in force after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at Golgotha. In his view the law of Mūsā was the source of sin and a form of curse, a teaching absent ab initio from the words of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, who kept the law and told his hearers to keep it.15
When Jesus Christ was crucified, Paul taught, he “took the curse” of the law upon himself to free humanity from it. In an arrogant tone he also declared:
4Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.4
Paul stressed, further, that Jesus Christ is the end of the law.16
Paul rejected the validity of the law as a condition of salvation, and he also symbolically degraded its worth. In his letter to the Philippians he states plainly:
8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,5
The Greek word skubala (σκύβαλα) used here is extremely coarse: it means excrement, refuse, filth. What Paul counts as refuse in this context is more than social or religious standing. It is the whole inheritance of the Torah on which Jewish identity rests, including his own status as a Pharisee and his obedience to the law.
Implicitly, Paul places the law of the Torah in the symbolic category of “spiritual filth” to be cast off to receive what he claims as the knowledge of Christ. The statement shows how radically Paul broke continuity with the earlier law: he went beyond abolishing it in doctrine and demeaned its worth in theology and rhetoric.
Although Paul said he did not oppose the teachings of the Torah, in fact he made himself the chief opponent of its laws.17
5. Circumcision abolished
On circumcision, Paul stated:
2Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.6
Although the word of God repeatedly stresses the need for real circumcision,18 Paul boldly abolished the law of circumcision. That contradicts the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, recorded in the New Testament itself, where he was circumcised.19
6. The food laws abolished
On the foods God had forbidden in the Torah, such as the flesh of swine, Paul gave his opinion:
16Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.7
25Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake:8
That is why Luke, his pupil, “composed” a story in which God came to Peter in a dream and told him to eat every animal without exception, lawful or forbidden.20
7. The chosen people redefined
Paul interpreted the concept of the “chosen people,” the elect, as open to every nation, which looks inclusive on the surface. His interpretation often contradicts the original teaching rooted in the Children of Israel as the people God chose to carry the message of tawḥīd (توحيد, “the oneness of God”).
Paul says “there is neither Jew nor Greek.”21 That contradicts the special role of the Children of Israel that ʿĪsā ibn Maryam affirmed:
24But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.9
Paul’s statement blurs the real meaning of “chosen” in the tradition of the prophets and reflects an effort to draw more Gentiles into his teaching, even at the price of abandoning a chief principle of earlier revelation.
From this analysis it is plain that Paul made sweeping changes to the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam to attract Gentiles. His stress on the concept of divinity and on the doctrine of salvation from sin shows the great part Paul played in shaping modern Christian theology.
- Romans 10:9 (KJV). ↩
- Matthew 19:21 (KJV). ↩
- Ephesians 2:8 (KJV). ↩
- Galatians 5:4 (KJV). ↩
- Philippians 3:8 (KJV). ↩
- Galatians 5:2 (KJV). ↩
- Colossians 2:16–17 (KJV). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 10:25 (KJV). ↩
- Matthew 15:24 (KJV). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 1:3. ↩
- The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE established the doctrine that God the Son (Jesus Christ) possesses divinity equal to that of God the Father. ↩
- Romans 8:34; Hebrews 12:2. ↩
- Romans 3:10, 5:8; Galatians 1:4. ↩
- Romans 10:9. ↩
- Romans 4:15; Galatians 2:21, 3:10. ↩
- Romans 7:6, 10:4; Galatians 3:24–25. ↩
- Compare Genesis 17:19; also Matthew 5:17. ↩
- Genesis 17:13; Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4. ↩
- Luke 2:21. ↩
- Acts 10:10–15. ↩
- Galatians 3:28. ↩