Contemporary theological issues and responses

Paul: The new identity of a life in Christ

The Apostle Paul was a great sinner and persecutor of Christians who became a great saint. The phrase the 'Road to Damascus' has become a common metaphor of bright flashes of insight, such as what occurred to Saul when he became Paul, and was converted to Christ with a great, shining light. Saul took on a new social identity and name. However, as a Jewish apostle to the gentiles, Paul did not stress that conversion meant that Christians should actively work to bring about the immediate dissolution of the entire world order. Instead, he advocated that Jews remain Jews, keeping to their social, cultural practices (circumcision), while Christians did not have to become Jews to convert. Also, living a moral Christians life did not require a monkish existence, and dissolving all marital and social ties, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7: 17: "Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches." It was more essential that the heart change than the outer trappings of social practice alter. The married could remain married, although Paul advocated virginity for those who were virgins.

Paul was a man of two identities in his own life, that of Saul and Paul, but he did not wholly discard the past. Rather he used the totality of his life's experiences to win converts, much as a former sinner today who was a drug or sex addict might testify how religion changed his or her life perspective: "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law)" (1 Corinthians 9: 19-22).

Paul's flexibility in his career and character causes him to advocate a democratic perspective: even if Christian conversion fundamentally changes the believer, that does not mean he or she is 'above' his or her previous social identity. Rather, Paul sees all human beings as one, part of his conception of the Christian world: "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free -- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink" (1 Corinthians 12:13). This new unity is radical and transforming: when an individual, regardless of who he or she was comes to accept Christ he or she can say: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul believes external social roles and identities like keeping to Jewish Mosaic law or marriage laws are relatively unimportant -- the real change comes from within the believer, and enables him to shine with Christ's light in his or her new identity. Changes in specific ritual actions are not as significant, because they do not reflect a true change of heart.