The Gospel According to Paul: A Reappraisal

By Graham H. Twelftree

Paul's gospel is misunderstood. Paul's gospel is seen as his message, perhaps an empowered message; he saw it differently. His gospel can be many things: tradition about Jesus, Jesus Christ himself, the ministry of Jesus, the replication of the ministry of Jesus, God's salvific drama, the salvation experience of people, a message, and something that can (and should) be embodied or lived. And the gospel does not come to people in Paul's preaching. He says it comes or takes place in both his message and the miraculous. Without the involvement and acts of God (in the miraculous), for Paul, there would have been no gospel, only preaching. It is not that the miraculous was simply a proof or demonstration of the gospel; it was integral to it. In the gospel's coming or establishment, it is clear that, at heart, the gospel is God's salvation--the presence of God himself--in Christ, experienced in the symbiotic relationship between Paul's message about God's Son, Jesus Christ, and the activity of God in the miraculous. Not surprisingly, then, Paul rarely talks of preaching the gospel. He sees himself as "gospelling."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532687051

Graham H. Twelftree

Graham Twelftree was born in Lameroo, South Australia, into a family of wheat and sheep farmers. He studied history and politics at the University of Adelaide (BA hons.), theology at the University of Oxford (MA) and read for his PhD under James Dunn at Nottingham University. He has been a pastor in England and Australia and has taught New Testament at All Souls College of Applied Theology (London), Regent University School of Divinity (Virginia, USA), where he was the Distinguished Professor of New Testament, and then the Charles L. Holman Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, as well as the Director of the PhD program. At present he is the Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the London School of Theology.

Book preview

Paul’s Gospel?

Few figures in human history have been or remain as influential as Paul.¹ In Christian history Paul’s impact has been profound. His early influence is seen both in the enduring impact of his own letters, and the influence of his thought found in the other texts collected in the New Testament, including those written by others under his name. Perhaps only the Fourth Gospel shows no evidence of Pauline influence. Subsequently, many of the leading figures of Church history—Augustine (354–430), Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Wesley (1703–1791), and Karl Barth (1886–1968), for example—claim to have been decisively influenced by Paul.² In our time, Paul is seen as the inventor³ or founder of Christianity⁴ or its theology.⁵ Few would dissent from the view that, if theological significance is measured in terms of originality, skilled articulation, and later influence, even if he is not deemed the founder of Christianity, Paul has no equal.⁶ Given such impact through history, including such early interpretive significance and such ongoing influence and scholarly veneration, it is important we continue to interact with Paul’s writings so they can be read with as much understanding as possible in our time.⁷

§1.1 What is the Gospel?

Where do we begin in understanding Paul’s highly original, articulate and influential ideas? Justification by faith⁸ or reconciliation⁹ are often championed as the center of his theology, but so is being in Christ.¹⁰ Going a step further, Douglas Campbell says that, "Christ himself (in some sense), rather than Paul’s conceptual and linguistic construction of Christ, is at the center of Paul."¹¹ Or perhaps it is from his understanding of the cross that his theology radiates.¹² Ever since the groundbreaking book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (1977), by E. P. Sanders (1939–), some have used his phrase participationist to sum up the essence of Paul’s theology.¹³ Also recently, Udo Schnelle has suggested that Paul was so overwhelmed by the experience and insight of ultimate experience in Jesus Christ that in him Paul saw the eschatological presence of God’s salvation as the basis and center of his thought.¹⁴ Alternatively, perhaps the center of Pauline thinking is a cluster of key ideas, such as the whole and undivided richness and mystery of Christ and of the Father’s saving purpose through his Son, as Joseph Plevnik put it.¹⁵ Some interpreters looking for a central organizing principle for his ideas¹⁶ even see discovering this center as the fundamental problem in Pauline studies.¹⁷

I do not intend to claim the gospel is the central, organizing principle of Paul’s theology. However, I do want to demonstrate broadly that the term gospel, and what it signifies, is of such importance to Paul as one of the central and centralizing concepts in his thought and theology¹⁸ that we would advance the cause of understanding him if we grasped the understanding he had of the term.¹⁹ In turn, given that large tracts of the academy articulate notions of the Christian gospel that are explicitly or implicitly dependent primarily on Paul’s writings,²⁰ and that large swaths of the church take their theological bearings not simply from Paul’s theology or writings but, in particular, from his understanding of the gospel,²¹ a reexamination of his views is of enormous potential contemporary importance.

We begin to see the significance of the word gospel (noun and verb) for Paul when we notice that over half of its occurrences in the New Testament are found in his writings.²² The importance of the term also becomes obvious when we note that in more than half of his use, gospel is in the absolute, needing no adjective or other term to describe it.²³ More significant than statistics, Paul understood himself in relation to the gospel. He talks of my gospel (Rom 2:16; cf. 16:25) or our gospel (2 Cor 4:3) and of being set aside for the gospel.²⁴ Whatever the nature of this gospel, it is clearly very important to him and his self-understanding. Further, much of what he writes appears to be an explanation of the gospel,²⁵ or a defense of it.²⁶ Paul can even use the verb, and describe his work as, gospelling,²⁷ as it can be translated. For example, he says he was sent (1 Cor 1:17), or is eager, to gospel (Rom 1:15; 15:20). It is reasonable, then, to suppose that without a comprehensive understanding of Paul’s gospel we will not understand him or his work as well as we might.²⁸

The purpose of this book is, therefore, to answer this question: What is the gospel according to Paul?²⁹ In order to answer this fundamental question, along the way a number of other and subsidiary questions will be answered: What did the word—noun and verb—mean in Paul’s world? Where did Paul get the term—noun and verb? Did he introduce the term to Christianity, or did he receive it from earlier followers of Jesus? What role did Paul’s Scriptures play in his understanding of the gospel? Is the gospel, for Paul, his preached message? Is the gospel his empowered message, a message embodying God’s transforming power? Or, is the gospel something else?

In answering these questions, the project exposes the disconnect between the gospel according to Paul and his gospel as it is now generally understood. In part, this book develops ideas in my Paul and the Miraculous: A Historical Reconstruction, particularly the statement near the end that Paul’s message was not his gospel.³⁰ Positively, through close attention to what he says, this project is able to set out what Paul most likely meant when he used the term gospel. As a result, we will see his multifaceted understanding of the gospel.

This first chapter, Paul’s Gospel?, takes a look across the recent history of Pauline studies, as well as at current studies, through discussing the representative work of James Dunn, Tom Wright, Udo Schnelle, Michael Gorman, Michael Wolter, and Douglas Campbell, and along the way taking into account other significant voices. We will see that, over against what appears to be Paul’s richer and more nuanced perspective, his gospel has been, and continues to be, taken as his message about Jesus. Sometimes, particularly more recently, that gospel message is taken to embody God’s transforming power. By the time we reach the end of our study it will become patently clear that this view of Paul’s gospel stands in stark contrast to what he most probably had in mind.

Chapter 2, The Gospel Paul Inherited, sets out the idea of gospel in Paul’s Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions, and among his predecessors in the Jesus movement. Through this exercise it becomes clear that, particularly among earlier followers of Jesus, the term gospel was far more than the content of preaching. In turn, this helps explain the origin of Paul’s approach, as well as highlights the novelty of his views and practices.

A careful reading of his letters in chapter 3, The Gospel Paul Promoted: Thessalonians, Galatians, and Philippians, and chapter 4, The Gospel Paul Promoted: Corinthians, Philemon, and Romans, the core of this project, shows that although the term gospel was polyvalent for Paul, it generally referred to something that could be experienced or seen as well as described or preached. Notwithstanding, in his first letter (that to the Thessalonians), Paul has left clear traces of the missional message that he preached to those who became believers. Reconstructing what he initially preached to the Thessalonians helps us understand the relationship Paul saw between the gospel and what he said, particularly in relation to the coming of the gospel. Also, in Romans, at the other end of his brief letter-writing career, Paul gives an extensive treatment of his understanding of the gospel that we will be able to set out in outline.³¹ The final chapter, The Gospel According to Paul, chapter 5, will draw together the results of the study, including an attempt to reconstruct what Paul meant by gospel. The brief Contemporary Coda that ends the final chapter notes some of the implications of our conclusions that, given the credibility of the results of this study, need urgent attention by theologians, pastors, preachers, and teachers.

To contextualize this project and to demonstrate its need, we begin by doing two things. First, in the next few sections of this chapter (§§1.2–4), through sampling some key studies on Paul, we will see how his gospel has been, and continues to be, understood. It will become obvious that the prevailing view has been, and remains, that Paul’s message was his gospel or that his gospel was his message. Then, to provide the raw material to test the credibility of this prevailing view, in the next section (§1.5) Paul’s uses of gospel (noun and verb) will be set out.³² The conclusion (§1.6) draws attention to what appear to be the main contours of the differences between what Paul says and what the prevailing views assert. In this difference is the reason for this project.

§1.2 Earlier voices

If this was a history of the understanding of Paul’s gospel we would be taking into account much earlier voices such as Origen (c.185–c.254), Jerome (c.342–420), John Chrysostom (c.347–407), Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.350–428), and Augustine of Hippo (354–430).³³ However, our primary concern is with how Paul’s gospel is understood in contemporary discussions.

The first systematic study of Pauline theology was published in 1824 by the Zürich theologian Leonhard Usteri (1799–1833).³⁴ In Entwicklung des Paulinischen Lehrbegriffs (The Development of Pauline Doctrine), Usteri describes the treasure and wisdom of the gospel as a preached message of salvation about the love of God in Christ.³⁵ Around two decades later, in 1845, Pauline studies took a new direction in the work of Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), the founder of the Tübingen School.³⁶ In Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi (Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ), he advanced the novel and still-debated view that Paul developed his theology over against others in early Christianity.³⁷ Nevertheless, in line with other students of Paul, Baur saw the gospel by its nature as having intellectual principles or content, and being proclaimed and heard.³⁸ Notably, he supposed that, in character, the gospel was inconsistent with the miraculous, which hides historical truth.³⁹ For example, concerning the story Luke has of the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10:1–48) Baur said that it was wanting in historical connexion. He went on to say that, No satisfactory aim seems to be furthered by such a miracle. He then enquired, assuming a negative answer: How does so studied and complicated a series of miraculous occurrences agree with the character of the Gospel history?⁴⁰ Similarly, toward the end of the nineteenth century, J. B. Lightfoot (1828–1889), who interacted with Baur,⁴¹ describes the gospel as a doctrine preached, taught, and learnt.⁴²

In the early part of the twentieth century, the historian and theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) of Berlin, perhaps the most important patristics scholar of his time, appended a study of gospel to his The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries.⁴³ In the section on the gospel in Paul, Harnack rightly notes that, like εὐαγγελίζεσθαι (to gospel), εὐαγγέλιον (gospel) most frequently stands by itself since Paul assumed his readers knew its meaning. However, in light of evidence from Paul we will have to call into question Harnack translating εὐαγγελίζεσθαι to preach.⁴⁴ Given that Harnack takes εὐαγγελίζεσθαι to refer to preaching, he takes the content of the εὐαγγέλιον to be Paul’s message: God’s plan of salvation, contained in the Old Testament as a promise, and realized through Jesus Christ.⁴⁵ He also notes that the term εὐαγγελίζεσθαι is not exclusively a technical term for the apostle in that he can use it of Timothy bringing news of the Thessalonians (1 Thess 3:6). Harnack’s brief study is one of the few studies dedicated to gospel, and will occasionally be taken into account in this study.

Around the same time, Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938) produced a two-volume New Testament theology in which he gave considerable attention to Paul.⁴⁶ For Schlatter, Paul’s gospel is a message of the good news of God. Notably, he also says the message has power, because it not merely promises God’s gift but also grants it. This gift centers around Jesus Christ and forgiveness.⁴⁷ A year later, in 1910, Julius Schniewind (1883–1948) published his inaugural dissertation at Friedrichs University Halle-Wittenberg on the terms word and gospel, concluding they mean one and the same thing, looked at from two different angles.⁴⁸

In his survey of the discussion of how the life and work of Jesus became the basis of the theology of Paul, Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) also refers to the gospel as a message⁴⁹ and implies no more than that it is a set of ideas.⁵⁰ In The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer works with the same set of assumptions and ideas.⁵¹ Not surprisingly, then, Paul’s gospel, a recasting of Jesus’ doctrine of his redemptive death and his expectation of the kingdom of God, is preached.⁵²

Arguably the most significant British New Testament scholar of the early-to-mid twentieth century, C. H. Dodd (1884–1973) described Paul’s gospel as transforming the apostle and was, in turn, something that he preached.⁵³ Dodd says that the content of this preached gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness by faith and for faith (Rom 1:17).⁵⁴ In turn, the key words of the Pauline gospel are redemption, atonement,⁵⁵ righteousness, and faith.⁵⁶ A hint from him that Paul’s gospel is more than his message is in Dodd’s understanding of faith. He says that faith does not mean belief in a proposition, though doubtless intellectual beliefs are involved when we come to think it out. Rather, Dodd says, faith is an act which is the negation of all activity, a moment of passivity out of which the strength for action comes, because in it God acts.⁵⁷ We can note, however, that Dodd is at one with those who have seen, and continue to see, Paul’s gospel as a message.

Adolf Deissmann (1866–1937), a pastor and then professor of New Testament at Heidelberg and Berlin, resorting to hyperbole to make his point, took the Greek gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) to be a word that is one of the greatest creations of mankind.⁵⁸ For Deissmann, Paul’s gospel incorporated a religious faith in Christ with the gospel of Jesus concerning God and the nearness of his kingdom.⁵⁹ In turn, the gospel was something Paul preached⁶⁰ and which could be characterized as propaganda.⁶¹ His gospel was not something different from that of Jesus’ but the experience one had of God secured for many.⁶²

With Martin Dibelius (1883–1947), also of Heidelberg, we reach the end of the first half of the twentieth century and still find Paul’s gospel described as his proclamation. In a small book, Paul, which his student Werner Kümmel completed, Paul’s gospel is taken to be his message that is preached and heard.⁶³ Accordingly, what Paul handed on in his preaching were the accounts he had received of the news of salvation that had appeared in Christ (e.g., 1 Cor 15:3, 5), along with an interpretation of the why and the how of that salvation.⁶⁴

§1.3 Recent views

Even though most of his work was undertaken in the first half of the twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) remains part of the conversation about Paul.⁶⁵ In the first volume of his classic, Theology of the New Testament, published in English in 1952, he says that the proclamation of salvation can . . . be called ‘gospel.’⁶⁶ Paul’s gospel is truth, knowledge, or a message, and something proclaimed by a prophet and teacher which is heard, understood, obeyed, and crystalized into creeds and literature.⁶⁷ In the same period, others such as Johannes Munck (1904–1965) of the University of Aarhus, and the Jewish scholar, Hans J. Schoeps (1909–1980) of the University of Erlangen, for example, continued to hold the view that the gospel was what Paul preached.⁶⁸ Schoeps notes Paul mentioning Spirit-inspired signs and wonders (2 Cor 12:12), but connects them not so much with the gospel as with the justification of Paul’s ministry.⁶⁹

In what Victor Furnish called a magnificent achievement,⁷⁰ Günther Bornkamm (1905–1990) set out in his book, Paul, to give both an account of Paul’s life as well as an exposition of his gospel and theology. Bornkamm wrote of the intellectual range of Paul’s gospel,⁷¹ which was a development of the primitive Christian kerygma.⁷² As one would then expect, Paul’s gospel is preached and proclaimed.⁷³ As Paul Bormann put it, writing at the same time, Paul’s Gospel is the oral, actual spoken word.⁷⁴ Yet, for Bornkamm, Paul’s theological statements resist being systematized, not because of the changing situation of his letters, but because his mode of thought is "so much dominated by the encounter between God, man, and the world that there is no place for stock phrases.⁷⁵ Importantly, even though Bornkamm distances Paul’s gospel from signs, (1 Cor 2:18–25)⁷⁶ he notes that his gospel and theology in general, exhibit oddly ‘enthusiastic’ features.⁷⁷ Unfortunately, however, Bornkamm does not develop these comments. Ernst Käsemann (1906–98) also distanced Paul’s gospel from miracles: Not individual miracle and ecstatic experiences, but the continuity of . . . service by the congregation is the actual apostolic sign . . . . Thus, the ministry of the Gospel is separated from any kind of enthusiasm (Schwärmerei) and a conspicuous boundary is established against enthusiasm as well as traditionalism."⁷⁸

Werner Kümmel (1905–1995) of the University of Marburg said that Paul’s gospel, which he preached, revealed God acting righteously to acquit the godless and cause them to become righteous.⁷⁹ Using Paul’s letter to the Romans as his principle source, F. F. Bruce (1910–1990) of Manchester arrived at similar results.⁸⁰

Leonhard Goppelt (1911–1973) of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University concluded that in essence Paul’s gospel—the preaching of which was the focus of his life—was both historical tradition and pneumatic kerygma. That is, it grew out of both information handed on about Jesus’ life, ministry, and person, as well as Paul’s Damascus Road experience. This became gospel when encountered as kerygmatic address.⁸¹ In other words, the uttered gospel was God’s active involvement in Jesus at work in the present.⁸²

Ed Sanders, most recently of Duke University, also characterizes Paul’s gospel as his preaching of the saving action of God in Jesus Christ and how his hearers could participate in that action.⁸³ Notably Sanders goes on to say that Paul explicitly called the gospel the power of God (Rom 1:16) suggesting that the gift of salvation is the presence of the giver who demands obedience, which he calls a transformation of existence.⁸⁴ Also, Sanders notes that Paul reminded his readers that he brought his gospel not only with the word but also with manifestations of the Spirit, proof of the Christians’ present possession of the Spirit.⁸⁵ Unfortunately, Sanders offers no comment beyond citing references that become important in this project. Nevertheless, and notably, with Sanders there is a breaking of ranks in him seeing the gospel as more than words.

The comprehensive treatment of Paul’s theology by J. Christiaan Beker (1924–1999), professor of biblical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, included a discussion of Paul’s gospel.⁸⁶ Beker says that Paul’s gospel was not a written text but both the content of an oral proclamation and the act of preaching.⁸⁷ The power of the gospel (Rom 1:16), which depends for its truth on its specific identity as of Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2), is verified in its empirical effectiveness.⁸⁸ In essence, however, Paul’s gospel remains a message that is proclaimed.

In a brief and finely nuanced treatment, Joseph A. Fitzmyer defined Paul’s gospel as the good news of Jesus Christ.⁸⁹ In general, according to Fitzmyer, the gospel designated Paul’s presentation of the Christ-event; it was what he preached, proclaimed, announced, spoke about.⁹⁰ Fitzmyer noted that Paul’s gospel originated in the pre-Pauline kerygmatic tradition, that it was revelatory, normative for the Christian life, promissory in nature in that it continues God’s promises made of old, and was universal in character.⁹¹ Also, although Paul did not create a narrative form of the gospel, it was not an abstraction but a salvific force that came not in words alone, but with power and the holy Spirit (1 Thess 1:5).⁹² Unfortunately, Fitzmyer does not elaborate on not in words alone. Nevertheless, in this sketch we see Fitzmyer joining Sanders in moving beyond taking Paul’s gospel as more than just his message; it is a ‘power’ unleashed in the word of . . . human beings, challenging them to accept it, as he put it in his commentary on Romans.⁹³

Up to this point it is clear that the broad view is that, in Fitzmyer’s words, Paul’s gospel is what he preached, proclaimed, announced, spoke about.⁹⁴ Yet, on the eve of the current discussion we can see that there are hints of the idea that Paul’s gospel may not be understood in terms of Paul’s message alone. Bornkamm noted the oddly enthusiastic features of Paul’s gospel and theology; Sanders said that Paul reminded his readers that his gospel came not only in word but also with manifestations of the Spirit; and we have seen even Fitzmyer describe Paul’s gospel in terms of a salvific force that came not only in words. Remarkably, in the recent studies of Paul to which we will now turn, these hints are not picked up. Rather, there are slight and subtle developments of the understanding of the gospel in other ways.

§1.4 The current discussion

From the work of some leading, high-profile Pauline scholars of our day the question of the nature of Paul’s gospel appears settled, with some slight nuancing of ideas emerging most recently. We will discuss the contributions in order of their publication.

James D. G. Dunn. Lightfoot Professor Emeritus of Divinity at Durham University, Dunn has had a profound and defining influence on Pauline studies. In his magisterial treatment, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, Dunn says much the same as will N. T. Wright. He says Paul used the term gospel in talking about the good news proclaimed by and about Jesus.⁹⁵ It was for Paul, Dunn says, a technical term for his own proclamation.⁹⁶ In other words, the gospel is Paul’s message.⁹⁷ This news in its full roundedness⁹⁸ encompassed or touched on justification by faith, participation in Christ, becoming like Christ, the gift of the Spirit, and the Spirit and the outworking of the gospel in ethical corollaries.⁹⁹ However, Dunn notes that in his letter to the Romans Paul says the gospel is the power of God (Rom 1:16). Taking this into account, Dunn says Paul clearly has in mind a force that operates with marked effect on people, transforming them—as evident particularly in conversion and resurrection—and providing a source of energy to sustain that qualitatively different life.¹⁰⁰ In other words, for Dunn, the power of God is embodied and mediated through the message or gospel.¹⁰¹

N. T. Wright. Presently a professor at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Tom Wright is probably the highest-profile, and certainly the most popular and prolific, student of Paul in our time. In a relatively recent article he says Paul’s gospel . . . is a message about Jesus.¹⁰² In his massive, two-volume, 1,660-page Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Wright says of Paul’s gospel: It defined Paul. It defined his work. It defined his communities. It was the shorthand summary of the theology . . .. It carried God’s power.¹⁰³ Through what Paul says, according to Wright, God’s power is unleashed, the power of Christ’s spirit (1 Cor 2:5).¹⁰⁴ Thus, when Paul tells the great final—or ultimate or eschatological—story about what has taken place in Jesus, Wright says, God’s spirit goes to work. . . . Human hearts and minds, to their own surprise, are opened, warmed, challenged, broken and healed and remade, all through the word and the Spirit.¹⁰⁵ Clearly, for Wright, the gospel is, as he plainly says in more than one place, Paul’s message about Jesus through which the Spirit works.¹⁰⁶ On this view, shared by a considerable number of students of Paul, the gospel is characterized in terms of a narrative or story that is centered around Jesus, in Wright’s case at least, through which the Spirit works.¹⁰⁷

Udo Schnelle. Writing extensively on Paul, Udo Schnelle from Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg has gained wide attention.¹⁰⁸ Again, we have views with which we are now familiar from Dunn and Wright. Schnelle says that the gospel is the message of salvation.¹⁰⁹ He is quick to point out though that the gospel is more than words. He says the gospel is mediated through the human word of the apostle, but it cannot be reduced to that; it is the word of God that encounters his hearers in his own preaching.¹¹⁰ Schnelle says that the gospel is much more than ‘good news’; it is an effective means by which salvation is communicated, a faith-generating event and a faith-effecting power.¹¹¹

Michael J. Gorman. Reading Paul through the lens of missional hermeneutics, Gorman of St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, argues that for Paul, gospel is a story of salvation¹¹² that is both narrated and embodied.¹¹³ Gorman notes Paul saying that he did not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God (Rom 15:18–19). However, Gorman says: "It would be a mistake to limit the deeds to the signs and wonders . . .. Rather, Paul claims, Christ has lived and worked in him, giving him his mind and empowered him to speak and to live the gospel fully. This is what the indwelling and empowering Spirit does to people.¹¹⁴ Gorman concludes that Paul is saying that in coming to the gentiles he embodied the gospel—and expected his readers or hearers also to become the gospel."¹¹⁵

More recently, in a rich and evocative chapter on Paul’s Gospel,¹¹⁶ Gorman continues to emphasize that Paul’s gospel is his message, even if a performative one. He says, "For Paul the gospel is not, however, just words; it is power—‘the power of God for salvation’ (Rom 1:16; cf. 1 Thess 2:13). He goes on to say, It is God’s efficacious or performative utterance.¹¹⁷ In discussing the nature of this power and the substance of this good news Gorman considers the content of Paul’s gospel according to summary statements in his letters¹¹⁸ under a number of headings: Christ Crucified and Raised, The Gospel in Creed and Verse, Paul’s Master Story, The Story of God’s Faithfulness and Salvation, A Theopolitical Gospel, and The Benefits of the Gospel¹¹⁹—all this is in continuity with the story of Israel and in distinction to the imperial gospel of Rome.¹²⁰ Toward the end of the chapter on Paul’s gospel, staying with the notion that the gospel is performative utterance, he says that he has stressed the narrative character of Paul’s gospel as the announcement of the good news. This good news, he goes on to say, has social and political dimensions as well as ‘spiritual’ or (narrowly construed) ‘religious’ ones.¹²¹ A little later, as part of a very long sentence synthesizing Paul’s big ideas, Gorman says, Paul preached . . . a narrative, apocalyptic, theopolitical gospel of God’s shocking faithfulness and grace."¹²²

Michael Wolter. A finely nuanced treatment of Paul’s concept of gospel, with close attention to Paul’s use of the term (verb and noun), enables Wolter to suggest that "Paul’s theology of the gospel is that the gospel does not merely speak about the power of God . . ., but that it itself is also God’s power that rescues and brings about salvation."¹²³ Wolter, of the faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Bonn, goes on to say that, When Paul labels his gospel ‘God’s power,’ he wishes to express thereby that it does not merely make known the justice of God that creates salvation or give information about it, but that it allows God’s justice to become a reality among humans.¹²⁴ In turn, it is faith that unleashes God’s salvific work, that makes Paul’s gospel the ‘power of God’ that brings about salvation.¹²⁵ Nevertheless, the gospel remains Paul’s words, even if they become God’s salvific power.

Douglas A. Campbell. Currently at Duke Divinity School, Duke University, Campbell tantalizingly entitled one of his books, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy. From the first lines it is clear that this project is essentially a sketch of what we might dub the ‘grand strategic’ level in the debate concerning Paul’s theology.¹²⁶ Campbell is seeking an outline of Paul’s gospel, by which he means he is seeking a coherent explanatory model for Paul’s thinking. In the process Campbell considers the justification by faith model, the so-called Lutheran view, in which an individual sinner’s faith triggers a transference from a negative state of Jewish legalism to a new state of salvation. This is because the sinner’s transgressions are imputed to Christ on the cross and Christ’s perfect righteousness is credited to the sinner. This model is set aside because of its distortion of Judaism as contractual, conditional, and individualistic.¹²⁷ Campbell also sets aside the Salvation-History model. In this scheme, in which Campbell places W. D. Davies, Oscar Cullmann, and N. T. Wright,¹²⁸ Paul is driven by a historical schema of salvation, drawn from a particular reading of the Jewish Scriptures, that links salvific promise in Judaism with its fulfillment in the Messiah Jesus so that those receiving this promise are the new people of God.¹²⁹ This model of Paul’s gospel is rejected because it emphasizes Paul’s Jewish background rather than the central role of Christ as God with us. Also, it tends to elevate historical Israel into something of a sacred nation.¹³⁰ In turn, this view can give rise to the idea that the church displaces Israel and, sickeningly, is ethnically cleansed.¹³¹

Campbell instead offers what he calls the pneumatologically, participatory, martyrological eschatology, or as he (mercifully!) abbreviates it, the PPME strategy. He notes that this model is often referred to more briefly by a single term, apocalyptic, eschatological, or participatory.¹³² Campbell explains that in an interchange The very being of the sinful believer is taken up into Christ’s on the Cross, crucified, buried, then resurrected in a transformed state, and here free from sin, according to Paul. Campbell goes on immediately to say that In a sense, then, a person is absorbed into the Easter events, and transformed through them and by them.¹³³ For Paul, according to Campbell, this process takes place in relation to the Spirit for the presence of the Spirit in the lives of Christians is the main testimony of the reality of the event.¹³⁴ For Campbell this gospel is, to repeat, the coherent explanatory model for Paul’s thinking which, as Campbell discusses it, is something that Paul preaches or proclaims and writes about.¹³⁵

We could turn the pages of others involved in current discussions who have described what they think Paul means by gospel. But we would come to the same general results: fundamentally, Paul’s gospel is his message¹³⁶ that embodies or through faith, as we have seen for Wolter, becomes God’s transforming power.¹³⁷ In the case of Gorman, the gospel can and is to be embodied. In the case of Campbell, the gospel is the outline of Paul’s thinking. It is to be noted that in no case did any of these individuals state or give the impression that in describing Paul’s gospel as his message they were defining or dealing with only an aspect of his gospel.

In his contribution to The Cambridge Companion to St Paul, Graham Stanton (1940–2009) concludes with a very brief and tantalizing discussion of Paul’s gospel coming in power, and in the Spirit. Stanton notes that, for Paul, the gospel was not merely a set of statements to be affirmed in response to the rhetorical persuasion of a street-corner philosopher. He goes on to say that the gospel did not make its impact on the basis of his own powers of rhetorical persuasion, but through the power of and conviction of God’s Spirit.¹³⁸ However, from an examination of what Paul says, we will see that this still does not capture Paul’s understanding of either the gospel or its coming.

We have seen that recent discussions of Paul’s gospel are dominated by the idea that his gospel is his message or proclamation, even if that proclamation is Spirit-empowered. In turn, this has inevitably led to conclusions about the importance of Paul’s theological articulation for the success of his mission. His theological achievement—through which the knowledge inherent in faith itself was raised by him into the clarity of conscious knowing, as Rudolf Bultmann put it¹³⁹—has been taken to be the explanation of Paul’s missionary effectiveness, not least among the gentiles. For example, his vision of God’s impartiality¹⁴⁰ as intrinsic to the gospel obliged and authorized Paul to act in mission.¹⁴¹ In turn, if the gospel is Paul’s message, its propagation is through talking.¹⁴² As Scot McKnight put it, "to gospel is to tell the story that Jesus is Lord."¹⁴³

Yet, in the slight breaking of ranks by Sanders and Fitzmyer, and in the work of Gorman and Wolter, there has been a perceptible change in how Paul’s gospel is characterized. The missional hermeneutics of Gorman supposes that Paul’s gospel was not only what he may have said in his preaching, but also the example of his transformed life that, participating in the life and character of God as revealed in Jesus, embodied the message. Wolter’s close attention to Paul’s use of the term leads him to conclude that, through faith, the gospel of Paul’s message becomes the gospel of the power of God. Nevertheless, from the work of these high-profile interpreters of Paul, his gospel remains understood as centered around his message, in some cases taken to embody and mediate God’s power. The inadequacy of even these nuanced views of Paul’s gospel as his message will become clear through this project and begins to come into view when we set out in brief what Paul said.

§1.5 The gospel in Paul’s letters

For ease of reference, and to gain an overall impression of what Paul said directly about gospel, his uses of the term and those closely related to it can be listed, in my translations, in canonical order. Verbs (εὐαγγελίζω, gospel) are identified by italics, nouns (εὐαγγέλιον, gospel) by underlining.¹⁴⁴

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle set apart to the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son. (Rom

1

:

1

–

3

a)

For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers. (Rom

1

:

9

–

10

)

"hence my eagerness to gospel to you also in Rome." (Rom

1

:

15

)

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who has faith. (Rom

1

:

16

)

in the day when God will judge the secret thoughts of people according to my gospel through Christ Jesus. (Rom

2

:

16

)

"But how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those gospelling [the]¹⁴⁵ good things.’" (Rom

10

:

15

)

not all have obeyed the gospel. (Rom

10

:

16

)

Regarding the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake. (Rom

11

:

28

)

"because of the grace given me by God to be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving the gospel of God, so that the offering of the