Source: “The Parting Of The Gods: Paul And The Redefinition Of Judaism**”**, By David Allen Brondos, 2021
Redefining The God Of Israel.wav
This podcast explores how the understanding of God shifted significantly with the advent of Christianity, particularly through the teachings of Paul. While early Jewish followers of Christ, including Paul, believed the God of Israel and the God of Jesus were one, many other Jews found Paul's portrayal of God to be fundamentally distinct. The text highlights that Paul's theology inextricably links God's identity to Jesus Christ, seeing Jesus as God's divinely appointed Son who was raised from the dead and exalted as Lord, and through whom all of God's purposes, including creation and salvation, are accomplished. This perspective led to new interpretations of traditional Jewish concepts like the Torah and covenants, which Paul often contrasted with the new reality found in Christ, a perspective that would have been largely foreign to most Jews of his time.
Topic 1: Diversity of Second Temple Jewish Beliefs about God During the Second Temple period, there was a wide spectrum of beliefs concerning God among Jews, even though they might have conceptually believed in the same ultimate deity. For instance, the Pharisees held the belief that God would resurrect the dead, a concept explicitly rejected by the Sadducees. The community at Qumran believed in a God who had sent the Teacher of Righteousness and was displeased with the worship at the Jerusalem temple, advocating for non-participation until worship could be properly conducted. In contrast, most other Jews believed God was pleased with temple worship and expected continued participation. Additionally, charismatic figures like Judas the Galilean or John the Baptist convinced many that they were sent by Israel's God, while others regarded them as false prophets proclaiming a false God. Despite these diverse conceptions of God and His will, most scholars today agree that members of these groups, and the Jewish community at large, would have affirmed that all Jews ultimately worshipped the same God.
Topic 2: The Radical Distinction of Jesus' Followers' Beliefs about God Despite the apparent underlying unity in worshipping the same God among various Second Temple Jewish groups, it is far from clear that they would have perceived the God proclaimed by Jesus' earliest followers as identical to their own. The community of Jesus' followers held profoundly cherished convictions that radically diverged from other Jewish thought. They would have given a categorical "Yes!" to questions that other Jews would have answered with a resounding "No!" These questions pertained to whether God had revealed anything radically new, whether the Jewish law (Torah) had ceased to be the definitive expression of God's will, if a new prophet of Moses' stature had been sent, if a descendant of David had been established as Lord alongside God, if Scripture should be interpreted differently, if God's relationship with His people had fundamentally changed, if people should now approach God through a mediator transcending previous high priests, and if a new or renewed covenant allowed uncircumcised gentiles to be as acceptable as observant Jews. This stark difference in responses highlights a fundamental redefinition of God by Jesus' followers.
Topic 3: Paul's Core Conception: God Inseparable from Jesus Christ For the Apostle Paul, the understanding of God is intrinsically linked to Jesus Christ; the two are inseparable. Paul believed it was impossible to fully know God independently of Jesus. God acts in relation to human beings through Jesus, and human beings are to relate to God in and through Jesus. Consequently, in Paul's theology, God is no longer to be known primarily as the God of Israel, but rather as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." In one sense, this implies a transformation of the God of Israel into a different God, as He had never been known as such before Jesus' coming. Yet, in another sense, it was the same God, who had always been the God of Jesus Christ, even if the Jewish people had not known Him in that way. Paul emphasized that after Jesus' arrival and God's revelation of Him as Son, full and complete knowledge and belief in God necessitated knowing and believing in Jesus as well. This inseparability is evident in how Paul relates numerous key terms and concepts (like gospel, word, truth, knowledge, power, servants, obedience, law, commandments, grace, peace, love, mercy, hope, trust, faith, intercession, pleasing, belonging, heirs, indwelling, Spirit, church, salvific activities, revelations, comfort, authority, calling, judgment, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, salvation, liberation, raising the dead, and transformation) to both God and Christ.
Topic 4: Jesus' Unprecedented Status as God's Son Paul's understanding of God is most clearly expressed through the "Father and Son" language used to describe the intimate relationship between God and Jesus. While God is often referred to as Father of believers, Paul consistently links Jesus with God when speaking of God as the Father of believers, often calling Jesus "Lord." This relationship between Jesus and God, as presented by Paul, profoundly transcends any relationship God had with other human persons or people in Hebrew Scriptures, including figures like David. For Paul, God's relationship to Jesus is not secondary or incidental but primary and definitive to God's very being and identity. This contrasts sharply with the Hebrew Bible, where God is not repeatedly referred to as the "God of David" or "David's Father" in a way that defines God's identity. Paul also notably refrains from referring to God as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" or the "God of Israel," further emphasizing Jesus' unique and defining role in God's identity for him.
Topic 5: The Significance of Jesus' Resurrection and Exaltation by God A frequently recurring way Paul alludes to God is as the one who raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to His right side as Lord. This act of resurrection and exaltation is central to Paul's understanding of God's identity, confirming and consolidating God's nature as the one who restores life to the dead. For Paul, this aspect of God's identity, while present in Jewish thought generally, has come to the fore specifically through what God has done in and through Jesus. The resurrection of Christ is "of first importance" for Paul and is foundational to faith, as he states that without Christ's resurrection, faith is in vain and believers are still in their sins. Jesus' resurrection is essentially a single event with his exaltation, signifying his lordship over both the dead and the living. This belief in God raising Jesus and exalting him provides assurance that Jesus will come again to deliver believers from wrath and bring them into God's presence.
Topic 6: The Application of "Lord" and Old Testament Texts to Jesus In Jewish thought, "Lord" (ho kyrios) was a common designation for God. However, Paul predominantly uses this term to refer to Christ. The vast majority of Paul's uses of "Lord" unquestionably refer to Christ, with exceptions primarily found when citing passages from the Hebrew Scriptures where it originally referred to God. Notably, Paul applies passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that unambiguously referred to God as "Lord" to Jesus. For example, in Romans 10, Paul quotes Joel 2:32, where "everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved," and implies that "the Lord" here refers to Jesus. Even more remarkably, in Philippians 2:9-11, Paul applies Isaiah 45:23 ("to me shall every knee bend and every tongue shall give praise to [me as] God") to Jesus, envisioning a future where every human person, including all great figures of Israel's history and world history, will bow before Jesus and confess him as Lord to the glory of God the Father. This identification of Jesus with God as the "Lord" of whom Isaiah speaks would have profoundly astonished most Jews and is unparalleled in Second Temple Jewish literature.
Topic 7: Christ's Pre-existence and Role in Creation/Divine Plan Paul also suggests Christ existed in some sense alongside God long before his human birth. In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul appears to speak of God acting through Christ in the creation of the world, stating that "from whom all things proceed, and for whom we exist; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by means of whom are all things, and through whom we exist." This idea of a heavenly figure serving as God's agent in creation, who would later become human, die, and rise, is unprecedented in Hebrew Scriptures or Second Temple Jewish writings. Furthermore, in Philippians 2:5-8, Paul describes Christ Jesus as "though existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself... and being born in human likeness." Regardless of the precise interpretation, this presents a unique pre-existence of Christ with God. Paul also clearly believed that God intended to accomplish His purposes among human beings through His Son Jesus from the very beginning, predestining human beings to be conformed to the image of His Son, placing Christ at the center, beginning, and end of God's plan for humanity.
Topic 8: Paul's Controversial Reassessment of the Mosaic Law Paul's statements regarding the Jewish law (Torah) would have been perceived as highly disparaging and objectionable by most Jews of his time. He often characterized the law as holding people in bondage, leading to condemnation and death, making sin abound, and being the "power of sin," even claiming that "all who are of the law are under a curse." He spoke of dying to the law in order to live to God, a notion alien to Jewish thought where living to God was precisely achieved through submission to the law. Paul denied the law's ability to give life and insisted that righteousness does not result from its works, stating that God made His righteousness known apart from the law. He even affirmed that "Christ is the end of the law to lead to righteousness for all who believe." Additionally, Paul's assertions that "all things are lawful" or "nothing is unclean in itself," and that "circumcision is nothing," would have been unacceptable or incomprehensible to law-observant Jews. These views contrasted sharply with the traditional Jewish understanding of the Torah as God's greatest gift and definitive expression of His will.
Topic 9: Reinterpretation of Jewish Covenants, Israel, and Temple Paul frequently reinterprets traditional Jewish themes through a Christ-centered perspective, leading to significant divergences. His portrayal of Israel, particularly in Romans 9-11, is often negative, highlighting their disobedience, hardened hearts, and failure to attain righteousness through the law, though he still emphasizes God's love and the irrevocability of their call. He expands Abraham's fatherhood to include gentiles who come to faith in Christ, making Abraham's promises revolve around Jesus. Paul contrasts the old covenant established at Sinai with a new one associated with Christ, associating the Sinai covenant with slavery and the new one with freedom. While he uses temple imagery, such as believers' bodies being a temple of God or offering themselves as living sacrifices, he discusses these concepts in relation to Christ and the new reality established through him, rather than the Jerusalem temple as an independent focus of worship. This suggests a re-contextualization of these central Jewish concepts.
Topic 10: The Overall "Newness" of Paul's God and Faith The culmination of Paul's theological perspective is the proclamation of a God and a faith that, from the viewpoint of most non-believing Jews, were fundamentally new and different. For Paul, what defined God was His relation to Jesus Christ as His Son, a relationship that redefined God's identity above His historical ties to Israel, the patriarchs, Moses, the Torah, and the temple. Non-believing Jews would not have recognized the God proclaimed as the Father of Jesus Christ by Paul as the same God they and their ancestors had worshipped. They would have seen Paul as introducing innovations and claims foreign to their thought, such as God revealing radically new truths, transcending the Torah, speaking through one greater than Moses, establishing a new Lord alongside Himself, making a new covenant, or fundamentally redefining how God relates to His people. For Paul and other believers in Christ, these radical shifts were the "full truth" about the God of Israel, leading to a faith characterized by a departure from traditional Jewish understandings.