Saturday, March 13, 2021

Aaron W. White on Paul as a Prophet

  

Paul is a prophet. This is the foundational for grasping Paul’s agenda. He precisely speaks what God leads him to speak, unaltered. Because he carries what he believes is the unadulterated good news of the arrival of the Messiah and the return of the glory of God’s kingdom to his people, he carries a message not of his own but from God. It is news now unveiled that once was veiled . . . There is a sense that Paul places himself in partnership with God in these passages and elsewhere in his letters. Paul is the vehicle through whom God calls his people to himself through the gospel message: ο [και] εκαλεσεν υμας δια του ευαγγελιου ημων (2 Thess 2:14). Equally so, Paul himself in these passages consistently reps himself as one called for a specific purpose . . . Quoting Isaiah 61:1, Jesus declares to those at the synagogue that he was the fulfillment and the long-awaited one who is carried on and anointed by the Spirit to bring good news. The prophet himself says that the Spirit anoints him to bring the ευαγγελιον (Isa 61:1). In each case, the Spirit is upon these men, and God sends them (cf. Isa 61:1a, Πνευμα κυριου επεμε, ου εινεκεν εχρισεν με). For Paul, the unveiled and Spirit-empowered gospel he preaches confirms its authenticity and divine origin, when set alongside the other gospels preached that are veiled and centered on the λογος or γραμμα of men (cf. 2 Cor 3:6 and 1 Thess 1:5). (Aaron W. White, “Whose Gospel is it Anyway? The Glory of Christ in the Prophetic Ministry of Paul According to his ‘My Gospel’ and ‘Our Gospel’ Statements,” in Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, Who Created Christianity? Fresh Approaches to the Relationship Between Paul and Jesus [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2020], 149-66, here, pp. 152, 158)