THE BOTTOM LINE OF THE GOSPEL of Jesus Christ, at an intensely personal level, is simply this: Death does not end our existence. And, if death does not end our existence, what impact does that have, should that have, on our current lives? This is not an all-or-nothing question; instead, it is an either-or question. Blaise Pascal, a well-known intellectual-philosophical convert to Christianity in seventeenth century France, offered a pragmatic reason in the argument for believing in God: even under the assumption that God’s existence is unlikely, the potential benefits of believing are so vast as to make counting on theism as rational. Pascal, a trained mathematician, developed a four-part equation composed of either believing or not believing against the outcomes of either heaven and hell existing or not existing.
For Christians, this has obvious benefits whether or not God exists, but an undeniable benefit if he does. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor. 15:13) For atheists, the benefit or loss in this world is debatable, but if God does exist, the loss in the world to come is everything. “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire. Then they will go away to eternal punishment.” (Matt. 25:41-46) Pascal developed his argument, of course, from this passage in Paul’s writing here and following. And Paul’s thesis, here and elsewhere, is that heaven and hell both exist, and that there is a definite choice to be made in this life that determines our destination in the life that comes after this.
The Christian argument for God’s existence is not based in intellectual discourse and appeal to reason. It is not that those arguments cannot be made, nor that they do not have immense value in the discussion. Instead, what we all must come to understand and agree with, is that the Christian argument for God is first, foremost, and always, a matter of faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Heb. 11:6) There cannot be agreement with each other until we agree individually with God. Paul is an incredible example of a man who is highly intellectual by nature, but whose belief in the true God comes first as an experiential faith.
His conversion testimony, first recorded in the Book of Acts, but often repeated, is clearly of a personal encounter with Jesus. “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:5) This is what it took for Paul, the rational man, to truly understand the existence of God. We are fortunate, and it is by God’s sovereign design, that the spiritual maturation of Paul’s personality is so clearly displayed in scripture.
In Paul, the divide between the rational man, who needs a logical explanation for everything, and the sensual man, who relies on feelings and emotions to interpret his world, have been made one. All too often, arguments about explaining or manifesting God surface because contending parties, both of sincere faith, base and derive their opinions from a particular and comfortable personal lens, or viewpoint, without understanding that another is saying the same truth from a different personal bias. In Paul, God has formed and shaped a man “to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.” (Acts 9:15) Paul is (one of) God’s mouthpiece to all people.
Paul keeps first things first. “I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.” (1 Cor. 15:1) Everybody hearing these words read to them then, and everybody reading them now, has no difficulty interpreting them through their own lens of faith, if it is faith in God. And the ‘rewards those who earnestly seek him’ are that ‘By this gospel you are saved.’ He reminds his readers that his authority stands in good company with “Peter, and the Twelve, and James,” and goes on to call himself “one abnormally born.” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:5-8) He refers here to what has already been stated in regards to his conversion due to the encounter with Jesus, and by inference includes his readers. The rest of the apostles had walked with the earthly Jesus during his life and ministry, and had been present when he ascended to heaven, “he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
But Paul was born again by Spirit on the Damascus Road and supernaturally commissioned as an Apostle, and in this, he becomes a prime example of Jesus’ teaching. “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:5-7) And, from that personal experience, Paul himself can testify to others. “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:3-4)
It is with utter conviction, then, that Paul writes, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Cor. 15:3-4) And again, whether it is to his readers in Thessalonica, or to us today, whether we are of intellectual bent or driven by mysticism—the intuition of the Spirit—they and we together have no difficulty understanding what he is imparting, for all of us have been “abnormally born.” (1 Cor. 15:8b) We have become not just people of faith, but specifically people of faith in God. The Spirit that speaks through the prophets of God—that speaks through Paul—that same Spirit resides in us, and testifies with the Spirit of God to the truth of God. “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” (Rom. 8:16) It is with utter conviction, then, that we hear “this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.” (1 Cor. 15:11)
Q. If I peel away my rational thoughts, what does my testimony become?
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