Did Paul invent or hijack Christianity?

Recently, a friend emailed me with a very common claim, namely, that, “Paul hijacked Christianity with no personal connection with Jesus and filled his letters with personal opinions.” This could be rephrased in the more common claim: Paul invented Christianity.

This claim is especially common among Muslim apologists who use it in an attempt to explain why the Qur’an simultaneously affirms Jesus as a true prophet while also contradicting the Bible at every major point. However, since my friend is not a Muslim and is not coming at the issue from that angle, I will just deal with the question more broadly.

My friend alleges that some of the “personal opinions” of Paul that were interjected into the New Testament include: “slaves obey your masters; women not to have leadership roles in churches; homosexuality is a sin (though there is Old Testament authority for this last, Paul doesn’t seem to base his opinion on it).”

“None of [of the above] were said by Jesus and would perhaps be foreign to his teaching,” he wrote. “I think Paul has created a lot of mischief in Christianity, simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived.”

Paul, in fact, did have a personal connection to Jesus. This is revealed in the famous “Damascus road” accounts in Acts 9:3-9, Acts 22:6–11 and Acts 26:12–18. Paul refers back to this experience elsewhere in his letters, though it is only laid with this level of detail in Acts, written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke.

The only way one can maintain that Paul had no connection to Jesus is to rule out the conversion experience of Paul a priori based on a presupposition. Of course, I can argue that such a presupposition is untenable, but that would take an entire post to itself. For the sake of brevity, I would just point out that it is illogical to employ such reasoning. It would go something like, “It didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen because it can’t happen therefore it didn’t happen therefore Paul had no personal connection to Jesus.”

Yes, Paul does interject his personal opinions into his writing! However, when he does, he clearly delineates what he is saying as his personal opinion as an Apostle.

For instance, in dealing with the issue of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul clearly distinguishes between his own statements and the Lord’s.

In 1 Corinthians 7:10, Paul says, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord)…” and in 1 Corinthians 7:12, Paul says, “To the rest I say, (I, not the Lord)…” This example shows that Paul was not in the business of putting words in the mouth of Jesus. Paul had no problem showing when he was giving his own charge and when it was a statement made by the Lord Jesus, as it was in this case (Matthew 5:32).

Yet it is important to note that other Apostles recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture from the earliest days of Christianity, as seen the case of Peter (2 Peter 3:15–16).

Out of the three examples, two are directly from the Mosaic Law. Obviously the Mosaic Law couldn’t have stated that women should not preach in the church because the Church did not yet exist and wouldn’t for over 1,000 years.

The claim that there is only Old Testament authority for the last of the examples is false. The same goes for the claim that Paul does not base his statements on the Law.

It is abundantly clear that Paul actually does derive his statements on homosexual activity from the Law.

For instance, in 1 Timothy 1, Paul mentions homosexuality in the context of the type of people the Law was laid down for (1 Timothy 1:9-11). This short list indicts all people, just as Paul does elsewhere (Romans 3:23), showing that all people require the forgiveness that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ.

When Paul deals with it elsewhere, he mentions it in the context of other activities explicitly prohibited by the Law (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), again going back to the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ sets apart (sanctifies) His people and justifies them.

As for the command for slaves to obey their masters, this is regularly claimed to be objectionable by critics. By way of introduction, is important to distinguish between what we have in our mind about the institution of slavery as Americans and the institution of slavery as it existed in Paul’s day. After all, Paul explicitly listed “enslaverers” (or man-stealers) in the same list mentioned above (1 Tim 1:10). Since the entire institution of slavery in the United States was built upon the kidnapping of people, it is clearly radically different from what Paul spoke of. Furthermore, the stealing of a man was punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:16). The practice of slavery in America would never have existed if the Bible was actually being followed.

Paul also exhorted his readers to buy their freedom if they could (1 Corinthians 7:21) and instructing the master of a runaway slave to treat him as “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (Philemon 11). Paul grounded his statements in the defense of “the name of God and the teaching.” Paul said that bondservants should “regard their masters as worthy of all honor,” not just for the sake of doing so, but so there might be no chance to slander the name of God and the gospel.

Ultimately, the claim made by my friend requires more fleshing out on his end and some evidence on his part in order to be more fully dealt with.

This is another common claim. First off, one must ask if this statement implies that Jesus would simply have to repeat everything Paul said and vice-versa or else they would remain foreign.

The fact is that there is nothing contradictory between Paul’s writings and Jesus’ teaching. One must wonder why Luke – a traveling companion of Paul and the author of Luke-Acts – would have no problem writing the gospel that bears his name if he perceived such a contradiction. Furthermore, one must wonder why this apparent conflict was lost on the earliest Christians, including the Apostle Peter, who viewed Paul’s letters as Scripture (see above).

In affirming the Law (Matthew 5:17), Jesus affirmed all that Paul that was clearly grounded in the Law. Furthermore, if there was a real contradiction between Paul’s writings and the teachings of Jesus, Paul would have been rejected, instead of accepted as he has always been.

The Christian community existed before Paul became a Christian, as is clearly seen by the fact that he was persecuting Christians (Acts 8:1,3), and he even met with the leaders of the early church. They did not reject Paul, but instead affirmed what he had been teaching (Galatians 2:2,9). This makes it even clearer that Paul could not have invented or hijacked Christianity.

As for the claim that Paul has had such a large impact “simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived,” all one has to do is look at the other early Christian writings that survived in order to see that is not a valid metric.

We have seen that the claim that “Paul hijacked Christianity” is without evidence. While I have taken the burden of proof upon myself in responding to this claim, in reality the burden of proof would be on the one making the claim in the first place. No such evidence has been presented and no substantive evidence can be presented since Paul did not invent Christianity or hijack Christianity or anything similar to it. Instead, Paul was an Apostle of Jesus Christ commissioned to spread the gospel, something that he clearly did by establishing churches and penning many letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we can still read today.

When one reads the gospels and the other writings contained in the New Testament, the message is cohesive and clear: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23), God demands complete perfection (Mt 5:48) and all we have earned through our sin is death (Ro 6:23) and hell. Yet God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who repent and believe (Mk 1:15, Ro 10:9–11) in Jesus Christ, who died as a propitiation (Ro 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 4:10) for all who would ever believe in Him (Jn 6:44) and rose from the grave three days later, forever defeating sin and death. Those who believe in Him can know (1 John 5:13) that they have passed from death to life (Jn 5:24) and will not be condemned (Jn 3:18), but will be given eternal life by Jesus Christ (Jn 6:39-40). Paul and Jesus in no way contradict each other on what the gospel is, in fact the four gospels and Paul’s letters (along with the rest of the New Testament) form one beautiful, cohesive truth.

But Christians somehow think that abstaining from what He actually ordained and sanctified (which Yeshua kept and taught from), His Sabbath and His Holy Days, in order to worship on days decreed by men (which very coincidentally, of course, fall upon pagan days) is giving YHWH his due! Imagine that! How bold! Don't you think it might be a design of Satan to distract Christians away from the images that YHWH has put forth for us to learn? Why do you think that YHWH was SO very adamant about those days? Because there is a message for YOU in each and every one, that He needed to preserve through time. And those messages must be true.

No, I don't think it is Satan's "design" to distract Christians away from loving and serving Christ but just the opposite, it WOULD be his design to keep people enslaved to the law that can never justify and was never meant to justify anyone and to use others to place upon them burdens that no one can bear in order to pervert the Gospel of the grace of God. The term "cheap grace" is an oxymoron. More than enough time and space has been taken on this thread to counter the arguments you continue to make proposing "your" way is a better way to know and serve Christ. I'm not at all swayed by your incessant arguments.

At least you aren't defending obedience to Torah as THE way to have eternal life as Editor-Surveyor has been doing. He takes it upon himself to judge the hearts of believers in Christ and declare them satan's children because they don't agree with his accursed gospel. You, on the other hand, are only contending that nobody can "truly" love Christ and serve Him unless they are also obedient to the whole Torah. Maybe you two need to dialog a little with each other and explain how you both can be "right" while everyone else is wrong? It should be an interesting exchange.

Christ called himself “The Lord of the Sabbath” and in him is our final rest. The specific command to observe the Sabbath is not found in the NT because the Lord of the Sabbath has called us to himself. In him is our true Sabbath hope. The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath and the Lord of the Sabbath poured out his life for us so that we our selves become fountains of blessing for one another and for the world.

To truly observe the Sabbath is to obey the two greatest commandments...to Love God with all that we can muster:, heart, soul, strength, and mind and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Hebrews says that we have not come to Mount Sinai, where there is gloom smoke and fire but we have come to Mount Zion. As it also says in Hebrews...”there is yet a final rest for the people of God.” The Sabbath is much more a day or custom to keep, but it is also part of the state of our being that we have in Christ Jesus. He is the Lord of the Sabbath and he has said “Abide in me for I am the Vine and you are the branches” so as we abide in him, we partake of His Sabbath perpetually!

>> “At least you aren't defending obedience to Torah as THE way to have eternal life as Editor-Surveyor has been doing” <<

That is a false and most dishonest statement!

All of your posts are based on such false and dishonest statements. Doing battle with a strawman will do nothing for your departure from scripture, nor your stature here.

Obedience to his commandments is always the result of Yeshua being “in” you, with no exceptions, as John clearly stated in his first epistle:

1John.2

[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
[6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
[7] Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

>> “At least you aren't defending obedience to Torah as THE way to have eternal life as Editor-Surveyor has been doing” << That is a false and most dishonest statement! All of your posts are based on such false and dishonest statements.

Who do you think is fooled by your reactionary and defensive response? All anyone has to do is read through THIS thread (not to mention all the other ones where you have tried to spread your false gospel) to see that you do indeed insist that obedience to the "Torah" is how anyone can be justified. You recently took it upon yourself to judge MY salvation and question my faith in Jesus Christ based upon my disputing with you on the subject. You said I was a child of Satan and was going to hell, have you forgotten so soon???

The falseness and dishonesty is coming from you as you try to back off from your acrimonious assertions here. The gospel you believe is the one Paul called ACCURSED. I will have nothing to do with that.

The false gospel is your own!

This promise of “grace” without the stated evidence of knowing him? Yep!

A promise of guaranteed salvation, without maintaining a faith relationship to the end? Yep!

Nothing in your ‘gospel’ can be found in the word of God.

I question the salvation of everyone that tries to claim grace without the evidence that the word says must be there; especially those that claim that the required evidence has been abolished.

I question the state of all the try to claim “eternal security” in any form, because the word says there is no such thing. Yeshua plainly said that “the faith of many shall wax cold,” and there is no reason not to believe him, especially with so many fooled by Satan’s pre-trib rapture, and the false belief that Torah can cease before the Earth and Heavens do.

You should question it too.

Your favorite repeated falsehood that I ever said that anyone can be justified by Torah is solid reason to question everything you say.

That is a false and most dishonest statement!

Example of what I am talking about:

The apostles all wrote that "doers of the law will be justified."

Doers of the law will be justified because earnestly and obediently following the commandments is what leads to genuine righteousness. It makes his disciples “righteous as he is righteous.”

Don't call me a liar! At least own your OWN statements.

>> “The gospel you believe is the one Paul called ACCURSED” <<

Vile Satanic falsehood!

The gospel I believe is the same one that Paul preached, and, as he affirmed in Hebrews 3 and 4, as the very same one that Moses preached in the desert.

Heb.3

[1] Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
[2] Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
[3] For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.
[4] For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
[5] And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
[6] But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
[7] Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
[8] Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
[9] When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
[10] Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
[11] So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
[12] Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
[13] But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
[14] For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
[15] While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
[16] For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
[17] But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
[18] And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
[19] So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Heb.4
[1] Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
[2] For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
[3] For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
[4] For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
[5] And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
[6] Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
[7] Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
[8] For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
[9] There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
[10] For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
[11] Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
[12] For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

So we see here that you deny the gospel that Paul preached in your every post here. He declared that there is no difference between his gospel and that of Moses.

Can you false "rightly dividers" divide that fact away?

Or the plain fact that you must remain in faith to the end?

Easy believeism is just nowhere to be found in the Word of God.

All are bound to the law,

It seems you don't understand the Crucifixion...

for the transgression of Torah is the definition of sin.

Doesn't matter...

Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Jesus didn't come to just forgive our sins but to take them away. Jesus took our sin away and delivered us from that sin nature...

Rom 6:2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

We are dead to sin...

Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Rom 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.

We are free from sin...

Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rom 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Paul says that we are to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies and that we are to consider ourselves "dead to sin" yet most teachers of the Bible will tell us that it’s impossible to do away with sin and that we'll always be sinners...They teach that we can only accomplish a sin free life when we get to heaven and when we get our glorified bodies...Nowhere is this taught in scripture...

Rom 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Rom 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

Rom 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life...

When we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ by faith, we were made free from sin, and if the Lord, "who takes away the sin of the world", has made you free from sin, then contrary to what you’ve been taught, you’re no longer a sinner...

Joh_8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

So how does this happen???

Gal 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us...Jesus redeemed (or ransomed)us by taking our sin upon Himself and at the same time giving us His righteousness...

2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

2Co 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Jesus made an exchange, our sinfulness for His righteousness...Through our faith in Jesus we now have His righteousness and are reconciled to God without spot or blemish, we've now become the righteousness of God...

Jesus is now our continual sacrifice for sin, not imputing our trespasses to us and because of this exchange, God is not imputing our trespasses against us because God sees the spirit of Christ instead of us and our filthy flesh...

1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

>> “You are making the assumption that the commandments of Jesus are the same as the commandments of God in the O.T.” <<

I make no assumption.

Yeshua and Yehova are the same God. (”I and my Father are one”)

They are the very same commandments that Yeshua had to completely obey to be our perfect sacrifice.

Torah is the definition of Righteousness, as transgression of Torah is the definition of sin.

The Gospel that Moses preached in the desert is the very same Gospel that the apostles proclaimed, as Paul so eloquently declared in Hebrews 3 and 4. There is no difference; what was righteousness at Sinai in 1500 BC is righteousness today.

All of your out of context, misunderstood, single verses that you post so constantly do not contradict this fact if read in the full context of the epistles they are ripped from.

If you want it in simple words, John's first epistle is the place to get it:

1John.2

[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
[6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
[7] Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

There it is in simple words.

Do you claim to know him?

And you do not accept his commandments?

Then the truth is not in you!

>> “The gospel you believe is the one Paul called ACCURSED” <<

Vile Satanic falsehood!

Is it now? Then explain the difference between your gospel of "doers of the law will be justified", "Yeshua demands that we obey his commandments out of love and belief in him", "to those that do that, the effect is the teaching of true righteousness through more than simple knowledge of what sin is declared to be by the law. It creates a desire to please him that is visibly lacking in those that reject what he has commanded", "the rejectors of his commandments often insist that they are “saved by grace,” but then insist that grace consists of automatic righteousness granted for saying a prayer that is nowhere to be found in the Word of God" and "those that followed his commandments willingly were the only ones that truly loved him; the rest were just in it for a guarantee of salvation that could not be had free of that special love" and the gospel of religions such as Roman Catholicism that teaches we must "cooperate" with God's grace by our works of righteousness and that it is this that makes us worthy of heaven??? Both systems are merit-based salvation and negate grace.

Your gospel is hardly the same as what Paul preached as the Holy Spirit revealed it, but is the SAME accursed message that began back in Eden when Satan questioned the word of God and convinced man that he could be "like God".

Are you still hawking that fake Hebrew as if it were Biblical text?

Not that it changes your analysis. It would be flawed in either Greek, Hebrew, or English. God did make man in His own image, and "man" includes woman. But "image" or the more general term "likeness" cannot have reference here to God having biological genders. He is the Eternal Spirit, and has no need of biological reproduction:

John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

So then the only manner in which this likeness can be reconciled with the nature of God is to see it in terms of the spiritual characteristics of God. We know for a fact this likeness does NOT have to do with gender:

Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

And this is consistent with our new nature in Christ uniting as as one spiritual family, without being classified by those human biological differences that define our present existence:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus

So it becomes evident that our likeness to God, which is certainly greatest when we shall all be with Him in eternity, does not entail biological gender.

So the likeness must be spiritual, because that is Who God is. But we do not need to have all of God's characteristics to be like Him spiritually. An image is a represenation, not the original thing being represented. And it can be a great deal less than the original, and still be a good likeness, an image that reminds you of the original.

As believers, we acquire that likeness by being renewed in our spirit, becoming a new person patterned after God Himself. In what sense? In tems of righteousness and holiness, the core of which, as Jesus taught, is love, not according to the Old Covenant exoskeleton of numbered rules and the liturgy of sacrifice, but according to the fullness of the Spirit dwelling in us, flowing from within us like rivers of living water, expressing the love of God in all we think and do:

Eph 4:23-24 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; (24) And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Indeed, one can argue the whole point of God's redemtive plan was and is to restore us to the image of God that we lost when we fell into sin:

Rom 8:28-29 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (29) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

And so one day all who are called by grace into the fellowship of the Son will also be conformed to His image, which certanly does not mean we will all look like Him, but we all will "be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2.

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