Paul's Predicament

He was, then, a stern, tough little man, thoroughly dedicated to the proposition that Christianity is a lot of nonsense, and that any individual worth his salt will try to wipe it out. That is Paul "on the outside," the man who "laid waste the church, and . . . dragged off men and women and committed them to prison" ( Acts 8: 3).

But there was a Paul "on the inside" too. He was a man at war with himself. Underneath this frenzied activity, he was mixed up. Perhaps he was disturbed at the glad, gay way in which the miserable Christians were dying, because when they died they didn't appear miserable. Take this same Stephen. He hadn't groveled before his persecutors, begging to be let off. Not for a moment. He had asked God to forgive his persecutors. Tie that! And a tiny voice inside Paul kept asking, "Could there possibly be something to this Christian nonsense after all?"

Something else worried Paul. He took the Jewish law very seriously. The law told him just what he must do to be in right relationship with God. But the law didn't make Paul feel "right" with God. On the contrary, it made him feel more wrong than ever. And the more he studied what the law told him not to do, so he reports, the more he wanted to do the very things that were forbidden. This was a rough situation! Even though he could call himself "blameless" in terms of the law, he didn't feel that he was in the right relationship with God which was so desperately important to him. Rather than freeing him, the law only enslaved him more deeply.

Here, then, is how Paul describes his predicament. He is a prisoner of the law. He feels that he must fulfill all the legal requirements, do everything the law demands, before he can be worthy of God's love. He must "earn" the right to fellowship with God. And that sounds all right on the surface: live a good life, using the law as a guide, and thus become righteous in God's sight. But there was a catch. Living up to the law did not bring Paul this fellowship with God. He was frustrated and disappointed by his inability to do enough to feel that he had truly earned the right to God's love. Rather than saving him, the law only condemned him more thoroughly. It could show him where he fell short, but it couldn't give him the power to rise above his inadequacies. "I can will what is right," he acknowledged, "but I cannot do it" ( Rom. 7: 18).