2.3 The Structure of Paul's Gospel
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Paul’s gospel, then, comes out from Paul’s Jesus. And Paul’s gospel is that you and I are inside of this Personal Jesus both through the Walk of the Atonement and now and always, and that this Personal Jesus is inside of us. The “us,” means, then, that we are together the Body of Christ, Jesus walking this earth right now.
When Jesus said to Paul, “Why are you persecuting Me?” Paul realized that Jesus had, in fact, returned as He had promised. While John would later emphasize the “you in Me and I in you” part of Paul’s gospel, Paul turned much of his focus on the Body of Christ – because Salvation IS one thing only, you and I finding our place in that Body, the fullness of Christ.
Goal – Means – Entrance. Now, most Christians who acknowledge “Paul’s gospel,” will say that it is “by grace through faith.” “By grace through faith” is certainly an important part of Paul’s gospel, but it is only the entrance into the far more important means of Paul’s gospel. Let me explain.
The ultimate goal of Paul’s gospel is the Church, the fullness of Christ who fills all in all. (Romans 8:28 – God and us working together in all things.) The means of Paul’s gospel is our union with Christ, first in His death, but much more, in His LIFE. (Romans 8:29 – symmorphosed with Jesus, sharing the same form.) And the entrance into that means is “by grace through faith.” (Romans 8:30 – already done, already finished.)
Enemies of Paul’s Gospel. Judaism was the greatest visible enemy against which Paul preached in establishing his gospel, but it was the Gnosticism against which John wrote that defeated entirely Paul’s gospel in the minds of all Christians. Nicene Christianity is the triumph of Gnosticism over Paul’s gospel; in our day, it has added the codicil of the victory of Judaism over Paul’s gospel.
Most do not understand Gnosticism rightly. Most think that Gnosticism was the belief that there are two “gods,” an Old Testament “god” and a New Testament “god.” But that is not its essence nor its victory in the Church. Gnosticism is the belief that all things of the earth and of human flesh are evil and that all things of heaven are good.
Gnosticism. Gnosticism is the placement of the serpent as the lens through which we know God, and not the human and physical Jesus stumbling under a cross He could not carry. Gnosticism is the focus on “ascending” to a “higher” life that is actually death and in the opposite direction God Himself is going. Gnosticism is the belief that death is “eternal life.”
Consider this chart.
| The Gospel | Entrance | Means | Goal |
| Catholics | By grace through faith + | The Church | Death (‘heaven’) |
| Protestants | By grace through faith – | Right ideas & try your best | Death (‘heaven’) |
| Paul | By grace through faith | We in Jesus and Jesus in us | Church |
The primary difference is the replacement of Jesus with Death, physical death being the only “answer” to “evil flesh.”
Do NOT Say. It is necessary to once again lay out the negative because any shadow of “but heaven” eliminates Paul’s gospel. Heaven is now through you. “But heaven” is the expectation of death, that death is the answer to everything, not “I am Jesus.”
Here is the most DISOBEYED commandment today in Paul’s gospel and in the entire Bible. Do not say, “Let’s go to heaven to find Jesus” (Romans 10:6 – paraphrased). Why do we say or think no such thing? Because the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, is IN our mouth and IN our heart, literally and substantially, in all of His Person and glory.
The “Jesus” in a “faraway heaven” is another Jesus.
By Grace through Faith. You can see, from the chart, that all three approaches to the gospel place Paul’s “by grace through faith” as the entrance into the Christian life. The + and the – indicate that, because of the false goal requiring a false means, the definitions of “by grace through faith” have been altered accordingly. The Catholics, placing the Church as the means to Death as Salvation, added certain rituals, calling them “grace.” The Protestants, throwing out the Church as the means to Death as Salvation, subtracted grace down to a mental idea.
With that backdrop of another Jesus producing another gospel, let’s look, now at Paul’s gospel in the New Testament.
The Means of God. The center of Paul’s gospel is the MEANS that takes us to the goal, not the simple entrance that places us into that MEANS. Think of this process as a car into which we enter that takes us to our destination. Getting into the car is the simplest thing with arriving at the destination, Church, much more important, but to Paul, the CAR was a big deal. The CAR is Paul’s “I am Jesus.”
To understand the means of God in the Covenant, that is in Paul’s gospel, we must go back to the Feasts of Israel. In those feasts were two critical sacrifices, the lamb of Passover and the two goats of the Day of Atonement.
The Two Goats. Covenant, that is Paul’s gospel, is a Blood Covenant, with cutting open, that is a death, at it’s heart. If One died for all, then all died.
In actuality, it is the two goats of the Day of Atonement that show us what the Lamb of Passover really means, God giving us a second, more explicit picture of the same thing. And thus we see that the first part of the MEANS of Paul’s gospel has two distinct parts, the first typified by the goat put to death and the second typified by the goat remaining alive.
However, we cannot understand the means of Paul’s gospel without fixing the set of our face upon the GOAL of Paul’s gospel, the only and all reality that SALVATION is.
The Goal of Salvation
There were no chapter or verse divisions in Paul’s mind as he wrote the letter to the Ephesians, and thus Paul placed the GOAL of Salvation in front of his readers just before he underlined their entrance into the MEANS that would take them to the goal. And God… gave Jesus to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Jesus who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23 modified and condensed).
The fullness of Christ is the goal, expressed again later. Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).
The Fulness of Christ. The Goal of the believer in Jesus is SALVATION. Salvation is the fulness of Christ. The fulness of Christ is the CHURCH! The Church is not the means to salvation; the Church IS salvation, the fullness of all that Paul’s Jesus is and means. Our brethren claim that we will know the fulness of Christ as expressed in Ephesians 4:13 only after we are dead “in heaven.” No, the fulness of Christ in His Church is heaven now through us, Salvation revealed upon this earth.
So, the big question is how do we get from “by grace through faith” to the fullness of Christ in His Body, brethren walking together as one, loving one another with a pure heart fervently? And here we have the core of Paul’s gospel, the Atonement.
The Atonement. The Atonement is the first part of the Means. By grace through faith puts us into the Atonement. Church is where the Atonement is taking us.
But the Atonement is a most remarkable and complex Person, this One who is Paul’s Jesus, this Friend of ours who IS the Bond of the Covenant. We will spend an entire session soon investigating this most remarkable and complex Person, the Symmorphic Bond.
But here we must look at the outward parts of the Atonement and it’s application to us inside of Paul’s gospel. Again, this Atonement has two primary parts or phases, typified by the two sacrificial goats.
A Dead Goat. First is the dead sacrifice. Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death – We have been united together in the likeness of His death – Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with. – We who have died are freed from sin. – We died with Christ – dead to sin once for all. – Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. (Romans 6:3-11 modified and reduced).
Paul, however, was not satisfied with this rendition of our inclusion inside of the death of Christ. Yes, it backs up his strong assertion in Galatians, “I am crucified with Christ,” but it remains technical, and not Personal.
Reaching for the Truth. Paul wrote Romans 6 BEFORE he was forced by necessity to invent the most important word in the Bible.
I know as a writer that, although in one moment I am writing the truth, yet there is a nagging feeling deep inside that something is missing. I must keep writing, however, for that missing thing to arise out of the depths of my heart. Then, suddenly, to all astonishment, the missing thing appears on the page in front of me. I know that it changes everything, but sometimes it takes months or years of pondering to see its fullest implications and depths.
The WORD that changed everything for Paul, arising from his own invention out of necessity, is symmorphosed, Romans 8:29.
Symmorphosed. And it was years later, sitting in a prison cell, that Paul saw the true depths of “symmorphosed” as it relates to the death of Christ. Having been symmorphosed with His death (Philippians 3:10). You and me, already sharing the same form with the death of that Sacrificial Lamb/Goat, in all ongoing fullness now. If One died for all, then all died.
Sharing the same form. Not by illusion, not as a nice idea, and certainly not separate from or similar to. For Philippians 3:10 to be true, you and I were there, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus upon the cross.
The Living Goat. Our literal inclusion inside of Jesus upon the cross of Christ is not the whole picture of our Atonement, however. What about ongoing sinfulness?
And this is where the second part of the Atonement comes into the picture, the living goat, Christ as a living sacrifice, taking into Himself every moment our every element of sinfulness, taking it into Himself and then placing it inside the empty grave. This action is also a portion of the role of our High Priest. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ (Galatians 2:20). He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21a). And the two shall become one flesh (Ephesians 5:31).
Leaving Sin Behind. Yet here’s the thing. This first part of the MEANS of God is critical, certainly, and in fact, a part of the entrance. We must live in the full knowledge of both sides of the Atonement, Jesus as the One who bore our sins in His own body upon the cross, and Jesus as the One who lives now as us, bearing in His present self all of our sinfulness and flesh.
But living in this full knowledge is for one purpose only, so that we might leave behind in an instant all concern over sin and learn to ride in this CAR that is taking us to the goal of our Father. Jesus ALIVE unto God.
The Risen Christ. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. – We also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. – We also live with Him – in the life that He lives, He lives to God. – Likewise you also reckon yourselves to be alive to God INSIDE OF Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:4-11 modified).
And then, the deepest reality of this union, arising out from Paul’s heart as he set himself to capture its essence. Symmorphosed with the image of His Son. Sharing the same express image of God’s Person together with the Lord Jesus Christ. In all that is Life, we are utterly and absolutely INSIDE of Christ.
In Christ. Most of Paul’s IN CHRIST’s, then, deal, not with our inclusion into Jesus’ death, but our inclusion inside of Him as He is right now with no remembrance of sin or death. You looked at a long list of those “in Christ’s” in Symmorphy I: Purpose: Appendix B. Look back through those again.
We are saved (taken to the Father’s goal, the Church as the fullness of Christ) by His life (Romans 5:10). And how is it that we “get into” this “Car” that takes us to the Father’s goal? By grace… through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). – But of God you are in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:30).
A Three-Part Structure. Our part is to believe that God is telling us the truth, and then to rejoice with confidence in all that being inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us means in all practical experience in our daily lives as God takes us to Church.
Let’s look again at the structure of Paul’s gospel.
| Entrance | Means in Two Directions | Goal | |
| God has already put us into all that is Christ. We know that for the first time when we receive Jesus into our hearts through faith. | God must eliminate all consciousness of sins in our own minds and hearts before we are willing to live in all that is Christ alive unto God. | The Church, His Body, walking this earth together as the fulness of Christ revealed, loving one another with a pure heart fervently. | |
| Sin, already dead and buried with Christ; now the living Christ carries all of our sinfulness as His own flesh. | Turning from all consciousness of sins, we live now inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us in every meaning in all confidence and joy. | ||
A Simple Gospel
A simple gospel, and all of it is found in one short line. Christ lives in your hearts through faith.
Having been put inside of Christ by God entering our knowledge through faith – all the way through. Walking in no consciousness of sins – all the way through. Living inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of us (put on the Lord Jesus Christ) – all the way through. Walking together as His body, knowing that the same Jesus who lives in me also lives in you – all the way through.
Out from Paul’s Jesus flows all things of Paul’s gospel. We ARE the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).