Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 123
The apostles' dilemma now becomes obvious, for while knowing the true story they had yet to protect Jesus by remaining silent as to his whereabouts. And they had to preach the gospel of resurrection, as they were charged to do, still with no sign or proof to give to the people. Merely to teach that Jesus had survived the cross in accordance with the prophecies would have been over the heads of the people, for these had known other cases of men surviving crucifixion. Thus Paul writes, (1 Corinthians 15:12): Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. . Indeed the task becomes confusing, and leads to confusion. . There may have been originally the idea of "Messianic expectation" in the minds of some of the disciples and they may have carried it to some extent to those they taught. It is apparent that. Jesus had another kingdom in mind, the unseen one; and for. Paul it is the same. The resurrection too of the body at some future time was not taught by Jesus in the same tradition as the. Jewish fathers. Thus Paul writes (2 Corinthians 12:2): I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven whether in the body or out of the body I do not know,. God knows and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. . We serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit, says Paul (and he did not differ from Jesus in his teaching). . We wonder whether Paul, knowing as he did the true story of the revival of Jesus and indeed having been taught in person by Jesus for three years, was telling a lie in order to promote the faith (would the world have accepted it without the story of the “dying god" with as much fervour as it finally did)—and was Paul justified in bending the truth or was he being very naughty, as. Dr. Hugh Schonfield says of the later Christians who “were compelled to develop doctrines according to the special needs of a pagan environment”. Was he writing in an allegorical form?. We should be profoundly disappointed if we were to find. Paul to be the least bit dishonest. We are indeed relieved to see the answer to our problem in Romans. I was once alive apart from the law, he writes, but when the commandment came, sin 127