Persecutor to Persecuted

"If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without foundation, and so is your faith". Paul the Apostle states this in his letter to the Corinthians. What is Paul stating? Paul is stating that if Jesus did not in fact rise from the dead then Christianity is false. If Jesus is still in the grave then "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (I Corinthians 15:13,17).

In order to approach the question of Jesus resurrection, Dr. Gary Habermas establishes what he calls the "minimal facts" about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. These "minimal facts" are facts that virtually all scholars will agree with. In other words, he refers to these facts as the "lowest common denominator" in which there is universal agreement. One of the minimal facts that we will look at today is: Saul of Tarsus claimed to have an experience with what he believed was the risen Jesus. This lead to his conversion.[1] Now in order to examine this minimal fact we will look at two things: 1) who is Saul, later called Paul (same person), and 2) what happened to cause him to go from being a persecutor of Christians to a preacher of Christianity.

Who is Paul

Is Paul, in fact, a historical person and if so what can we know about him? Skeptic Richard Carrier in referring to the person of Paul states:

Paul has a high prior probability of existing...the logically correct conclusion is that Paul probably existed and wrote the six authentic letters in the 50s AD".[2]

Carrier would disagree with Paul writing 13 letters of the New Testament, but both him and James Tabor do agree that there are at least 6 or 7 letters that are authentically written by Paul. The letters they accept as authentic are: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians and Philemon. [3] Though I would argue for Paul's authorship of all the 13 letters we will just focus on the 6 to 7 that even the skeptics accept as authentic and see what we can derive about the person of Paul from them. Here are a few facts about the person of Paul that we can conclude from only the 6 letters that even skeptics accept.

1) Paul is a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5-6)

2) Paul was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5)

3) Paul persecuted the first Christians (I Corinthians 15:9)

4) Paul had an experience of seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus. This experience changed him to being a Christian (Galatians 1:11-2:2; I Corinthians 9:2) [3]

We see from Paul's writing that he was a passionate Pharisee who persecuted the early church.

I persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy it.(Galatians 1:13)

Who while on a mission to persecute more of the church had an experience that changed him to become one of the very people he was originally persecuting. Now we must ask, what happened to Paul on the road that change him?

What Happened to Paul

Michael Goulder, in referring to Paul's conversion experience, believed that Paul was in internal turmoil and was beginning to doubt his Jewish faith. It was the build up of these thoughts and conflict that caused him to hallucinate seeing Jesus. Gerd Lüdemann also puts forth the idea that Paul had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus.[4] Therefore, in both of these cases they claim Paul's experience was a vision and therefore Jesus did not really rise from the dead. But what does Paul himself say about the experience that changed his life.

 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  

In this passage (I Corinthians 15:3-8) Paul is stating that Jesus appear to: Peter, the twelve, 500 witness, James, and then himself. Paul is stating that the same "experience" that the rest of the list had he did also. What was this experience? It was a physical bodily resurrection appearance. We can see from the gospels that Peter saw and meet the resurrected Jesus (John 21). Paul is stating that the same thing (as in the same in nature) that happened to Peter and the disciples happened to him. [5] Paul also later states in I Corinthians 9:2:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord.

Why is this important? When Peter was looking to replace the spot of Judas as an apostle one the requirements for an apostle was that they were "witness to his resurrection" (Acts 1:21-22) [7] To be an apostle one needed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. That is exactly what Paul is stating in both of these passages. He is stating that he too has seen the resurrected Jesus. Paul was familiar with visions and even wrote about visions (2 Corinthians 12), but the appearance of Jesus on the road to Damascus was not a vision. It was in fact a bodily appearance of the resurrected Jesus, just like Peter and other apostles had experienced.[5] As N.T. Wright states about Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, "He had seen what the other apostles had seen, namely Jesus Himself, personally present" and this was not a vision or spiritual experience but rather a one time event.[6]

Paul's New Life

We have seen from Paul's own writing, that even skeptics accept as authentic, that Paul was a Jew, persecutor of the church, and converted to becoming a Christian because Jesus appeared to him on the road. This appearance was not a vision but rather of the same nature that Peter and the other apostles experienced. Which was a bodily resurrected appearance.[5]

This moment in Paul's life completely changed him. He went from killing Christians to becoming a Christians. In fact, he ends up being persecuted and eventually killed for being a Christians.[8] In 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

What would change an enemy of Jesus to someone that became persecuted and eventually killed for being a Christian? [7] What changed him was meeting Jesus on the road, the resurrected Savior. That is the only thing that would change an enemy into a follower. Paul meeting Jesus on the road is evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

[1] Gary Habermas "The Resurrection of Jesus: Minimal Facts Method" [Lecture 2014] and Gary Habermas "Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection of Jesus: The Role of Methodology as a Crucial Component in Establishing Historicity (Article, 2012)http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/Habermas_Minimal%20Facts%20STR%202012.pdf

[2]Richard Carrier "The Historicity of Paul the Apostle" Richard Carrier Blog 2015, https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643

[3 JJames Tabor, "The Quest for the Histocial Paul" Biblica Archaeology Society, 2014 https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/the-quest-for-the-historical-paul/

[4]Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Life Changing Truth For a Skeptical World (HarperCollins, 2017)287-288

[5]William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence For The Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus(Lewiston/Queenton/Lampeter; The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 70-73.

[6]N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2003) 326-327.

[7]John MacArthur "Marks of a True Apostle: Witness of the Risen Christ", Grace to You, 2013, https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B131209/marks-of-a-true-apostle-witness-of-the-risen-christ

[8] Sean McDowel, The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus (London, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2018), 113-114.