Paul Becomes a Heretic

 Paul Becomes a Heretic

Thomas Allen

The following is a summary of Chapter II, “The Changes in the Eschatological Programme” of Section IV of The Formation of Christian Dogma: An Historical Study of its Problem by Martin Werner and translated by S.G.F. Brandon (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1957), pages 283–294. My comments are enclosed in brackets.

For Paul, the final resurrection would occur in two stages. The first came with the return of Christ and his reign on earth. Next, came the final victory over the angels and spiritual powers that had rebelled against God. At the end of the war came the destruction of the Angel of Death. Then, came the last and Final Resurrection.

According to Paul, only the Christians, the saved, who had died before the Second Coming of Christ were resurrected with his Second Coming. The saved living then were “changed.” At the “end,” the dead who had not been resurrected would be raised. Thus, Paul reckoned the Final Judgment occurring in two stages. First, came the judgment of Christians when Christ returned. Last, came a general Final Judgment at the end of Christ’s rule when all the other dead were resurrected. In the Final Judgment, Christians would serve with Christ as judges. 

Paul believed, or at least strongly suggested, that the heavenly Christ would return in his lifetime or shortly afterward. This return would manifest itself as a predestinated number of Christ’s followers, i.e., those in fellowship with him, taking part in the glory of God’s Kingdom in a perfect world order. This world order would be spiritual. Along with the advent of God’s Kingdom would be the final resurrection. 

As the Apostolic generation passed away without the return of Christ, the immediacy of the Second Coming began to fade. Because of this delay, the Church abandoned Paul’s doctrines of the Second Coming and the End Time.

Because of the delayed Second Coming and the rise of a new generation, the Church had no choice but to abandon Paul’s notion about the imminent return of Christ and his advice not to procreate. It also had to abandon Paul’s notion of election. (Paul held that when all the predestined elect had come to faith in Jesus in the last generation [Romans 11:25ff], then Christ would return.)

Nevertheless, the idea of an Antichrist remained popular. The Antichrist was often related to heresy, as in 1 John 2:18ff. For example, Athanasius (293?-373) accused Arius (256?-336) of being the precursor of the Antichrist.

After Paul’s death, the early Church still clung to Paul’s notion of two ages at the end of time. Thus, the Kingdom of God would fulfill the End Time by destroying the existing natural world and the creation of a new and perfect heaven and earth.

However, over time, the Church began abandoning Paul’s view of the End Time as a spiritual new world and replacing it with an End Time as a cleansing of the natural world. For example, Methodius (d.c. 311) argued that if God destroyed the present natural world, He would admit that His first creation was defective. Thus, the future burning of the world should be understood as cleansing the world, i.e., a process of renewing, and not as destroying the world.  Eventually, the Church adopted the doctrine of the future resurrection of the natural physical body.

Opposing this new doctrine of the Resurrection were the heretics, who relied heavily on the Bible in their opposition. Moreover, they argued, “that the resurrection of the physical body to immortality was intrinsically impossible” (p. 287). Because the physical body was of earthly matter, it was mortal. Further, when the physical body died, it decomposed, and its elements returned to the earth. Some of these elements became part of another body. Consequently, a specific individual could never be reassembled with the original parts. Also, between birth and death, each individual body was constantly changing and, therefore, never really remained identical with itself. [Can the omnipotence of God overcome these problems?]

The heretics’ strongest arguments came from the Scriptures. According to Psalm 1:5, “the ungodly would not generally be raised up, even for judgment” (p. 288). Likewise, Job 7:9-10 declared that the dead would not be raised.

The heretics also used the New Testament to argue against the resurrection of the physical natural body. Paul had declared that “the physical body was the seat of sin” (p. 288) and, thus, not worthy of resurrection. At the Final Resurrection, the saved would receive a supernatural body like the body of angels, and, in this way, enter into everlasting life. Restoration of the natural physical body merely meant continuing “the earthly-natural mode of existence in the eternity of the other world” (p. 288). Citing Romans 7:18, 24, 8:8, 1 Corinthians 15:44,50, and Galatians 5:7, the heretics condemned the thought of resurrecting the physical natural body.

This attack against the resurrection of the physical body pushed the Church to defend its dogma more vigorously. The resurrected body would be an exact replica of the natural physical body when it was alive. [Does this mean that if an individual died as an infant, he would forever remain an infant? Likewise, does it mean that if an individual died of old age, he would always appear to be old-age?] Some Church Fathers, such as Tertullian (160?-230?), declared “that the resurrection of Jesus had been a reconstruction of his former natural physical body” (p. 289). (This assertion conflicted with Paul’s teachings in 2 Corinthians 5:16.)

“Accordingly for Paul ‘resurrection’ meant, exclusively and fundamentally, precisely not restoration of the old, of what had been, but change into a new and supernatural form of being, because ‘resurrection’, as he saw it, appertained to those fundamental events, in which, since and by virtue of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the passing of the old and the advent of the new aeon were fulfilled” (p. 289). Paul’s idea of the End Time was a two-stage or two-age resurrection.

However, the Church had abandoned Paul’s doctrine and had substituted a new doctrine. According to the Church’s new doctrine, the Resurrection resulted in “the exact restitution and conservation, at the End of the Days, of that which belonged to the old aeon” (p. 289).

In response to Paul’s claim that the saved would attain a spiritual body, the Catholic theologians interpreted his claim “to mean that physical with which the Holy Spirit had united itself” (p. 290). However, the heretics replied by citing 1 Corinthians 15:50, where Paul declares, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” 

Another dispute arose over the fate of the saved dead before the Second Coming. Paul addressed this question in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. He did not envision this intermediate state to last long, as he expected the Second Coming to occur in his lifetime or soon afterward. However, with the long delay of the Second Coming, the Church moved away from Paul’s teaching on this issue.

This delay caused the Church to place more importance on the final destiny of the individual than on the ultimate fate of the present world. Using Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19-21), the Catholic theologians developed the doctrine that the saved would enjoy some of the blessings that awaited them after the Resurrection. Thus, this new doctrine of the Church conflicted with Paul’s.

Before this change in doctrine, the Final Judgment occurred after the Resurrection. With the new doctrine, a judgment had to occur directly after the individual died. Paul had taught that the saved would be resurrected and judged with the Second Coming — this was the First Judgment. Now, the Church’s doctrine of a judgment of the individual immediately after death replaced Paul’s doctrine of the First Judgment.

Moreover, the Church’s new doctrine of the soul of the saved going to Paradise or Heaven immediately after death replaced the Hebrew concept of the soul with the pagan Greek concept. The Hebrews held that the soul was so united with the physical body that it had no conscious existence once the body died. On the other hand, the pagan Greeks held that the soul was independent of and trapped in the physical body. Once the body died, the soul was liberated and continued  conscious existence in another state.

When the new doctrines of the Church were combined, the soul of a dead believer went to Heaven where it remained until the Resurrection. When the Resurrection occurred, the soul would be united with its resurrected natural physical body.

By now, Paul was a heretic and his doctrines on the End Times and the Resurrection and the fate of the dead before these events were heresy. Although the Church never overtly declared him a heretic or his doctrines as heresy, it did so covertly by condemning as heretics those who used Paul’s doctrines in opposing the Catholic doctrines on these issues. However, the Church did destroy the truth to avoid overtly making Paul a heretic by asserting that its doctrines were consistent with Paul’s, although they were not.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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