How Should We Imitate Paul? - Part 4

To live like Paul, or to imitate Paul is to live out the implications of the Gospel.   In a previous blog I attempted to show why I believe that. You can review that blog by clicking HERE.   But what is the Gospel?   I cover that point in this blog: HERE.   I also wanted you to know that this all was in the realm of possibility.  You and I can imitate Paul; we can live out the implications of the Gospel.  In this BLOG, I show by the New Testament that we indeed can.

What does this look like?

If you had asked me several months ago what I thought was central to Paul's idea of the Gospel, I would have answered, the Doctrine of Justification.  But a more careful reading of the Pauline Epistles has changed my mind.  (I'm not suggesting that justification wasn't important to Paul.)   My conviction today would be stated this way:

For Paul, God's love in the Cross was central to his Gospel and it was this love that shaped his life.

Notice with me a sampling of his words:

Romans 5:5 (ESV) ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:8 (ESV) ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:35–39 (ESV) ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ephesians 5:2 (ESV) ² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

2 Thessalonians 2:16 (ESV) ¹⁶ Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,

It is almost with awe and amazement that we read these words of Paul, “. . .  I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20b, ESV).  This love of Christ in the Cross became the driving force of his life.  In 2 Corinthians 5:14 (ESV) we read, "¹⁴ For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died."

I'm going to call this love that so controlled Paul by the title cruciform love or cross-shaped love.  It was a love that Paul experienced on the Road to Damascus and never left him.  Notice what he says in 1 Timothy 1:12–15 (ESV)

"¹² I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, ¹³ though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost."

What does it mean to live out the implications of the Gospel? It means to love others through the lens of Calvary.  It means to love others through the Cross.

In the next blog I want to see what that looks like practically as we seek to love others through the lens of the Cross.