Credo
20 Apr 2026
I. Doubts About the Authenticity of Paul’s Teachings
A common objection raised by critics of Christianity is that the apostle Paul distorted the teachings of Jesus and the apostles of the early Jewish-Christian community by importing ideas from the Greco-Roman mystery religions. These included ideas like a dying and rising god, sacramental meals of communion with patron gods, and salvation through union with a divine figure. However, there are several problems with this theory.
First, most of the alleged parallels to mystery religions like the Mithraic cult actually post-dated Paul and were written in late the 2nd and 3rd centuries. As such, from a historical perspective, it is more likely that the pagan cults were influenced by the rapidly expanding Christian faith that Paul represented.
Second, the parallels, if any, are superficial. The dying and rising gods like Attis and Osiris are mythological figures while Jesus’ death and resurrection are historical facts attested to by a multitude of eyewitnesses. In mystery religions, the rituals of the cult typically represent seasonal death and rebirth of nature deities. In contrast, Paul was teaching about a one-time historical death and resurrection of Christ. We cannot compare myths with verified historical claims.
Third, Paul’s thought-world was Jewish, not pagan. His teachings are clearly suffused with allusions and citations from Old Testament scriptures centred on covenant law and messianic prophecies.
Fourth, Paul’s teachings were validated by the original apostles. In Gal. 2:9, James, Peter and John who were regarded as pillars of the Jerusalem church, extended to Paul “the right hand of fellowship.” That is to say, they recognized his apostolic commission and authority. This validation was confirmed publicly at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). Likewise, Paul held himself accountable to the central leaders of the early church. The Jerusalem apostles would have rebuked Paul and dissociated themselves from him had he been guilty of distorting Jesus’ message. Instead, they acknowledged the authenticity of Paul’s apostolic authority and his call to preach to the Gentiles.
More seriously, some critics claimed that Paul readily transformed the earthly moral teachings of Jesus, the rustic Galilean moral teacher, into a totally new religion centred on Jesus’ death and resurrection and his glorification into a transcendent divine savior. However, Paul’s teachings consistently reflect the teachings of Jesus as shown in the following examples:
1) Paul reaffirms Jesus’ great commandment of love (Matt. 22:37–39 // Gal. 5:14; Rom. 13:8–10),
2) Paul agrees with Jesus in emphasizing God’s grace and mercy (Luke 15:11–32 // Eph. 2:8–9) and
3) Paul follows Jesus in stressing that we are saved by faith (Luke 7:50 // Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11).
Paul’s teaching on the Last Supper (2 Cor. 11:23-25) also confirms that he was drawing from sources dating back to the Jerusalem apostles. Clearly, there is unity between Paul and the apostles in the core doctrines of Jesus’ death and resurrection which undergirded the worship and pastoral practice of the early Church.
II. Paul’s Gospel Originated from the Divine Revelation of the Risen Christ
Beyond his agreement with the Jerusalem apostles, Paul claimed that his gospel originated directly from his Damascus Road experience which resulted in a radical transformation of his life. It should be noted that Paul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road was fundamentally a Christophany, that is, a revelation of the glorified Christ in a vision. In the vision, Paul describes himself as “seeing” the Lord (1 Cor. 9:1) and that God was “revealing his Son” to him (Gal. 1:16).
Paul alludes to his new perception of Jesus Christ as the image of God the moment he was struck by the blinding vision of the glorified Christ in the Damascus encounter: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
“Glory”, which was regularly manifested in theophanies in the Old Testament was also manifested in the Christophany on the Damascus Road. Seyoon Kim in his important work, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, suggests that Paul’s understanding of the exalted Christ as the “image of God” isn’t merely an abstract theological construct but is grounded directly in his visionary experience of Christ’s glory. This “image of God” Christology becomes foundational for Paul’s theology.
Paul became convinced that the exalted Christ is the eikon (image) and morphē, (form) of God, based on his understanding of the linguistic tradition of the Old Testament. Kim notes that an eikōn was not regarded as a mere representation of an object but was believed to participate in the being of the object it symbolized. If the exalted Christ is the image (eikōn and morphe) of God, then Christ shares the same divine nature of God. This insight led Paul to conclude that the risen Christ was divine and existed as the image of God before his incarnation (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Phil. 2:6). The revelation of Christ as the “image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4-6) and the glorification of Jesus Christ next to God confirm his divinity and imply his pre-existence. Paul’s experience of personal transformation in his encounter with the glorified Christ manifested on the Damascus Road becomes the source of his teaching that believers are transformed into Christ’s image with ever-increasing glory (2 Cor. 3:18).
Paul’s usage of the Old Testament confirms the continuity between Paul’s christology and the Old Testament, that is, Paul’s christology represents not an abandonment of Jewish monotheism but a radical reframing of it. Paul was drawing on Jewish Wisdom traditions, divine glory theology and apocalyptic literature to make sense of his Damascus encounter with the risen Christ. Rather than importing foreign Hellenistic concepts, Paul reconfigured existing Jewish theological categories to make sense of his vision of the exalted Christ.
Paul’s encounter with the glorified Christ also transformed his then mistaken misunderstanding of Jesus as a false messianic claimant. In truth, Jesus was the divine Son of God. Prior to this experience, Paul had viewed Jesus as a false messianic claimant whose crucifixion was a confirmation of divine curse, as taught in Deut. 21:23: “…anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse”. However, the vision of the glorified and enthroned Jesus convinced Paul that Jesus had brought the Torah and its legalistic requirements to an end. Jesus, who embodies the divine will and God’s means of salvation has overcome the curse of the cross by his supreme redemptive death, a death which believers may participate in by believing in Jesus as the messiah. Hence, the cross and the triumph of the crucified Christ become central in Paul’s gospel.
Paul’s gospel of Christ’s salvation being open to both Jews and Greeks is so radical and unprecedented that it only confirms Paul’s claim to have received his gospel in his encounter with the resurrected Christ. It gives credibility to Paul’s claim that he did not receive his gospel through human transmission, but through divine revelation (apokalypsis) given by Christ. “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11). While insisting that his gospel remains faithful to the substance of the early church’s preaching of salvation in Christ, Paul also emphasized the distinctive insights he gained from his Damascus experience. These include the idea of Christ’s preexistence and the sending of the Son of God who by his atoning death brings together both Jews and Gentiles who are both justified by faith.
III. Conclusion
In contrast to pagan mythologies, Paul’s gospel is deeply rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures, and the apostolic tradition. His gospel echoes the words of Jesus and displays consistency with the teachings of the Jerusalem apostles. A careful examination of the historical evidence confirms the continuity between Paul’s teachings and the message of Jesus and his apostles and refutes the claim that Paul corrupted Christianity with Hellenistic teachings.
In conclusion, the claim that Paul distorted the original message of Jesus not only rests on speculations divorced from historical realities but also ignores Paul’s personal experience of salvation in Christ. His testimony that, “He [Jesus] loved me and gave himself for me” is at the heart and core of his gospel. Indeed, Paul’s gospel is fully Christologically grounded through and through.
Dr Ng Kam Weng is Research Director of Kairos Research Centre in Kuala Lumpur. Previously, he had been a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and a member of the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University. From 1989 to 1992 he taught at the Malaysia Bible Seminary Graduate School. He has a PhD from Cambridge University.