Paul's Encounter with the Resurrected Jesus

In a previous blog ( The Resurrection in Matthew), I described Paul’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus. To resummarize, Paul met the resurrected Jesus in a vision experience. He saw the glorified body of Jesus in heaven, not as a physical presence on earth. This encounter takes place on the Damascus Road where Paul is suddenly engulfed by a light from heaven. Jesus then speaks to him from heaven (Acts 9: 1-9). In Second Corinthians 12: 1-12, Paul makes clear that his experience of the resurrected Jesus came as a vision, and that his experience was the same as the experiences of the other disciples.

This encounter with Jesus in heaven was a profound and life changing experience for Paul. He came to believe that Jesus had died for him. The deep experience of love redefined how he saw the world. God had chosen him. His salvation was a gift. It had nothing to do with obedience to religious law. He was saved by the experience.

The experience led him to redefine religion. Salvation was no longer seen as the establishment of a kingdom of God for a renewed Israel. Instead, salvation was for individual believers in heaven. The specific path for achieving salvation is the subject of next week’s blog.

The death and resurrection of Jesus was a cosmic event. It marked the end of history as we know it. Jesus was seen by Paul as the first fruits of a general resurrection in which others chosen by God would soon follow (1 Corinthians 15: 19-20). Once the elect were taken to heaven, the world would be judged, punished, and the end of history would follow. Paul expected these events to unfold within his lifetime. He makes this point again and again, and again. See Romans 13:12, 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 and 10:12, and 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11.

The most vivid description of these events comes in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18. At the trumpet of God, Jesus will come down from heaven. The elect who have died will rise first, and then those still alive will be taken up in the clouds to meet Jesus in the air. Amazing! Where is heaven? It’s a place where Jesus lives in a transformed body—flesh and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God. I’m still looking for the place. I continue to wonder why the events that Paul expected to take place in the first century have yet to unfold. Finally, I am puzzled why Christians stubbornly cling to the idea of a physical resurrection when Paul, the first one to describe the event, so clearly believed it to be a vision experience.