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5:17-20 Do not suppose that I came to throw down the Law or the prophets -- I did not come to throw down, but to fulfill; for, verily I say to you, till that the heaven and the earth may pass away, one iota or one tittle may not pass away from the Law, till that all may come to pass. `Whoever therefore may loose one of these commands -- the least -- and may teach men so, least he shall be called in the reign of the heavens, but whoever may do and may teach [them], he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens." (Young's Literal)
As a Roman citizen from birth (Acts 22:28), Saul had to have a Roman name from birth, and it was "Paulus." This name in Latin means "least." Farrar notes: "Paulus, a contraction of Pauxillus [sic: pauxillulus], means `least.'" (Farrar:200.)
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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." (5:20)
Paul teaches if you try to be right with God by obeying the Law, "you are severed from Christ." (Gal. 5:4.)
"I am a Pharisee." (Paul in Acts 23:6 after 14+ years as a Christian.)
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7:15 `But, take heed of the false prophets, who come unto you in sheep's clothing, and inwardly are ravening wolves." (Young's). COMPARE:
Genesis 49:27: "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder / spoils."
Ez 22:26 "Her priests [of ravening wolves princes] have done violence to my law,..., neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them."
Paul was a Benjamite (Romans 11:1; Philippians 3:5). Paul started as a killer of Christians or as one who approved the killing of Christians (Acts 7:58; 8:1-3, 9:1 "murderous threats"). Paul said the twelve gave him the exclusive right to recruit Gentiles as Christians while the twelve apostles supposedly would exclusively recruit Jews. (Galatians 2:9.)
On Paul, like priests of ravening wolves in Ez 22:26, teaching sabbath is abolished, see "Paul abolished Sabbath." And Paul, like those same priests, taught all food is clean, even meat sacrificed to idols.
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7:21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work ANOMIA -- either "iniquity" or "negation of the Law of Moses."
Paul expressly said his validity was proven by "signs and wonders." (2 Cor. 12:12.; Romans 15:19.)
Paul was a worker of ANOMIA -- the negation of the Law, as Paul admits in 1 Cor. 9:20-21. There Paul says he "works" to appear "anomos" i.e., without the Law around those who are Gentiles, saying Paul himself is `not under the Law.' In the very next verse, Paul defended being `all things to all men' to fit in with their morals. (1 Cor. 9:22.)
Paul cast out demons in the name of Jesus. (Acts 16:18). But those who tried to cast out demons in the name of the "Jesus who Paul preaches" could not. Acts 19:13.
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10:8 "Do not take wages." (Shem-Tob) "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give."
"I robbed other churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you." 2 Cor 11:8 ASV. "The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor [i.e., payment] especially those whose work is preaching and teaching." 1 Tim. 5:7-18
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13:5, 29. ...and, while men are sleeping, his enemy came and sowed darnel in the midst of the wheat, and went away,...and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is a full end of the age, and the reapers are messengers. (Young's Literal)
"Enemy is in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homolies a constant designation for Simon Magus by whom is meant Paul." "Gospels," Encyclopædia Biblica (1901) at 1787 fn.
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16:17-19
And Jesus answering said to him, `Happy art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal [it] to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens. `And I also say to thee, that thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and gates of Hades shall not prevail against it; and I will give to thee the keys of the reign of the heavens, and whatever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be having been bound in the heavens, and whatever thou mayest loose upon the earth shall be having been loosed in the heavens.'
(Gal. 1:12 YLT)
...for neither did I from man receive it, nor was I taught [it], but through a revelation of Jesus Christ...
to reveal His Son in me, that I might proclaim him good news among the nations, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem unto those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia, and again returned to Damascus (Gal. 1:16-17)
Paul attacked Peter in Galatians as a hypocrite (Gal. 2:11-12), dismissing him as a "seeming" pillar of the church (Gal. 2:9) who "imparted nothing to me" (Gal 2:7) and "whatsoever they [i.e., Peter, James and John] were makes no difference to me," i.e., Paul is unimpressed by their stature with Jesus. Gal 2:6.
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23:9 "and ye may not call [any] your father on the earth, for one is your Father, who is in the heavens" (Young's Literal)
"For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you." (1 Cor. 4:15, NLT)
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23:21
Jesus said, in a correction of Pharisees who thought an oath offered "by" articles offered at the Temple were binding but not an oath by the Temple at Jerusalem itself: "And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it."
"God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands." (Acts 17:24)
The Temple at Jerusalem still was standing when Paul said this.
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23:23
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." (King James)
Paul contrarily portrays Pharisees as strict legalists. He says in Philippians 3:5-6 that as a result of his time as a Pharisee that "as touching righteousness, found blameless." In Acts 26:5 Paul says "I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee."
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23:28 so also ye outwardly indeed do appear to men righteous, and within ye are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness [i.e., ANOMIA, abrogation of the Law.]"
1 Cor 9:20-21 ("to the Jews I became as a Jew that I might win Jews...myself not being myself under the Law....") Paul even extolled hypocrisy for the sake of gaining followers: "But be it so, I did not myself burden you; but, being crafty, I caught you with guile." (2 Cor. 12:16, ASV.)
"All things are lawful but not all things are necessarily expedient." (1 Cor 6:12.) "Give no offense ...to the Jews... just as I also please all men in all things,...seeking...the profit of many, that they may be saved." (1Corinthians 10:31-33.)
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24:26-27
`If therefore they may say to you, Lo, in the wilderness he is, ye may not go forth; lo, in the inner chambers, ye may not believe; for as the lightning doth come forth from the east, and doth appear unto the west, so shall be also the presence of the Son of Man...
Cf 1 Kings 19:15. "And Yahweh said unto [Elijah] Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus." This is the only identification elsewhere in Scripture of the Road to Damascus. It is called a "wilderness."
Acts 9:5-8 is Paul's encounter with someone on the road near Damascus (a wilderness per 1 Kings 19:15). It is (a) in the wildnerness and (b) not seen by every one on earth, and hence affirmatively could not be the true Jesus.
Paul did not recognize this figure, but had to ask "who are you?" (Acts 9:5.) His companions heard the voice but did not see anyone. (Acts 9:7-8.)
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We could also cite each and every reference to the Pharisees by Jesus in Matthew. But it requires explanation.
First, for many years into Paul's Christian walk, Paul still insisted "I am a Pharisee" (Acts 23:6). Second, when you compare Paul's doctrine and tactics, you will see a direct match between the Pharisees Jesus condemned and Paul, the Pharisee-Christian -- an identification confirmed by Paul's own admission. In other words, Jesus gave us criticisms of the Pharisees which invariably are true also about Paul. Here is an article on the "Tribulation" from Reformed Online (4/10/2012) which unwittingly indicts Paul when summarizing what Jesus' views were about the Pharisees primarily from the book of Matthew:
The scribes and Pharisees were hypocrites (Mt. 23:13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29; 15:7) who through their false teaching "shut up heaven" (Mt. 23:13) and made their converts "sons of hell" (Mt. 23:15). They had perverted the doctrine of salvation to the extent that they were teaching damnable heresy and thus had completely lost the preeminent mark of the true church. No wonder Jesus said that their father was the devil (Jn. 8:44) and their synagogues were of Satan (Rev. 3:9). The scribes and Pharisees were also exceedingly wicked in their behavior. They were stealing from widows (Mt. 23:14) and putting on an insincere religious show (Mt. 23:14). They made up human traditions in order to circumvent the law of Moses (Mt. 23:16 ff.; Mt. 15:6). They neglected the weightier matters of the law to focus on trifles (Mt. 23:23-24). Thus they were "fools and blind" (23:17, 19), "blind guides" (Mt. 23:16, 24; cf. 15:7), "white-washed tombs" (23:27), "full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (Mt. 23:28), "serpents" and a "brood of vipers" (23:33). They were the "sons [i.e., of like mind and behavior] of those who murdered the prophets" who will "persecute," "scourge," "crucify" and "kill" the "prophets, wise men and scribes" that Christ will send (Mt. 23:34).
How does this summary apply to Paul?
Paul played the hypocrite -- a pure chameleon -- in his evangelism, by his own admission. (See our article on "Guile in Paul"). Paul taught a salvation doctrine that similarly "circumvented the law of Moses" completely. (See our article "Paul's Contradictions of Jesus.") Paul robbed widows -- by denying arbitrarily to any widow under 60 the support mandated in the Law given Moses. (See "Paul Denies Widows Suppport.") And on and on the parallels can be proven.
Paul's Contradictions of Jesus
And the way Jesus skewers the Pharisees in Matthew 23:15 for "crossing land and sea to win one convert," and end up making the convert "twice as worthy of Gehenna as you are," has a subtle reference to Paul's best known characteristic -- his so-called 'missionary' journeys to far away places to win converts. That is not to say missionary journeys are bad, but Jesus is saying the Pharisees were known as evangelists, and evidently used that fact to gain a good reputation, no doubt. However, their success was deleterious to the kingdom, Jesus taught, because Pharisees taught a shallow version of the Law (Matt 23:23) and taught oral traditions that negated the Law (Matt 15:6). Hence, Jesus said the Pharisees taught a fairly lawless version of Judaism except tithing. Hence, they damned souls to hell with such teaching, our Lord said. At the same time, Jesus identified this one leading others to hell as one who goes on missionary journeys to convert souls, a distinctive feature of Paul's life.
Hence, the book of Matthew (and needless to say parts of John's Gospel) talk of the Pharisees in a way that is a prophetic warning about one more Pharisee -- Paul. For despite his conversion Paul maintained his identity as a Pharisee -- telling a large crowd more than 14 years into his being a Christian, "I am a Pharisee" (Acts 23:6). And Paul fit all the references Jesus made about them while condemning them: they were law looseners (Matt 23:23); law negators (Matt 15:6); and evangelists on "land and sea" to convert people. (Matt. 23:15).