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In Phil. 2: and Eph. 4:, where Paul does use the name "Jesus", the exceptions prove
the rule. In the one passage "every knee is to bow and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is LORD", in the other, Christ is seen as the Head of the New Creation. The few
occasions where Paul departs from the usual acknowledgment of the Lordship of the
Christ are all justified by their contexts.
Again we feel that Paul has a lesson to teach those who prefer "the teachings of Jesus"
to the "opinions of Paul".
#4.
"Paul's Opinions."
pp. 171, 172
Those who speak against the apostle Paul and place the "teaching of Jesus" in contrast
with the epistles, speak of the teaching of those epistles as "Paul's opinions". Let us
therefore have Paul's own testimony concerning the doctrine he proclaimed, for which he
lived, and for which he eventually died:--
"I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for
I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the REVELATION of Jesus
Christ . . . . . it pleased God . . . . . to REVEAL His Son in me . . . . . immediately I
conferred not with flesh and blood" (Gal. 1:).
In proof the apostle brings forward his known manner of life to show how impossible
it was for the doctrine he preached to have originated in his own mind, further, he
declares that no man taught him, and in proof he shows that three years of preaching went
by before he even saw Peter, and fourteen years before he went up to the Council at
Jerusalem. In I Thessalonians he reminds them of the way in which the gospel came to
him:--
"For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance" (1: 5).
"When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as word
of men, but as it is in truth, the WORD OF GOD, which effectually worketh also in you
that believe" (2: 13).
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and
remain, etc." (4: 15).
Apart from the personal inspiration of the apostle, his epistles are replete with
references to the Old Testament Scriptures. During the Acts period he could say of his
ministry:--
"Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to
small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did
say should come" (Acts 26: 22).