Paul and the Apocalypse of the Gospel

Abstract

Apocalyptic thinking permeates Paul’s ideas about the gospel, God, the present age, and what is to come. Paul in his letters not only writes about the revelations that he himself has received (Gal 1:11–12, 2:2), but also how the gospel reveals God’s ultimate justice (Rom 1:17). Apocalypticism as an ideology is fundamentally concerned with justice and the expectation of a future intervention that will conclusively reconcile the injustices of the world with the justice of God. Though of course Paul never sat down and wrote an “Apocalypse” or even an apocalyptic letter, his letters reveal glimpses of the apocalyptic ways Paul thought about the world and humanity’s place in it. This article reviews the history and main tenets of apocalypticism and then examines three fundamental areas of apocalyptic thinking as expressed in Paul’s letters: the idea of apocalypse as full disclosure, the apocalyptic promise of full justice, and Paul’s use of apocalyptic ideas to reorient his readers to thinking about true-but-hidden identity, both of the “present evil age” (Gal 1:4) and of one’s current place in it. Paul draws upon and employs apocalyptic imagery to solve practical problems in his communities, equipping them to face the world with a full cosmic perspective.