Paul became a Christian without repenting

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'apostle Paul was a heretic', baptism

If the book of Acts is telling the truth about Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, then repentance is not essential to salvation, as Paul’s repentance is neither expressed nor implied in any of the three accounts in Acts of this conversion experience.

In Acts 9, Paul is commissioned by Christ to be a Christian witness with no hint of Paul repenting:

 3 And it came about that as he journeyed, he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him;
 4 and he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
 5 And he said, “Who art Thou, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,
 6 but rise, and enter the city, and it shall be told you what you must do.”
 7 And the men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one.
 8 And Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.
 (Act 9:3-8 NAS)

In Acts 22, v. 16 has Annanias advising Paul to arise and be baptized, but no hint Paul actually did so:

 6 “And it came about that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me,
 7 and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’
 8 “And I answered, ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’
 9 “And those who were with me beheld the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me.
 10 “And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise and go on into Damascus; and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.’
 11 “But since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.
 12 “And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,
 13 came to me, and standing near said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very time I looked up at him.
 14 “And he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear an utterance from His mouth.
 15 ‘For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard.
 16 ‘And now why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’ (Act 22:6-16 NAS)

In Acts 26, Jesus is appointing Paul to be minister and witness of the risen Christ with no hint that Paul himself repented:

 13 at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.
 14 “And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
 15 “And I said, ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
 16 ‘But arise, and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you;
 17 delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,
 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’
 19 “Consequently, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision,
 20 but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. (Act 26:13-20 NAS)

Someone will say that because Paul called Jesus ‘Lord’ during his Damascus-road experience (Acts 9:5), it is necessarily implied that he repented.  But since the bible teaches that not everybody who calls Jesus ‘Lord’ necessarily gets saved (Matthew 7:21), its a pretty good argument that not everybody who calls Jesus ‘Lord’ has likely or necessarily repented. 

It does not matter if Paul repented afterward, this argument shows biblical support for the thesis that a person does not necessarily have to repent before they become a Christian.  One logically possible escape route is that Jesus, as a sovereign God, chose to commission Paul to the gospel ministry before Paul became a Christian.  How many of the Christian readers ever thought for even a single second that Paul didn’t become authentically born again until sometime after he started preaching the gospel?

And if we start entertaining such desperate apologetics ‘explanations’, we will wind up with something most Christians never suspected at all, that a person could become born again before they repent.  Does the bible teach that repentance must precede salvation, yes or no?

Book of Revelation denies Paul’s apostleship

This one is for inerrantist futurists who think the book of Revelation was written after the original apostles began approving of Paul.

Jesus chose 12 apostles:

 2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-gatherer; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
 4 Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.
 (Mat 10:2-4 NAS)

 When Judas betrayed Christ, leaving 11 apostles, Acts 1 says Matthias took the place of Judas:

 15 And at this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together), and said,
 16 “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
 17 “For he was counted among us, and received his portion in this ministry.”
 18 (Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
 19 And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem; so that in their own language that field was called Hakeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
 20 “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his homestead be made desolate, And let no man dwell in it’; and, ‘His office let another man take.’
 21 “It is therefore necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us–
 22 beginning with the baptism of John, until the day that He was taken up from us– one of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection.”
 23 And they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias.
 24 And they prayed, and said, “Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two Thou hast chosen
 25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”
 26 And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
 (Act 1:15-1 NAS)

In that case, that would make Paul the 13th apostle.

Paul says he did more work than all the other apostles:

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. (1Co 15:10 KJV)

But the book of Revelation, authored after Paul became known as an apostle, says the foundation of the holy city contains the names of the 12 apostles:

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (Rev 21:14 NAS)

The author of Revelation asserts the existence of false apostles:

 2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; (Rev 2:2 NAS)

The question is:  What conclusions can be safely drawn from the fact that, the author of Revelation, who knows about apostle Paul, nevertheless continues to give the number of apostles as 12?

Some have said Revelation is figurative, but the fact that there really were exactly 12 apostles at one time, opens the door to the possibility of a non-figurative intent in giving the number of apostles as 12.

Because the immediate context places all unredeemed sinners in the lake of fire around the time the New Jerusalem is formed(21:8), it would appear that the reality of that city’s foundations having the names of the 12 apostles is something that will be true long into the future from now, near or after the day of judgment.  That means the New Jerusalem is not a specifically Jewish thing, it is merely the Jewish Christian way of describing what the earth will be like after the unsaved are consigned to eternal torment.

In other words, the New Jerusalem, or the world when it contains only saved souls, may be said to rest on the foundation laid by Paul just as much as it is said to lay on the twelve apostles.  The New Jerusalem is not limited to something founded solely by the original 11 + Matthias.

If Paul really did labor more than the other apostles, and if they knew of him long before the book of Revelation was written, then it is completely unexpected that the author of that book should symbolically describe the new earth, containing only saved people, as laying upon the foundation of the “12” apostles, if he believed that Apostle # 13 labored more than the other apostles did.

What is even more bizarre is that the New Testament attributes very little establishment of Christianity to the original 12 apostles, or the original 11 + Matthias.

Unless you can show that the New Jerusalem is some type of place that Paul never had a hand in establishing, the failure of the Revelation author to specify that there are 13 apostles constitutes a denial of Paul’s apostleship.

Some have tried to fix the number problem by saying Paul was number 12, and Peter making Matthias number 12 in Acts 1 was contrary to the will of God.  However, there is not the slightest hint in the context of Acts 1 that the apostles drawing lots to fill up the 12th position was contrary to the will of God.  It is difficult to believe that, if that procedure by the original 11 had been contrary to the will of God, the narrative just records what happened with no hint of such.  We have to wonder what other narratives in the NT describe things that were contrary to the will of God, but which fail to explicitly state so.  Evidence that the election of Matthias was within the will of God is:

• All 11 apostles are of “one mind” in prayer (Acts 1:14)
• there were at least 100 others there (v. 15)
• Peter’s standing up in the midst of the brethren (v. 15) indicates he believes he is going to be making an official decision, implying that he believes God approves.
• The phrase “that is, Field of Blood” (v. 19) appears less likely the type of qualification Peter would have stated, and appears to be an explanatory statement inserted by Luke, the author, which now means Luke regards what Peter did as important
• Peter characterizes the fall of Judas with references to passages in the Psalms (v. 20)  that say nothing about Judas, implying that Peter could thus find in scripture that which the surface level text does not reveal, and was thus filled with the Holy Spirit at that point.
• “they put forward two men” in v. 23 seems to be saying it was agreed by most of the apostles and the 100 or so others that those two men were the best candidates, necessarily implying that the whole crowd believed what was happened met with divine approval.
• “they prayed” in v. 24 again refers to the bunch of them and not just a few, signifying they were all under the impression that asking God to reveal who was to replace Judas was a justified prayer in the circumstances.
• “they drew lots” in v. 26 strengthens the argument that this whole procedure was believed by most of those present to be a necessary procedure calling for a bibical method of determining God’s will. (‘The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD. (Pro 16:33 NAS)).

For all these reasons, Apostle Paul is Apostle # 13, thus the Revelation-author’s reference to the final state of the earth having a foundation with the names of the “12” apostles, constituted a denial that Paul, apostle # 13, contributed in any way  to the founding of that symbolic city.