Paul ministers Christ’s gospel as God’s; churches of Christ

priests. See, then: the inspired Paul says grace was given him by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus and to serve as priest among the nations the gospel of Christ. Therefore Christ is God, if while proclaiming Christ to the nations he says he is priestly serving God’s gospel to them, so that they may be offered as sanctified in the Spirit.

“So I have boasting in Christ Jesus in things toward God. For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me for the obedience of the nations, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and around as far as Illyricum I have fulfilled the gospel of Christ.”

He says he boasts in Christ Jesus, and calls that boast toward God. How can anyone doubt that it is not merely human for Christ to work marvels among the holy apostles by the Spirit’s power? Just as each of us does his own works by his own power, so also Christ, using the Spirit as his own power, works the marvels through the holy ones’ hand. Then how is he not God? For the Holy Spirit is not alien to him.

“All the churches of Christ greet you.” Yet elsewhere, writing to Timothy, he says: “so that you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God.” If he knows and attests the churches as Christ’s, then Christ is God.

“The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet quickly.” Peace is said to be God’s — for Christ said somewhere to the holy apostles: “My peace I give to you; my peace I leave