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n and people’s inability to truly adhere to the Law. This, as Stendahl (1963) points out was because of his concern about what would happen to it with the coming of the Messiah and what would happen to the Jews who were God’s chosen elect.
 
An Eschatological and Anthropological View
 Bultmann (1972) maintains that Paul’s conversion was not the result of repentance but rather obedient submission to the call of the judgement of God through Christ and it is this that is the basis of his theology. Eschatology or the doctrine of the end times and God’s judgement on the present world is central to Paul’s thinking and the presence of the Holy Spirit demonstrates this feeling of ‘now and not yet’. For Bultmann, Paul’s own understanding of the human situation is the key to understanding Paul’s theology. Thus Bultmann (1972) argues that Paul’s theology is anthropological ie. a doctrine of human beings before the life of faith and under the life of faith. Bultmann (ibid) contends that the pneumatology that is found in the Pauline corpus can be confusing because Paul uses the term pneuma in a number of different ways. This it seems is due to his understanding of humanity as embodied subjects who have both a psyche and a spirit or pneuma.. Bultmann says:
 
When Pauls speaks of the Pneuma of man he does not mean some higher principle within him or some special intellectual or spiritual faculty of his, but simply his self, and the only question is whether the self is regarded in some particular respect when it is called pneuma (Bultmann, 1972:206).
 
Pneumatology and Christology
 In Paul’s theology the Holy Spirit is almost indistinguishable from Christ and in fact in Paul’s view the two are inseparable to such an extent that the notion of the Holy Spirit as Ruach or the breath of the Father seems to have disappeared from Paul’s theological scene.  Thus Gaffin (1998) demonstrates that in Paul,
 
The presence of the Spirit is the presence of Christ. There is no relationship with Christ that is not also fellowship with the Spirit. To belong to Christ is to be possessed by the Spirit. Elsewhere, within the comprehensive sweep of the prayer at the close of Ephesians 3, for “you to be strengthened by [the] Spirit inwardly” is nothing other than for “Christ to dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3. 16–17) (Gaffin, 1998:10).
 
It is arguably the case that Paul viewed the Spirit in this way because of his own experiences whereby acceptance of Christ means the indwelling of the Divine Spirit and this bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans, 8:16). The Spirit therefore is evidence of Christ’s presence in the believer. This is a view that has been adopted by many present day evangelical Christians but would perhaps not have been so popular in the early Church. In the Gospels (and even in some of Paul’s work) the Holy Spirit is related to yet distinguishable from, the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is a person who is worthy of worship in his/her own right.
 
When Paul had his conversion experience he pledged obedience to Jesus Christ. It is in Paul’s writings that Luther discovered the doctrine of justification by faith In many instances in the Pauline corpus the Holy Spirit is seen almost as a guarantee of salvation because he/she witnesses to the presen本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。