John Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." Had he not been God, he could not have been our righteousness; the transcendent excellence of the divine nature put such a value upon, and such a virtue into, his sufferings, that they became sufficient to satisfy for the sins of the world, and to bring in a righteousness which will be effectual to all that believe. Paul has already spoken of the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ. At any rate, such is the picture that the Holy Spirit gives of him there. Let your moderation go along with it, because along with this joy there might be a certain enthusiastic spirit that would hinder calm judgment. Generally the NASB is more literal, translating a Greek word with the same English word wherever the Greek word occurs. He is forgetting the things which are behind. The lad had found a joy which not even the scaffold could take away. Hey, this is a pretty good pedigree. (ii) Here also Paul sets down what we might call the necessity of repetition. WebPhl 3:1-3. NASB I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. They had him in their heart, as he says, "Inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace," or "of my grace." But the Rapture is not an event that Christians need to strive to attain. Now here we have what is present; so that the passage presents some difficulty to souls because of intermingling the present with the future. Observe, His care to be found in Christ was in order to his attaining the resurrection of the dead. But unfortunately, since then, a lot of those things that they counted loss at that point, they picked back up, so that they are encumbered again. It is not Paul's aim to know about Christ, but personally to know him. To rise with the saints; to enter with them into the blessedness of the heavenly inheritance, was an object that the apostle thought was worth every effort which could he made. It was this that so cheered the apostle's heart in his loneliness often, in his desertion sometimes, when the sight of a brother would have given fresh courage to his heart. Does not our love fervently flame towards heaven? (Spurgeon). Now I do count them, thirty years later, I still count them loss. And so Paul says, "Beware of those who would mutilate your body, for we are of those who are circumcised in the spirit." Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith." "But my God shall supply all your need." In modern speech that would mean that the body is an utterly evil and horrible thing; but vile in sixteenth-century English still retained the meaning of its derivation from the Latin word vilis which in fact means nothing worse than cheap, valueless. Heaven is the prize of the high calling; to brabeion--the prize we fight for, and run for, and wrestle for, what we aim at in all we do, and what will reward all our pains. Barking and snapping at everybody, and belonging to nobody. Therefore, says Paul, it is the Christians who are the truly circumcised. Why, then, is it so in the next instance? Every man is grasped by Christ for some purpose; and, therefore, every man should all his life press on so that he may grasp that purpose for which Christ grasped him. Paul makes a conscious effort to keep his eyes on the prize promised to him by God. Evidently, therefore, two glories of Jesus are referred to here. As citizens of heaven we keep in communication with our native home. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. In this passage the key-word is righteousness. You see, there would be no security in that kind of righteousness at all. In Philippians 3:1-21 it is not the display of intrinsic affection in Christ, or the gracious dispositions of Christ in the saints. Not the passive side of the Christian as being in the world, but the active comes before us. That is, the resurrection of those who, having died in the Lord, rise to glory and honour; and hence St. Paul uses a peculiar word which occurs no where else in the New Testament, . Let us then try to see what Paul thinks about when he speaks about righteousness. Now, because she had spent all of her money on tuition, and just getting by, on her books, and everything else, she really didn't have much money. Strange way of God! In common language it was popularly derived from kusi (compare G2965) ballomena ( G906) , which means that which is thrown to the dogs; and in medical language it means excrement, (dung, as the King James Version translates it). The effect of their teaching was to take men further away from God instead of to bring them nearer to him. You see, past experience is only valid if it is translated into the present. Knowing him here is believing in him: it is an experimental knowledge of the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, or feeling the transforming efficacy and virtue of them. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect ( Philippians 3:11-12 ): It is sort of sad that so many people seem to feel that they have attained, or they have achieved their spiritual walk, and they sort of sit on little pedestals, little ivory towers. i. Jesus was not merely resuscitated from the dead in the same body. i. Please see our Privacy Policy for cookie usage details. I mean, you have got to give it every effort, working through pain, beyond the pain threshold. The fellowship of His sufferings.Our flesh always rebels against suffering. Eternal life is the gift of God (Romans 6:23), but it is in Christ Jesus; through his hand it must come to us, as it is procured for us by him. What looks and sounds better than the saints of God? He was in prison, long shut out from that which had been his joyful service, though in constant toil and suffering for so many years. a really inaccurate mode. Thus "forgetting those things which are behind" refers to the progress that we may make. His yoke is easy, and His burden light. There is really no value to say I counted those things loss for Christ thirty years ago, if in the meantime I have picked them back up and I am encumbered with them again. But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, for he will refashion the body which we have in this state of our humiliation and make it like his own glorious body, by the working of that power of his whereby he is able to subject all things to himself. Yet we may follow, and seek conformity unto His death; but there was that in His death on the cross which could be His alone. The Jew in essence trusted himself ; the Christian in essence trusts God. The apostle takes up, no doubt, the sweet affections of chapter 2, but then they are strengthened by the energy that Christ seen in glory imparts, as in chapter 3. Why did the Lord apprehend you? The idea is that a man's Christian maturity cannot go beyond martyrdom. And I may pull over to the side of the freeway and decide not to pass him so that I won't be a bad witness, and bow my head and say, "God, I am sorry. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain. WebPhilippians 3:1214. All believers will be resurrected and have joy forever. They say, that in training for the Olympics, you have got to go till it hurts, and you have to work yourself through the pain. As he had said elsewhere before, so he says here, "Be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Select a Passage. F and G, by manifest error, read , and this seems to have been corrected (or rather corrupted) in order to make sense into (omitting ) in K and L and the mass of cursives. "I have attained, I have achieved. But you can always rejoice in the Lord, because He is above circumstances. Did he want more for himself? He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth. all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love. He had experienced it at its highest point; and he knew that it was nothing compared with the joy which Christ had given. In Leviticus the sacred law-giver says that the uncircumcised hearts of Israel must be humbled to accept the punishment of God ( Leviticus 26:41). So here he says, "I came to that conclusion--and I still think so. 3:12-16 Not that I have already obtained this, or that I am already all complete but I press on to try to grasp that for which I have been grasped by Jesus Christ. Because this is going to bring him an estrangement from his cronies back in Jerusalem that he has been going around with.Paul is writing this epistle to the Philippians some thirty years after the Damascus road experience. There is a pun in the Greek which is not transferable to English. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. "My desire is to know Him, and to be found in Him." The Philippian congregation was generally a wonderful group of people. Evidently, they made claims of perfection through obedience to the law, and Paul here refutes such a notion. The problem with this view is the unusual word used for the resurrection (Gr. It is important to note the verb which he uses for to know. They nevertheless seem to have been disheartened, even distanced, from their faith by Pauls imprisonment. Now, when the Lord apprehended us, He had in His mind a plan and a purpose for each of our lives. Whoever they were, Paul reminds them of one great truth: "Our citizenship," he says, "is in heaven." Jeremiah speaks of the uncircumcised ear, the ear that will not hear the word of God ( Jeremiah 6:10). Paul warns that they are there, they were there in Paul's day; they are there today. Surely there must have been something seriously wrong to judge in him! "For they all seek their own." "lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. Does he question the assurance of his salvation? He knew well how much they might be tried by the report of his own imprisonment, and no deliverance coming as yet. The things that happened to him he could therefore judge calmly and clearly. The reason why we can all say it tonight is because we are all here. Oh, how honourable, how sweet and precious, to have bonds in Christ! Like any good teacher, Paul was never afraid of repetition. It is called the resurrection of the just, and the resurrection of life (John 5:29), and they are counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead,Luke 20:35. "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed." 1. Paul said, "I have not yet apprehended that for which I was apprehended. It stays there. The trouble is not that of seeing its meaning; the trouble is that of finding one English word which covers all it includes. How gladly would he be a libation upon the sacrifice of their faith! Was this all the apostle had to say? For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness." What is there that you can rightly plead but Christ's own name? And this puts the doctrine, as far as there is doctrine in the epistle, in a very clear light. WebPhilippians 3:8-11 meaning Paul considers religious practices and custom meaningless compared to the far better value of serving Jesus Christ through the obedience of faith. Though he wist not to choose what between the two before, when the need of souls rises before him, he says that he shall live, and is not yet going to die. For we can all understand joy in believing; we can readily feel how natural is joy to the Christian who dwells on his eternal portion. WebIt is consciousness contemplating its riches, counting its gains. Thus he anticipates the removal of the last trace of the first Adam; he looks for our being brought fully, even as to the body, into the likeness of the Second Man, the last Adam. The apostle had his heart upon Christ as his righteousness. "I'll show you a mystery, we are not going to all sleep, but we are all going to be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of any eye. "Let your moderation be known unto all men. So he says here, "For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung." It cannot be till the Christ is risen according to the pattern of Christ Himself. If he desired for them that they should be without one stumble till the day of Christ, it was the purpose to which grace had girded up his own loins. "I can do all things," as he says elsewhere, "through him that strengtheneth me." This is what he calls "salvation." Moreover the term "out-resurrection" seems to stress separation from others at the time of resurrection rather than separation from others following resurrection. Philippians 3:1114: When Should I Forget My Past? 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