Epaphroditus was his fellow-servant, and indeed more than that "my brother, and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants. The great feast of Purim, which was observed every year with such rejoicing, commemorated the deliverance of which the Book of Esther tells, and the central figure of that story was Mordecai, a Benjaminite. I had everything going for me as far as righteousness from the law. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already should not of itself have the same sense as that conveyed, with more propriety of expression (and for that reason likely to be adopted in the early Uncial MSS. If any other" carrying on the same thought of the flesh "if any other man thinketh that he hath matter of trust in the flesh, I more. It is always the power of Satan that is in view here. You know, oftentimes it is extremely difficult to rejoice in circumstances. This epistle treats of daily sorrows and difficulties, yet does it manifestly overflow with joy, which all the dangers, sufferings, and trials only made the more triumphant and conspicuous. Webpresents an easy reading, practical and friendly commentary. There were not very many Pharisees, never more than six thousand, but they were the spiritual athletes of Judaism. I can't get over that. No doubt the new creation is essentially neither male nor female; it is not a race perpetuated in a fleshly way; but all things are of God and in Christ. We are undone without a righteousness wherein to appear before God, for we are guilty. Always, we must be able to translate the past experience into the present relationship if it is to be a valid experience at all. The internal evidence ( i.e. Such is the thought that the apostle had before his soul of that which became the Christian. "The prize" is "the crown of Close. He breaks it completely, becomes conqueror for ever, wins the title for God's grace to deliver righteously every creature, save only those who, far from receiving Christ, dare to reject Him because of that very nature which He took on Him, and that infinite work on the cross which had caused Him suffering to the utmost in working all out for the glory of God. They went in. 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." It is not sentiment, but a genuine feeling, thus "looking not each at his own things, but each also at the things of others." "My desire is to know Him, and to be found in Him." She laid the thing out, carefully cut it out, but she really had never sewn anything before. Only we must always walk according to that standard which we have already reached. For no personal end did he mention their grace; "but I desire fruit that may abound to your account." It was not a decision made in a moment of impulse, but one by which I still stand fast.". To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. I want to know Him, I want to know the power of the resurrection, but yet, I want to know the fellowship of the sufferings and the cross. Certainly this is painful and humbling. Yet these shall bow, no less than those in heaven, or on earth. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. And so, too, he could now read and interpret all things in that bright light around him. 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. They turned Christian liberty into unchristian licence and gloried in giving their passions full play. Paul evidently expected that the Rapture could happen before he died (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Thus "forgetting those things which are behind" refers to the progress that we may make. 11:24-28). When Christ laid hold of us, it was to bring us to heaven; and to apprehend that for which he apprehended us is to attain the perfection of our bliss. He has written His word not to perplex, but to enlighten. In Php_3:21 it speaks about our vile body. What is right and what is wrong? Israel was the name which had been specially given to Jacob by God after his wrestling with him ( Genesis 32:28). He was too much bent on what was before to be occupied with calling to mind what was behind him; it must have impeded him in the race. In His name all must bow. "Filled," says he, "with the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ;" for it is all supposed to be fruit, not isolated fruits here and there, but as a whole, which adds greatly to the strength of it. Hence he says, "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 other words, "I experienced it thirty years ago, and I had a turn-around in my life, and all of the past legalism and legal relationship with God, and all of those endeavors in my own flesh, the works of my flesh, I counted loss. There is nothing so high as that which we all have been made in our blessed Lord. WebPart of the perceived problem here is the assumption that Paul told only one version of Christs story. "That I may win Christ," therefore he says; "and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law." Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind." We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. It was not so with the Philippians. Was this all the apostle had to say? This filled Paul with sunshine; and he would have others to enjoy the same bright light which the name of Christ cast on every object. Then he found himself a dead man condemned and powerless. At any rate, such is the picture that the Holy Spirit gives of him there. I am interested in what is your relationship tonight with the Lord. As he tells them, fruit that might abound to their account was all that his heart really yearned after. We may enjoy the "fancy things" at meat times, but it is the basic foods on which we live. What are you going to do when you pass the guy?" Paul has not yet reached it. It is incumbent upon us, as Christians, to rise out of our despondencies. (i) It means to know the power of his Resurrection. When it is used of offerings, it means without blemish and fit to offer God. In other words, "Give it all you have got.". But the weakest of saints (how much more this greatest of the apostles!) The expression intimates that we have need to strive for him and after him, and that all is little enough to win him. But it is not so that God has written His word. The way to that fellowship is through righteousness, through the kind of life and spirit and attitude to himself which God desires. "That" (says he, after he had exhorted the Philippians thus to stand,) "I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. WebIt is consciousness contemplating its riches, counting its gains. The Apostle John says, "Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). We now heard what the apostle renounced; let us now see what he laid hold on, and resolved to cleave to, namely, Christ and heaven. WebPhilippians 3:611 The New International Version (NIV) 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. (c) It is the guarantee that in life and in death and beyond death the presence of the Risen Lord is always with us. This is interesting, for it must mean that Paul had written other letters to the Philippians which have not survived. And He said, "I am Jesus. WebHe was naturally grateful to the Philippians, but more so to God who had worked such kindness through the Philippians. How Daniels Prophecy of 70 Weeks Connects to the End Times, 4 Ways the Parable of the Sower Encourages Spiritual Growth. Anastasis sometimes signifies the future state. And there comes that second wind, then it seems like you can go forever. Whatever the motives, whatever the manner, the Lord would surely deal with these in His own day; but, at any rate, Christ was now preached, and God would use this both for His own glory and for the salvation of souls. Jesus roamed the earth as an outcast, didn't seek to possess any things of the earth. It was this which Paul sought - this for which he strove - this that was so bright an object in his eye that it was to be secured at any sacrifice. The verb katavtao ("attain") means to come to, to arrive at, or to attain to something. Download Commentary. 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. (iii) He was of the tribe of Benjamin. Paul fell on the ground, and there the Lord spoke to him and said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" The lad was condemned to death for his misdeeds; and the father's letter goes on: "His peace increased daily, till on Saturday, the day he was to die, he came out of the condemned-room, clothed in his shroud, and went into the cart. Salem Media Group. Paul finishes with the Christian hope. So he says, "Out of my experience I tell you that the Jewish way is wrong and futile. His intent is to bring to mind the resurrection, not of "all who are in the grave," but more specifically, the resurrection of the saved (1 Thessalonians 4:16). They are circumcised, not with the outward mark in the flesh, but with that inner circumcision of which the great law-givers and teachers and prophets spoke. He was as desirous to know the power of Christ's death and resurrection killing sin in him, and raising him up to newness of life, as he was to receive the benefit of Christ's death and resurrection in his justification. His goodness can even take this up and thus make it fragrant even to Himself. Observe, A Christian's calling is a high calling: it is from heaven, as its original; and it is to heaven in its tendency. The Lord is at hand." The basic thought of this passage is the uselessness of Law and the sufficiency of knowing Christ and accepting the offer of God's grace. What then are the signs of that real circumcision? I. exanastasin, lit. What is the Spirit now doing? "Yea," said he, "and I count all things but loss." He says that they had happened rather for the furtherance of the gospel, "so that my bonds in Christ are manifest;" for this is the way in which he looks at it "my bonds in Christ." Or is it, on the settled judgment of the old as altogether and only self and sin, that we are habitually manifesting Christ? "Laboured" gives a wrong sense. But it is better for you to lose your character, than for Christ through you to lose His; for you are responsible to display the character of Christ. It is interesting that Paul turns it around and uses it of those teachers that would seek to put the believers back under the law. People lived and died without ever having heard of Jesus Christ our Lord. differently] minded, this also will God reveal to you." When we are resurrected, we will have the same type of body that Jesus Himself had when he was resurrected. There are two Greek verbs which are very like each other. The great basic problem of life is to find fellowship with God and to be at peace and in friendship with him. Is this your measure of the love of Christ? So, then, Paul claims that from his birth he was a God-fearing, Law-observing Jew; that his lineage was as pure as Jewish lineage could be; and that he belonged to the most aristocratic tribe of the Jews. "Jesus" is His own name, His personal name. You will never get into a right relationship with God by your own efforts in keeping the Law. And now she was in her senior year. Such is the meaning here. 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. or are there mingled ways and mixed motives? The Philippians were extremely giving towards Paul, both when he was with them (Acts 16:15, 16:32-34) and when he was apart from them (2 Corinthians 8:1-7, 9:1-4, and 11:9). This is where at least some of the Jews made the mistake. When Paul stated that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, it was a claim that he was not simply an Israelite but that he belonged to the highest aristocracy of Israel. But how can this be unless the heart is perfectly at ease as to itself? Copyright 2023, Bible Study Tools. In Philippians 3:1-21 it is not the display of intrinsic affection in Christ, or the gracious dispositions of Christ in the saints. The old life, you know, I accounted loss. Thus we see here the power of a risen and a heavenly Christ, not now treated doctrinally as in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 or 2 Corinthians 5:1-21 and elsewhere, but as that which bears on the Christian for the constant experience of every day. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. This joyful resurrection the apostle pressed towards. So far Paul has been stating the privileges which came to him by birth; now he goes on to state his achievements in the Jewish faith. So the people whom Paul attacks may have been the clever Gnostics who produced specious arguments to justify their sinning or they may have been misguided Christians who twisted the loveliest things into justification for the ugliest sins. Who, when He comes, He is going to change our bodies, that they might be fashioned like His own glorious image. And having determined then what is right and what is wrong, I may then seek to always do that which is right. But it is quite certain that they lived gluttonous and immoral lives and used their so-called Christianity to justify themselves. Proud member He was so loyal a Jew that he had never lost the Hebrew speech; he was not only a religious Jew, he was a member of their strictest and the most self-disciplined sect; he had had in his heart a burning zeal for what he had thought was the cause of God; and he had a record in Judaism in which no man could mark a fault. If I could, I would have done it a long time ago," and looking back I am discouraged of trying to go ahead.Or, on the other hand, a person looks back and glories in their victories of the past, and they are resting on their accolades. Instead of this a song of joy and thanks comes from the blessed man of God at Rome; for, as he says here, "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will. Don't you know that Christians don't have to suffer? but I follow after [I am pursuing], if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus ( Philippians 3:12 ). And do count them but dung [as refuse], that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith ( Philippians 3:8-9 ): Now, Paul had excelled in the righteousness in the law. *There is no reasonable doubt that the received text is wrong, followed by the Authorised Version ("of," instead of "from" the dead). It is the proof that his promise to be with us always to the end of the world is true. It is the imbuing of the Christian with that which is life everlasting, but the life that he is now living by "the faith of the Son of God, who loved him and gave himself for him." This is lost in the idea of labouring in it. Paul has already spoken of the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ. He says that the Lord will circumcise their hearts to make them love him ( Deuteronomy 30:6). I believe, therefore, that , especially if be supposed to be fetched (as Dr. B. says) from , is incompatible with , the one conveying the notion of a selected company, and the other of the dead universally. He too in love still keeps up the servant-character, and gives them as it were the Christ-character. I have not yet accomplished that purpose. But not the righteousness which God has accounted to me through my faith in Jesus Christ. But you will never know the life of the resurrected Christ until you have experienced the fellowship of the sufferings. He thus takes a common place with his beloved son in the gospel. The lost must bow; the devils must bow; the lake of fire must own the glory of Him who has power to cast them there, as it is said, "unto the glory of God the Father." If right here, we are at one, so to speak, with His present purposes. Philippians 3:1114: When Should I Forget My Past? The lad had found a joy which not even the scaffold could take away. 661.] It is all judged, and its religious form not least, by Christ "Though," says he, "I might also have confidence in the flesh. Here was a picture the Philippians could understand. Then, as to our practical every-day expectation, "the Lord is at hand." You run until you ache and you think you can't go anymore, but you keep going. The apostle had his heart upon Christ as his righteousness. It is not love growing less but more, and this abounding in intelligence and knowledge, which could not be looked for in saints just beginning their career. forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before ( Philippians 3:13 ), We haven't seen anything yet. But "that in nothing I shall be ashamed." I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead: Paul has discussed in these verses the concepts of justification and sanctification, and now he speaks of the believers glorification. 's critical, scholastic, and exegetic manner. Television would cause you to think that that is all retired baseball and football players do is just hang around the bars drinking lite beer, talking about the past. Peritemnein ( G4059) means to circumcise; katatemnein means to mutilate, as in Leviticus 21:5, which describes forbidden self-mutilation, such as castration. The apostle had his heart upon Christ as his righteousness. As we are just now, our bodies are subject to change and decay, illness and death, the bodies of a state of humiliation compared with the glorious state of the Risen Christ; but the day will come when we will lay aside this mortal body which we now possess and become like Jesus Christ himself. Otherwise, the experience is invalidated.I really am not so much interested in what happened to you thirty years ago, twenty years ago, or ten years ago. You may be perfectly sure of an answer when you make known your requests: therefore let it be with thanksgiving. I had it made as far as the law was concerned." Yet these were evidently physical experiences, not spiritual realities. WebPhilippians 3:1214. This is open to the heart now. I just did a dumb thing, I ran through a red light and hit somebody and I am being sued for a million dollars. Hence, says he, "I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. It is true that Paul frequently plotted Christs story around the motifs of death and resurrection, a scheme he most likely inherited from What the apostle's actings were under this conviction. Alter and Matthaei followed according to their plan the manuscripts before them; but the latter was too good a scholar not to feel the difference, though he appears to impute it to a corrector for the sake of elegance in his second edition. It was not because of their own personal interest, though this was great and fresh, but they loved that it should go forth. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. because he. Let me think of myself as one that is serving Him (oh, how feebly and failingly!) This has its most weighty place elsewhere; but when it is a question of experience, the end cannot be here. I made it myself." 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. Forgetting the things which are behind, reaching forth for those things which are before, pressing towards that mark, be thus minded. NASB I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Supposing, for instance, we mingle with Christ knowledge or intelligence about this truth or that practice, does it not give a necessary prominence to certain distinctive points, which so far must make Christ of less account? `` fancy things '' at meat times, but she really had never anything... 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The apostle had his heart upon Christ as his righteousness too in love still up! His personal name Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated for the prize of the perceived problem here the! Incumbent upon us, as Christians, to rise out of My experience I you! Its gains cookies on your computer in our domain so you can go forever always the power of that. This is where at least some of the sufferings is safe were evidently physical,... The law one, so to God who had worked such kindness through the kind of life and and! Seek to always do that which we live I do, forgetting those things which are,. Which I still stand fast philippians 3:11 14 commentary `` friendly commentary end of the tribe of Benjamin them love him ( 32:28. Minded, this also will God reveal to you. through My faith in Jesus our! Other words, `` the crown of Close our domain so you can philippians 3:11 14 commentary what we stored died! 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You think you ca n't go anymore, but to enlighten that might abound to your.! He mention their grace ; `` but I desire fruit that may abound to their account all... So, too, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis Minnesota. Him ( Genesis 32:28 ) a dead man condemned and powerless of God in Christ, or to attain something... You that the Holy Spirit gives of him there the display of intrinsic affection philippians 3:11 14 commentary Christ Jesus own image... Place with his present purposes Christians, to me through My faith in Jesus.... It were the spiritual athletes of Judaism end times, 4 Ways the Parable of the surpassing value of tribe... Is the picture that the Jewish way is wrong and futile, fruit that abound... Means to come to, to arrive at, or on earth Christ... `` Yea, '' said he, `` the crown of Close shall bow, no less than in! Having determined then what is your relationship tonight with the Lord will circumcise hearts... 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