1. PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 3: 1-3.

The word "finally" means that Paul has reached a transition point---not a conclusion. Paul said that writing to them was not tedious to him because it was a "safeguard" for them. "Rejoice in the Lord" is a key theme in Philippians. In this first verse Paul sets down two important things. He sets down what we might called the indestructibility of Christian joy. "Your joy", Jesus said in John 6:22, "no man taketh from you." Christian joy is indestructible because Christian joy is in the Lord. Therefore, even in circumstances where joy would seem to be impossible, and even in conditions in which there seems to be nothing but pain and discomfort, the Christian joy remains. Because, not all the threats and terrors and discomforts of life can separate the Christian from the love of God in Christ Jesus his Lord.

In this verse Paul also sets down what we might call the necessity of repetition. He says that he proposes to write things to them that he has written before. This is interesting, for it must mean that Paul had written more letters than one to the Philippians, and these letters are lost. Then, quite suddenly, Paul’s accent changes to that of warning. Wherever Paul taught, the Jews followed him, and tried to undo his teaching.

What caused Paul to suddenly leave the positive theme of joy, and issue such a strongly worded warning against dogs? The ancient society dogs were considered wild and vicious animals. The Jews sometimes referred to Gentiles as dogs. Apparently Paul wanted to contrast the joy of believers with the deadly danger posed by those who placed their confidence in the flesh. Vs. 2 is a strong warning against people whom Paul considered dangerous.

The Judaizers prided themselves on being workers of righteousness, yet Paul described their works as evil, since any attempt to please God by one’s own efforts and draw attention away from Christ’s accomplished redemption is the worst kind of wickedness.

Paul used the word "mutilation" in contrast to the Greek word for "circumcision" which means to "cut around", this term means "to cut off." Like the prophets of Baal and pagans who mutilated their bodies in their frenzied rituals, which were forbidden in Leviticus, Deutronomy, and Hosea. The Judaizers’ circumcision was, ironically, no spiritual symbol; it was merely physical mutilation.

What was the point of this? According to Jewish belief, circumcision was ordained upon Israel in sign and symbol that they were the people with whom God had entered into a special covenant and a special relationship. The story of the beginning of that sign is in Genesis 17: 9,10. When God entered into His special covenant and relationship with Abraham, circumcision was laid down as an eternal sign of the covenant.

So what Paul says is, "If you have nothing to show but circumcision of the flesh, if all you have is a physical mark, then you are not really circumcised—you are only mutilated. For real circumcision is devotion of heart and mind and thought and life to God." Because of all that, says Paul, it is the Christians who are the truly circumcised. The true people of God need no symbol for a clean heart since, they actually have been cleansed of sin by God. The outward symbol was nothing without the inner reality. The same may be said of our ordinance of baptism.

The first characteristic Paul uses to define a true believer is "he will worship God in the Spirit". You may remember that Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:24, "God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth."

The true Christian gives all the credit for all that he is to Christ rather than to his own ability and achievements apart from God, which Paul refers to as "the flesh." Paul used the word flesh in this instance to describe people who were living on their own, not by the Spirit of God. "Life in the flesh" means living on your own resources, in contrast to life in the Spirit. The true believer views his flesh as sinful, without any capacity to merit salvation or please God.

2. PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 3:4-6.

Paul has just attacked the Jewish teachers, and has insisted that it is the Christians, not the Jews, who are the truly circumcised and who are truly the covenant people, and who are truly in a special and unique relationship with God. If his opponents are going to try to argue, they might have attempted to say, "But you are a Christian: therefore, you do not know what you are talking about: you do not know what it is to be a Jew." And so Paul sets out his credentials.

He does not do so to boast, or to bring credit to himself. He does so to show that he has enjoyed every privilege which a Jew could enjoy, and had risen to every attainment to which a Jew could rise. He knew what it was to be a Jew, and to be a Jew in the highest sense of the term, and he had deliberately and knowingly and willingly abandoned it all for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Paul had once thought much like the Judaizers. He said that if it came to a boasting contest about the things in which they trusted he could more than hold his own. "If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more." With these words of introduction, Paul described his old life. He revealed some valuable facts about his former life and outlook. He mentioned several aspects of his rich Jewish heritage and areas in which he exercised his own choices.

Before becoming a Christian, Paul boasted (1.) He was a Jew, (2.) He came from the right family, (3.) He was pure in his religious convictions, (4.) He had the proper credentials, (5.) He had ambition, ( (6.) He had character. After becoming a Christian Paul’s sense of value changed.

Circumcision was a big thing with the Judaizers. Paul was circumcised the eighth day, according to the Jewish law. He was of the nation of Israel. He was not someone who came to the Jewish faith from the outside. He and his family had maintained their tribal identity. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. Although Paul grew up outside the Holy Land, he had maintained his strong Jewish identity amid all the temptations of the Gentile culture. He was an Hebrew of the Hebrews. He claims, not only to be a pure-blooded Jew, but to be a Jew who still spoke the Hebrew tongue. These four things emphasized his right to claim the full benefits of being Jewish.

When Saul of Tarsus was old enough, he became a Pharisee. Paul mentioned the law because of the Pharisees fanatical adherence to the letter of the law. The strength of his religious zeal was seen in his persecuting the church.

So then, Paul claims that from his birth he was a God-fearing Jew: that his lineage was as pure as Jewish lineage could be; and that he belonged to the most aristocratic tribe of the Jews. These were his advantages of birth, the privilege into which he had been born and bred. When he measured himself by the righteousness that is in the Law, Saul considered himself blameless.

Paul felt he was serving God by imprisoning and putting to death people of another religion. Why did Paul list persecution along with the other examples of confidence in the flesh? He wanted all to realize that confidence in our own achievements can include some things that are not real achievements at all, instead, they are acts of evil.

So Paul proves to these Jews that he has the right to speak. He is not condemning Judaism from the outside, as one who had no personal knowledge and experience of it. He had experienced it at its highest point; and he knew that it was nothing compared with the peace and joy which Christ had given. He knew that the only way to peace was once and for all to abandon the way of human achievement and to accept the way of grace.

The Judaizers and the Pharisees were examples of religious people whose real confidence was not in God and His grace but in them selves—their religious practices and righteous lives. The Bible defines sin as anything that separates people from God. Religion and religiousness (actually self-righteousness) can become our deadliest sins. The self-righteous person is separated from God by his or her supposed righteousness.

 

Paul by contrast lived a life that was centered in Jesus Christ. He wrote, "For me to live is Christ", and "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." As we see here in 3:3, Paul gloried or boasted in Christ, which is another way of saying that his confidence was in Christ. He knew that knowing Jesus as Lord is life’s highest priority.

3. PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 3: 7-11.

Having noted his advantages and achievements in Judaism, Paul declared that he had drastically reevaluated them. Things he had once viewed as profitable, he came to consider as loss for Christ’s sake. His conversion had caused him to see that his proud ancestry and his noteworthy personal achievements had meant nothing compared to the joyful assurance he had received in Christ. He had labeled them loss. The phrase "for the sake of Christ" specifies the basis of his drastic reassessment of his earlier days. Paul had made Christ his life’s priority.

In Vs. 8 Paul declared that he considered everything a loss compared to the privilege of knowing Christ. The Greek word translated knowing in this context points to Paul’s warm, personal relationship with the living Lord. For this joyous privilege Paul was willing to turn his back on everything else, since in comparison all else was only rubbish. The word translated rubbish can mean either "dung" or "garbage." In any case, Paul was expressing the strong conviction that Christ was the priority in his life.

In Vs. 9 Paul had turned away from the hope of any earned righteousness that comes from obedience to the law. He wanted instead the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. He knew that God is the only source of that righteousness and that faith is the only means by which it can be received. Righteousness is a legal term that refers to a judge’s verdict. No person has the kind of righteousness that will secure a verdict of innocent when God judges that person’s life. Such righteousness is a gift of God, and He graciously offers it to those who place their faith in Him.

Vs. 10 continues the thought of Vs. 8. Paul desired intimate fellowship with Christ. He wanted Christ to shape his life in every way. In this verse Paul provides a model for Christian growth. He expressed his desire to know Christ in two special ways: in the power of his resurrection and in the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. Paul desired the kind of life, the spiritual transformation, that results from close fellowship with the living Christ. He wanted to experience sufferings the dying Christ had known. Paul did not mean that he would suffer and die redemptively as Jesus did. Rather, Paul was willing to undergo whatever persecutions that living his new life in a hostile world might bring him. By this means he could come to know Jesus better.

In Vs. 11 Paul longed also to experience or to arrive at the culmination of the Christian life, that is, to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Paul’s words do not suggest that he doubted his salvation or the fulfillment of God’s promise that believers will experience resurrection. Perhaps he was using this word to refer to the Rapture; thus expressing that the Lord would return during his lifetime. Paul’s words reflect his humble avoidance of presumption. Paul wanted to be like Christ both in this world and in the world to come. Christ was the priority of his life.

4. PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 3: 12-14.

Vigorously and with concentration Paul sought to win the prize to which God had called him heavenward. Again the Greek games must have been on his mind as he wrote of the prize. The winner in those games was called to the place where the judge sat in order to receive his prize. Paul must have referred to ultimate salvation in God’s presence, or to receiving rewards at "the judgment seat of Christ." Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ: that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad."

A.V. DAUGHERTY 12-30-01.