Philippians 3 · Passage · Purpose and Futility
I Press On
Paul wrote these verses to the church at Philippi while he was in chains for Christ.
Paul could name a pedigree, a party and a faultless record under the law, and he called them all rubbish.
I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.
- The passage
- Philippians 3:7 to 14
- Book
- Philippians
- Hold in memory
- Philippians 3:8, Philippians 3:13 to 14
Summary
Paul weighs everything he once counted as gain against knowing Christ Jesus his Lord, and for the sake of Christ he lets all of it go. He describes the life that follows as a runner's, with one thing done, the past left behind and the body straining toward the prize to which God calls him.
- Paul sets a righteousness of his own from the law against a righteousness that God gives through faith in Christ, and he wants the second (Philippians 3:9).
- Knowing Christ, as Paul writes it, includes being conformed to Him in His death (Philippians 3:10).
- Paul denies that he has already obtained all this or been made perfect (Philippians 3:12).
- Paul asks all who are mature to share this mind, and he trusts God to reveal it to those who think otherwise (Philippians 3:15).
The Gains He Counted
Paul lists seven credentials he once relied on.
I Press On studies Philippians 3:7 to 14, where the apostle Paul tells the church at Philippi what he gave up for Christ and what he is still pursuing. It belongs to the trial of purpose and futility because Paul names the one aim that orders his life.
Its question is what Paul counted as loss, what he wanted in its place, and why he says he has not yet arrived. It gives the passage as a ladder of its Berean words and the Greek words behind rubbish, goal and prize. It ends with two questions on which readers differ, what his word somehow says of his assurance and whether perfect and mature name one thing.
Paul warns the Philippians against those who rely on the flesh, and he says that if anyone has grounds for confidence in it, “I have more” (Philippians 3:2 to 4). He was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin” and “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5). As to the law he was a Pharisee, in zeal a persecutor of the church, and “faultless” in the righteousness of the law (Philippians 3:5 to 6).
From Loss to the Goal
Each rung of Philippians 3:7 to 14 carries its words in the Berean text.
Paul moves from what he gave up, through what he gained and what he still lacks, to the one goal ahead.
- The Berean words
- “I count as loss”
- The Berean words
- “I consider them rubbish”
- The Berean words
- “that I may gain Christ”
- The Berean words
- “and be found in Him”
- The Berean words
- “the righteousness from God”
- The Berean words
- “I want to know Christ”
- The Berean words
- “the resurrection from the dead”
- The Berean words
- “Not that I have already obtained”
- The Berean words
- “Christ Jesus took hold of me”
- The Berean words
- “But one thing I do”
11The past
- The Berean words
- “Forgetting what is behind”
- The Berean words
- “straining toward what is ahead”
13The goal
- The Berean words
- “I press on toward the goal”
- The Berean words
- “the prize of God’s heavenly calling”
A ladder of fourteen rungs from Philippians 3:7 to 14, each with its Berean words.
The resurrection, Not yet obtained, Taken hold of, One thing, The past, The way ahead, The goal, The prize
Counted as Loss
Paul calls his former record by a coarse Greek word and wants a different righteousness.
But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain ChristThese verses turn the list of Philippians 3:5 to 6 into a ledger, and the Greek word for refuse stands in them.
The Greek word the Berean text renders rubbish is skybalon, which stands only here in the New Testament. Strong's dictionary defines it as “what is thrown to the dogs, i.e. refuse (ordure)”, and H. C. G. Moule, in his Philippians for the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1893), wrote that “The Greek word is used in secular writers in both senses”.
and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith.Paul states here the exchange on which the whole passage rests.
Moule explained a righteousness of one's own as “a title to acceptance, a claim on Divine justice, due to my own doings and merits, supposed to satisfy a legal standard”.
Saved by Grace Through Faith teaches in full how righteousness comes as God's gift through faith.
To Know Him
Paul's aim takes in the cross as well as the empty tomb.
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.The verses give the aim that the rest of the chapter pursues, so they stand before the race and the denial that follows.
Paul's word for the resurrection in Philippians 3:11, exanastasis, stands only here in the New Testament. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), wrote that it “may signify that of the blessed only”.
Joy in Suffering teaches the fellowship of His sufferings that Paul names in Philippians 3:10.
The Race Behind the Words
Strong's dictionary, Abbott-Smith and Adam Clarke explain the words of the games.
Paul's word for the prize, brabeion, stands twice in the New Testament, in Philippians 3:14 and in 1 Corinthians 9:24. Strong's dictionary defines it as “an award (of arbitration), i.e. (specially) a prize in the public games”.
His word for the goal, skopos, stands only in Philippians 3:14. The STEP Bible's brief lexicon, based on Abbott-Smith (1922), explains it in this verse as “a mark on which to fix the eye”.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable.Paul uses the same picture of runners and a prize when he urges the Corinthians to train with strict discipline.
Clarke held that the verses from Philippians 3:11 to 17 make “one continued allusion to the contests at the Olympic games”, games whose laws, he wrote, the Philippians knew well.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.Near his death Paul says he has finished the race that Philippians describes as still being run.
Still Pressing On
Paul denies having arrived before he names the one thing he does.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,Paul's denial keeps any reader from thinking the aim of the previous verses was already won.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), called the denial “a distinct assertion of the apostle Paul that he did not regard himself as a perfect man”.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871), wrote on Philippians 3:13 that “Looking back is sure to end in going back”, and gave Lot's wife as the example (Luke 17:32).
Where Readers Differ
Each of four readings of Philippians 3:11 to 15 has its holders and an objection against it.
Somehow speaks of earnestness, with the outcome sureJamieson, Fausset and Brown; H. C. G. Moule
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the words of Philippians 3:11 as “not implying uncertainty of the issue, but the earnestness of the struggle of faith”. Moule wrote that they do “not imply the uncertainty of the final glory of the true saint”.
Against it, Moule himself called the words “the strong language of contingency” and set them beside 1 Corinthians 9:27, where Paul disciplines his body so that he “will not be disqualified”.
Paul was not yet sure of the resurrectionJohn Chrysostom
Chrysostom wrote in his twelfth homily on Philippians that Paul “is not confident about the Resurrection and things to come”. He drew the lesson that those who have less of Paul's excellence should be no more confident than he.
Against it, Moule set the words beside texts of “exulting assurance”, Romans 8:31 to 39 and 2 Timothy 1:12.
Perfect and mature name two different thingsJamieson, Fausset and Brown, with Adam Clarke and H. C. G. Moule
In the commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, the perfection Paul denies in Philippians 3:12 is being “crowned with the garland of victory”, while the perfect of Philippians 3:15 are the “full grown”. Clarke read the second as “thoroughly instructed”, and Moule called its word “An adjective, not a perfect participle”, one that “may mean ‘adult,’ ‘mature’”.
Against it, Moule granted that the two verses look like a contradiction “On the surface”, since kindred words stand behind perfect and mature.
Perfect and mature name one aimAlbert Barnes
Barnes read the mature of Philippians 3:15 as “those who would be perfect; or who are aiming at perfection”, and he sent the reader back to his note on the perfection of Philippians 3:12.
Against it, the Greek of Philippians 3:12 is the perfect passive of the verb teleioō, while Philippians 3:15 has the adjective teleios, whose first sense in Abbott-Smith's lexicon is “full-grown, mature”.
Live Up to What We Have Attained
The closing verses apply Paul's race to his readers.
All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. Nevertheless, we must live up to what we have already attained.The instruction in these verses is the last word of the passage, given to the Philippians themselves.
In this chapter every part of Paul's life, his past, his hope and his unfinished race, is ordered by one aim in Christ Jesus.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- James Strong's Greek dictionary, with the STEP Bible brief lexicon of Extended Strongs based on Abbott-Smith (1922) (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Philippians 3:11 to 15.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Philippians 3:11 to 15.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Philippians 3:11 to 15.
- H. C. G. Moule, The Epistle to the Philippians, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1893), on Philippians 3:8, Philippians 3:11 and Philippians 3:15.
- John Chrysostom, Homily 12 on Philippians, on Philippians 3:13.
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