Philippians 3:20

In this way also "shall strength be made perfect in weakness," -saving what is lost, reviving what is dead, healing what is stricken, curing what is faint, redeeming what is lost, freeing what is enslaved, recalling what has strayed, raising what is fallen; and this from earth to heaven, where, as the apostle teaches the Philippians, "we have our citizenship, from whence also we look for our Saviour Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" -of course after the resurrection, because Christ Himself was not glorified before He suffered.

We drag our body like a shadow along the ground, but we guard our soul as one that shares in the citizenship of heaven.

We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the Lord's coming, when he shall come with glory from heaven, and shall seek out all the saints. …

Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we expect the Saviour the Lord Jesus; as if he said: I speak of those heavens from which we expect the Lord will come, who will transform us from corruption to incorruption, and take us up where …

"But our citizenship," says he, "is in Heaven." Let us not then seek for ease here; there do we shine, where also our citizenship is. "From whence also," saith he, "we wait for a Saviour," the Lord Jesus Christ. He saith, "From Heaven" and "Our Saviour," showing, from the place and from the Person, the dignity of the subject. All we have, saith he, is in the heavens, our Saviour, our city, whatever a man can name: "whence," saith he, "we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." And this is an act of His kindness and love toward man. He Himself again cometh to us, he doth not drag us thither, but takes us, and so departs with us. And this is a mark of great honor; for if He came to us when we were enemies, much rather doth He now when we are become friends. He doth not commit this to the Angels, nor to servants, but Himself cometh to call us to His royal mansion. See, we also "shall be caught up in the clouds," doing him honor.

"For our citizenship is in heaven," there is the prize; seest thou the runners, how they live by rule, how they touch nothing that relaxes their strength, how they exercise themselves every day in the palaestra, under a master, and by rule? Imitate them, or rather exhibit even greater eagerness, for the prizes are not equal: many are those who would hinder you; live by rule: many are the things which relax your strength; make its feet agile: for it is possible so to do, it comes not naturally, but by our will. Let us bring it to lightness, lest our swiftness of foot be hindered by the weight of other things. Teach thy feet to be sure, for there are many slippery places, and if thou fallest, straightway thou losest much. But yet if thou fall, rise up again. Even thus mayst thou obtain the victory. Never attempt slippery things, and thou wilt not fall; walk upon firm ground, up with thy head, up with thine eyes; these commands the trainers give to those who run. Thus thy strength is supported; but if thou stoopest downward, thou fallest, thou art relaxed. Look upward, where the prize is; the sight of the prize increaseth the determination of our will. The hope of taking it suffereth not to perceive the toils, it maketh the distance appear short. And what is this prize? No palm branch; but what? The kingdom of heaven, everlasting rest, glory together with Christ, the inheritance, brotherhood, ten thousand good things, which it is impossible to name. It is impossible to describe the beauty of that prize; he who hath it alone knoweth it, and he who is about to receive it. It is not of gold, it is not set with jewels, it is far more precious. Gold is mire, in comparison with that prize, precious stones are mere bricks in comparison with its beauty. […]

We know that this is well said, for we ought to live as strangers and expatriates in the world … not using the creation to satisfy our passions but high-mindedly and with thanksgiving.

So, we must think about things above, we must strive toward our fatherland, where we are appointed to live, since our Lord and King is there, and from there we await His coming in the glory of the Father with the holy angels. So, both …

Then he describes the ones to be imitated when he says, our commonwealth is in heaven. First, he describes the heavenly commonwealth in them; secondly, their expectation (3:20b); thirdly, its usefulness (3:21). He says: they seek earthly things, but not we, because our commonwealth is …

Our conversation - The Greek word is of a very extenslve meaning: our citizenship, our thoughts, our affections, are already in heaven.

Because at the second coming of Christ we expect to be happy and glorified there. There is good reason to have our conversation in heaven, not only because Christ is now there, but because we hope to be there shortly: Who shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto his glorious body,

) by their regard to Christ and heaven: For our conversation is in heaven. Observe, Good Christians, even while they are here on earth, have their conversation in heaven. Their citizenship is there, politeuma.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

For our conversation is in heaven,....

THERE can be no comparison between a soaring seraph and a crawling worm. Christian men ought so to live that it were idle to speak of a comparison between them and the men of the world. It should not be a comparison but a contrast. No scale of degrees should be possible. The Believer should be a direct and manifest contradiction to the unregenerate. The life of a saint should be altogether above and out of the same list as the life of a sinner.

Roman citizenship was then highly prized; how much more should the heavenly citizenship (Ac 22:28; compare Lu 10:20)? is--Greek, "has its existence." in heaven--Greek, "in the heavens." look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ--"We wait for (so the same Greek is translated, Ro 8:19) the Lord Jesus as a (that is, in the capacity of a) Saviour" (Heb 9:28).

I SHOULD MISLEAD YOU if I called these verses my text, for I intend only to lay stress upon the closing expression, and I read the two verses because they are needful for its explanation. It would require several discourses to expound the whole of so rich a passage as this. Beloved, how intimately is the whole of our life interwoven with the life of Christ! His first coming has been to us salvation, and we are delivered from the wrath of God through him.

THERE can be no comparison between a soaring seraph and a crawling worm. Christian men ought so to live that it were idle to speak of a comparison between them and the men of the world. It should not be a comparison but a contrast. No scale of degrees should be possible. The Believer should be a direct and manifest contradiction to the unregenerate. The life of a saint should be altogether above and out of the same list as the life of a sinner. We should compel our critics not to confess that moralists are good, and Christians a little better. But while the world is darkness, we should manifestly be light. And while the world lies in the Wicked One, we should most evidently be of God, and overcome the temptations of that Wicked One. Wide as the poles asunder are life and death, light and darkness, health and disease, purity and sin, spiritual and carnal, Divine and sensual. If we were what we profess to be, we should be as distinct a people in the midst of this world, as a white race in a community of Ethiopians. There should be no more difficulty in detecting the Christian from the worldling than in discovering a sheep from a goat, or a lamb from a wolf. Alas, the Church is so much adulterated, that we have to abate our glorying, and cannot exalt her character as we would. "The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!" O for the time when "our conversation shall be in Heaven," and the ignoble life of the man, whose god is his belly, and whose end is destruction, shall be rebuked by our unworldly, unselfish character. There should be as much difference between the worldling and the Christian as between Hell and Heaven, between destruction and eternal life.

I SHOULD MISLEAD YOU if I called these verses my text, for I intend only to lay stress upon the closing expression, and I read the two verses because they are needful for its explanation. It would require several discourses to expound the whole of so rich a passage as this. Beloved, how intimately is the whole of our life interwoven with the life of Christ! His first coming has been to us salvation, and we are delivered from the wrath of God through him. We live still because he lives, and never is our life more joyous than when we look most steadily to him. The completion of our salvation in the deliverance of our body from the bondage of corruption, in the raising of our dust to a glorious immortality, that also is wrapped up with the personal resurrection and quickening power of the Lord Jesus Christ. As his first advent has been our salvation from sin, so his second advent shall be our salvation from the grave. He is in heaven, but, as the apostle saith, “We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” We have nothing, we are nothing, apart from him. The past, the present, and the future are only bright as he shines upon them. Every consolation, every hope, every enjoyment we possess, we have received and still retain because of our connection with Jesus Christ our Lord. Apart from him we are naked, and poor, and miserable. I desire to impress upon your minds, and especially upon my own, the need of our abiding in him. As zealous laborers for the glory of God I am peculiarly anxious that you may maintain daily communion with Jesus, for as it is with our covenant blessings, so is it with our work of faith and labor of love, everything depends upon him. All our fruit is found in Jesus.

EVERY doctrine of the Word of God has its practical bearing. As each tree bears seed after its kind, so does every Truth of God bring forth practical virtues. Hence you find the Apostle Paul very full of "therefore"—his therefores being the conclusions drawn from certain statements of Divine Truth. I marvel that our excellent translators should have divided the argument from the conclusion by making a new chapter where there is least reason for it. Last Lord's Day I spoke with you concerning the most sure and certain Resurrection of our Lord Jesus [#1958— The First Appearance of the Risen Lord to the Eleven]—now there is a practical force in that Truth of God which constitutes part of what is meant by, "the power of His Resurrection." Since the Lord has risen and will surely come a second time—and will raise the bodies of His people at His coming—there is something to wait for and a grand reason for steadfastness while thus waiting. We are looking for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from Heaven and that He shall "fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His Glory." Therefore let us stand fast in the position which will secure us this honor. Let us keep our posts until the coming of the great Captain shall release the sentinels. The glorious resurrection will abundantly repay us for all the toil and travail we may have to undergo in the battle for the Lord. The Glory to be revealed even now casts a light upon our path and causes sunshine within our hearts! The hope of this happiness makes us even now strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Paul was deeply anxious that those in whom he had been the means of kindling the heavenly hope might be preserved faithful until the coming of Christ. He trembled lest any of them should seem to draw back and prove traitors to their Lord.

EVERY doctrine of the Word of God has its practical bearing. As each tree bears seed after its kind, so does every Truth of God bring forth practical virtues. Hence you find the Apostle Paul very full of "therefore"—his therefores being the conclusions drawn from certain statements of Divine Truth. I marvel that our excellent translators should have divided the argument from the conclusion by making a new chapter where there is least reason for it.

For our conversation is in heaven - That is, this is true of all who are sincere Christians. It is a characteristic of Christians, in contradistinction from those who are the “enemies of the cross,” that their conversation is in heaven. The word “conversation” we now apply almost entirely to oral discourse. It formerly, however, meant conduct in general, and it is usually employed in this sense in the Scriptures; see the notes at Php 1:27, where the verb occurs, from which the noun here is derived. The word used here - πολίτευμα politeuma - is found nowhere else in the New Testament. It properly means, any public measure, administration of the state, the manner in which the affairs of a state are administered; and then the state itself, the community, commonwealth, those who are hound under the same laws, and associated in the same society. Here it cannot mean that their “conversation,” in the sense of discourse or talking, was in heaven; nor that their “conduct” was in heaven - for this would convey no idea, and the original word does not demand it; but the idea is, that they were heavenly citizens, or citizens of the heavenly world, in contradistinction from a worldly community, They were governed by the laws of heaven; they were a community associated as citizens of that world, and expecting there to dwell. The idea is, that there are two great communities in the universe - that of the world, and that of heaven: that governed by worldly laws and institutions, and that by the laws of heaven; that associated for worldly purposes, and that associated for heavenly or religious purposes; and that the Christian belonged to the latter - the enemy of the cross, though in the church, belonged to the former. […]

That is what makes life at once so splendid and so strange. We are in the wrong world. When I thought that was the right town, it bored me; when I knew it was wrong, I was happy. So the false optimism, the modern happiness, …