Philippians 3:10

This verse resumes the thought of knowing Christ in Philippians 3:8. The tense of the Greek infinitive tou gnonai ("to know") is aorist, probably an ingressive aorist, which sums up the action of the verb at the point where it begins.

"It suggests that for Paul just the coming to know Christ outweighs all other values, that for him the significance of Christ, ’in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Colossians 2:3), is so vast that even to begin to know him is more important than anything else in all the world." [Note: Hawthorne, p. 143.]

Compare the implication of intimate, complete knowledge in the clause "the man [Adam] knew his wife, Eve" (Genesis 4:1).

"I’ll never forget a letter I read from a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, where I serve as chancellor. He wrote of his gratitude for his years at our fine institution. What troubled me was that he also lamented that when he arrived, he was deeply in love with Jesus Christ; but when he left, he had fallen more in love with the biblical text. For all the right reasons, our professors did their best to teach him the Scriptures, but he left loving the Bible more than he loved His [sic] Savior. To use Paul’s words, ’the serpent seduced him.’ After a few tough years in ministry, he came to realize that he needed to love Christ. I don’t remember his using these precise words, but he admitted that he had to look intently at his schedule, to face the truth of his drift, and to carve out time to get back to a simple devotion to Christ." [Note: Charles R. Swindoll, So, You Want to Be Like Christ? p. 40. This whole book deals with Philippians 3:10.]

Among all the other things that Paul wanted to learn in His relationship with Christ, he mentioned first the power of Christ’s resurrection. Paul probably did not mean that he wanted to experience resurrection supernaturally as Jesus Christ had done. He knew that if he died he would experience such a resurrection. He probably meant that he wanted the power that resurrected His Savior and was within himself because of the indwelling Christ to manifest itself in his life for God’s glory (cf. Romans 6:4; Colossians 3:1; Ephesians 2:5-6).

Paul also wanted to grow in his experiential knowledge of the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. He did not mean that by suffering in the service of His Lord he could add to the merit of Christ’s sufferings. Such an idea is completely foreign to biblical teaching (cf. Hebrews 10:14). Rather he saw suffering for the sake of Christ as only fair since the Savior had suffered so much for him. The Christian who suffers because of his or her faithful testimony for Christ can enter into Jesus’ feelings when He suffered for faithfully obeying His Father. There is a fellowship in that kind of suffering (cf. Romans 6:8; Galatians 2:19-20). A believer who never suffers for the Lord’s sake cannot do that.

The last phrase in this verse modifies the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. Complete dedication to the will of God, which resulted in Jesus’ sufferings and which will result in the believer’s suffering, means death ultimately. It means death to one’s own agenda for life (Romans 6:4-11), and it may result in physical death. Death is a grim prospect, but Paul did not have a morbid, unhealthy fascination with suffering and death for its own sake. He so loved Jesus Christ that he wished to share all aspects of His life, to know Him as intimately as he could. He even was willing to follow Him into the valley of the shadow of death.

"Christian life is cruciform in character; God’s people, even as they live presently through the power made available through Christ’s resurrection, are as their Lord forever marked by the cross." [Note: Fee, Paul’s Letter . . ., pp. 334-35.]