Philippians 3:1-16 - Homilies By R. Finlayson

The true circumcision.

Contemplated close of the Epistle. "Finally my brethren, rejoice in the Lord." It would seem that, at this point, the apostle contemplated bringing the Epistle to a close. He intimates that, in addition to what he has already said, he has only this further to say. He falls back on what has already been noticed as the key-note of the Epistle. Addressing them as his brethren, he calls upon them to rejoice in the Lord. He recognized no joy but what was in the Lord. We are to rejoice in our earthly blessings, as having them in the Lord. We are to rejoice even in our afflictions, as having them in the Lord. We are to rejoice in any success attending our efforts to bless others, as having it in the Lord. We are to rejoice especially in privileges of adoption, as having them in the Lord. "Howbeit in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." New start in the Epistle. "To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe." The apostle would not have concluded the Epistle without recording his thanks for the contribution and sending salutations. But at this point he seems to have been interrupted, and meantime to have had his attention called to some fresh manifestation of Judaistic zeal. When he takes up his pen it is with this in his mind. And, before writing the words with which he had intended to close, he must sound the note of alarm. He deems it necessary, however, to give his reason for introducing the old theme, he had written as well as spoken much on the subject of Judaism; but it was not irksome to him to repeat what he had said. He had written as well as spoken so much on the subject to the Philippians that he feared it might be irksome to them to have a repetition. The reference would seem to be to a lost Epistle or lost Epistles. To this there is a manifest allusion in the Epistle of Polycarp. Writing to these same Philippians, about the beginning of the second century, he says, "Neither I nor another like me can attain to the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, coming among you, taught the word of truth accurately and surely before the men of that day; who also, when absent, wrote letters to you, into which, if ye search, ye can be builded up unto the faith given to you." It did not lie within the design of the Spirit of inspiration to preserve all the words that Paul wrote to the Churches, any more than to preserve all the words that Christ spake in the course of his public ministry. What Paul had previously written during the ten years to the Church of Philippi alone on the one subject of Judaism was so extensive that he was afraid it might be irksome to them to have the same things repeated. But, whether irksome to them or not, he was assured that it would be safe. And on that ground he does not hesitate to repeat.

I. HE WARNS AGAINST THE JUDAIZERS . What he had before given at length he now gives in few, but expressive words.

1 . Dogs. "Beware of the dogs." As Jesus called Herod a fox, so Paul calls the Judaizers dogs. We have laid hold more on the fidelity of the dog; the Greeks laid hold more on its bad habit of snarling; the Jews laid hold more on its want of niceness, in eating all manner of meats. Prowling about the city and living especially on the offal and refuse, it seemed to the Jews to picture the Gentiles, who, making no distinction of meats, were ceremonially unclean. By means of this appellation of the Gentiles, Christ made trial of the Canaanitish woman. And when John says, "Without are the dogs," he seems to refer generally to exclusion on the ground of moral impurity. In calling the Judaizers dogs, Paul is to be understood as throwing back on them their own term of reproach. They called the Gentile Christians dogs, because they made no distinction of meats, did not observe the washing of cups and platters. They, says Paul, were really the dogs, who, instead of the rich gospel provision, had only the "garbage of carnal ordinances."

2 . Evil-workers. "Beware of the evil-workers." They are characterized in another place as deceitful workers. Here they are characterized as coil workers, i.e. where others were sowing the good seed they came and sowed the tares; where others were doing good work they came and tried to have it undone. And that was really their character; they did not seek fields of their own, but fields where the seed of the gospel had already been sown. They were especially workers against Christ, and all who preached Christ as the sole ground of the sinner's justification.

3 . Concision. "Beware of the concision." As pope said of antipope, that he was not consecrated but execrated, and as Coleridge said of the French philosophy, that it was psilosophy, or the bare kind of philosophy; so Paul refuses to say of the Judaists that they were the circumcision, he will only say of them that they were the concision, i.e. they cut the body to no purpose, there was no real symbolism connected with it, as when the Mosaic economy had Divine sanction. They were cutters of the body, as the priests of Baal in Elijah's time, who, with loud crying, cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. They had no more reason for continuing the cutting of the body from Mosaism than the heathen had for cuttings in connection with their religion. Therefore he will not allow them to be the circumcision, but only the concision, or mutilators of the body.

II. HE DESCRIBES THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION . "For we are the circumcision." Whether circumcised in body or not, simply as Christians they answered to the idea, bore the character of the circumcision.

1. Spiritual worshippers. "Who worship by the Spirit of God." If he had characterized them by their outward mark, he would have said "the baptized;" but he prefers to point to the inward reality. The meaning of the mark of circumcision on the Jew was that he was set apart as a worshipper of God; in his own home and when he went up to the temple, he was to acknowledge God according to the appointed forms. As answering to the circumcision we also are set apart as worshippers of God, and the catholic clement in our worship is that it is by the dynamic influence of the Spirit of God that we worship. There is a power of the Spirit exerted over our carnality by which we are enabled to render an inward and a cordial worship. "The hour cometh, and now is," said Christ, "when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

2 . Who have Christ as High Priest to glory in. "And glory in Christ Jesus." As worshippers we cannot approach God without having the services of a high priest. And Jesus is the High Priest of our confession. We glory in him because he has made real and fully satisfying atonement for sin. We glory in him as still making intercession for us. With such a High Priest We can have hope under the consciousness of sin, which is our daily experience. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye may not sin. And, if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the Propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

3 . And have renounced the flesh. "And have no confidence in the flesh." Glorying in what is outside of us, in Christ and his work, excludes having confidence in the flesh. Even under the Jewish theocracy outward earthly marks were not to be trusted in. One might have a special theocratic mark on him, and yet be untrue to the theocracy like Saul the King of Israel. If natural descent from Abraham had been sufficient to constitute a child of Abraham, then God of the very stories could have raised up children unto Abraham. Only on Christ, ca no fleshly marks, must we place our dependence for justification and adoption.

III. HE THINKS OF HIMSELF AS IN A BETTER POSITION FOR HAVING CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH THAN ANY OF THE JUDAIZERS . "Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more." He singles himself out from the "we" of the previous verse. He had, in fact, renounced confidence in the flesh; but, for the moment, taking up the same ground with the Judaizers, he challenges comparison with them. He claims to be in a better position for confiding in the flesh than any of them.

1 . Four marks connected with inherited privilege.

2 . Three marks involving personal choice.

IV. HE IS IN THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE CIRCUMCISION .

1 . His past reckoning to which he adheres. "Howbeit what things were gain [gains] to me, these have I counted loss for Christ." The reference is to actual things in his pre-Christian position. Those which he has mentioned and others which he has not mentioned, were gains to him. The plural, which is not brought out in the translation, indicates that they were separate items by which he profited. They were not gains merely in his own judgment or expectation, but they were actually gains. "By means of them he was, within the old theocracy, put upon a path which had already brought him repute and influence, and promised to him yet far greater honors, power, and wealth in the future; a career rich in gain was opened up to him." But he was led to form an altered judgment regarding these things. This was not due to fickleness of judgment. This new judgment was characterized by wisdom. It was because there was discovered to him a greater gain in Christ. As interfering with this newly discovered gain, it seemed to him that he should sit down and write them under one category as loss. The use of the perfect brings down his past judgment to the present moment.

2 . His reckoning in view of the present. "Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." "Yea verily, and" prepares for an outbidding of what he has said. He goes beyond the actual things by which he profited in his past position. He takes things by which there may be profit in their utmost universality. And his present reckoning regarding the wide range of things is that they also are to be written down under the category of loss. The greater gain by which he is attracted in this case is not Christ, but rather the knowledge of Christ as the greatest Gain. If he is actually the greatest Gain, then it behoves us to have an experimental knowledge of him according to what he is. We are especially to have the knowledge of him as Christ Jesus our Lord, i.e. as the Anointed of the Father to be Savior, to whom, as having accomplished salvation, we owe deepest submission. To this saving knowledge there belongs a supereminence, a surpassingness. It would be of no avail that, beyond all that science has reached, we knew all the secrets of nature, that we knew the whole constitution of the human mind, if we did not know Christ for salvation.

3 . His past action passing into his present reckoning. "For whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ." The reference is to the great crisis of his life. It showed him to be no mere theorist. He carried his judgment out into practice, though it entailed the loss of all things. He renounced the profit they had been to him at the time. And, thinking of them as what might still have been a profit to him, he is in no mood to retract. He adheres to his former renunciation in the strongest terms. His language now is, " I do count them but dung , that I may gain Christ. " This will be considered too depreciatory a view of things. It will be considered too high doctrine by not a few who profess faith in Christ. What an incongruity would be caused by some professed Christians adopting this language! Is it not evident that they count many things as all-important to their existence, other than Christ? It must be admitted, too, that some whose Christian experience, though real, is not clear enough, will find difficulty here, and it is possible that, in the desire to be true to Christ, they may take to some perversion of Christianity. But there is no exaggeration in the apostle's language.

V. THE GAIN THAT CHRIST IS . "And be found in him." The apostle desired to be regarded by God, and by man too, as within Christ as the sphere and element of his life. Thus it is that Christ becomes gain.

1 . Beginning. " Not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." His former thought was to have a righteousness of his own, i.e. a righteousness wrought out from his own resources, of which he was the efficient cause, and to which, therefore, he could lay meritorious claim, of which he could boast. In another aspect it was a righteousness which was of the Law, i.e. which proceeded from its commands being followed. And so completely was he considered to have succeeded that, as he says in the sixth verse, he was found blameless. But a new light was thrown in upon this righteousness, which showed it to be utterly worthless. And he was led to abandon it for the sake of another righteousness which was to be found within Christ. · This righteousness he laid hold of by faith. The object of his faith was Christ, i.e. as having wrought out a righteousness infinitely worthy and well-pleasing to God, in the possession of which he was at once and fully justified, obtaining eternal covenant standing before God. This is a righteousness which is of God, i.e. of which God is the efficient cause, of which, therefore, he has all the glory. It is only ours by faith, or, as it should be translated, upon faith, i.e. as made over to us it rests upon a basis of faith.

2 . Glance forward to the end. "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." The object of our justification is that we may know Christ especially in connection with his resurrection. The resurrection was the crowning point of his life. It showed him to be completely victorious over sin and death. It was the Father's seal upon his work on earth. The power of his resurrection is most naturally regarded as the power which it has to make us personally victorious over sin and death. The "knowing" seems to belong to the present; state, inasmuch as it is followed by suffering and dying. We know the power of his resurrection in our being quickened together with him; but this not by itself. We know it rather as the earnest of a power that will make us completely victorious over sin and death. We think of the resurrection of Christ as a power exercised from the future. It is that by which we are being moulded, up to which we are being drawn.

3 . The fact noted that we must suffer and die before coming to the resurrection from the dead. "And the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead." The mere fact of our suffering does not bring us into fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. Our sufferings must have a Christian character. There was a specialty n the apostle's sufferings. He was notably a sufferer for the cause of Christ, a sufferer in place of others, in some such way as Christ was a sufferer in place of others. It is this element of vicariousness that prominence is given to in his remarkable language to the Colossians, "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake which is the Church." But the language is not to be restricted to vicarious sufferings. Inasmuch as our ordinary sufferings are appointed by Christ, inasmuch as they are to be endured in the spirit in which Christ endured, inasmuch as Christ is to be magnified in them, we also may have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. We may aspire to drink of the cup that he drank of, to be baptized with the baptism wherewith he was baptized. The apostle thinks of his sufferings as having their consummation in his death. His sufferings made him look forward to death; and the kind of sufferings made him look forward to martyrdom. And how did he contemplate his martyrdom? As a being conformed unto Christ's death. His ambition was that his death, whenever it happened, should bear the stamp of Christ's death. The process of conformation was already begun. He was becoming conformed unto Christ's death. In another place he refers to himself as "hearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus." He protested that he was dying daily. In his sufferings, in the uncertainty as to his life, he was becoming accustomed to die. And he was taking that form which was to be completed in his martyrdom. Our circumstances do not point to our needing to die a martyr's death. But inasmuch as it is Christ. who appoints our dying, inasmuch as we are called to die in the spirit in which Christ died, inasmuch as we are called to magnify Christ in our dying, we also may cherish the ambition of our having the stamp of Christ's death on ours. And in our present sufferings, in the constant uncertainty of life, we should already be receiving its form. The apostle wished to be in the closest accord with Christ in his sufferings and death, if by any means he should attain unto the resurrection from the dead. He founds upon our Lord's language, "But they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the resurrection from the dead." This is what is called the first resurrection. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." This points us to the full manifestation of the power of Christ's resurrection. It marks the obtaining of (he condition, viz. the reunion of soul and body, upon which our perfected existence depends. It is putting the crown, once and for ever, upon our life. The apostle feels that the object is difficult of attainment. He will try all means of attaining to it. He will even drink of the cup of Christ's suffering; he will have the stamp of Christ's death on his, if that will secure its attainment.

VI. TWO ELEMENTS IN HIS STRIVING .

1 . Stated.

2 . Illustrated. The illustration of the racer, already suggested, is now distinctly brought out.

VII. THREEFOLD EXHORTATION .

1 . Let us aspire after higher attainment in the future. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." There is a distinction to be made between those who are perfect and those who are made perfect. The perfect (as the Greek word suggests) are those who are in sympathy with the end and in the right course, although they have not yet come to the end or are made perfect. There may thus be a kind of perfection from the beginning. But especially are those perfect who, when opportunity has been given, have gone on from the state of babes or mere starters in the race to a certain maturity of Christian experience. Opportunity being given, we should be numbered amongst the perfect, those who have attained to a certain skill in running. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." Let us not be satisfied with present attainment. Let us feel the attraction of the goal of Christian perfection. Let our eye stretch forward as over the intervening space up to this goal. Let our energies be bent as toward that which is difficult of attainment, toward that which will require all our singleness and intensity. And, for our own encouragement, let us also feel the attraction of the prize. Let us feel the attraction of the moment when, for faithfulness to him and to his end in apprehending us, the righteous Judge shall call us forward to receive the crown of righteousness.

2 . Let us pray against present error. "And if in anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall God reveal unto you." It is a case which is very likely to occur. We may be earnest in the main, and yet there may be some particular thing in regard to which we are self-satisfied, about which we are not sufficiently enlightened, and so we wander from the right course. Who can understand his errors? Under the consciousness of our own inability to understand, let us have recourse to God. The promise here is that he wilt discover every particular mistake to us. Let us look to God to show us wherein we are in error. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

3 . Let us learn from past attainment. "Only, whereunto we have already attained, by that same rule let us walk." We may not go to past attainment for self-contentment, but we may go for lessons to be learnt. If we have attained to any skill in the Christian race , it is because we have followed the Bible as our rule. It has prescribed to us our course. Let us hold fast that which we have proved to be good. Let us act on the same principles on which we have hitherto acted in any attainment we have made. Let there be "faith in Jesus Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use of all the outward means whereby Christ communicateth unto us the blessings of redemption." Following the rules we shall unfailingly advance up to the goal and receive the prize.—R.F.