Summary of Philippians, Chapter 3

Paul urges them to rejoice in the Lord. It is easy for him to write to them, and they need the protection, for they must watch out for the dogs, the evil doers, those who mutilate the flesh (circumcision). Christians are the ones with the real circumcision, not made in the flesh, but in the spirit.

The Judaizers boast of their fleshy credentials -- Paul could match them: He was circumcised on the eighth day, he came from the nation of Israel, from the elite tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, i.e., the real thing. He was so zealous for Judaism as to persecute the Church. He kept the Jewish law perfectly.

But now the things he used to consider as privileges of being a Jew -- he considers them a loss, in comparison to Christ. Really, not just Jewish things, but everything is to be considered as a loss in comparison to the outstanding knowledge of Christ. Paul gladly takes the loss of anything and everything -- all things are so much dung in comparison to having Christ. He wants to gain Christ, to be found in Him, not depending on himself for justification, but on faith in Christ. Paul wants to know Christ and the power of His resurrection, and to share His sufferings so as to be like Christ in His death. In that way he hopes to arrive at the great resurrection at the end. He has not, of course, reached it, nor does he claim to be perfect. But he pushes on, to try to grasp it, since he was grasped by Christ on the road to Damascus. So he forgets what is behind him, and stretches ahead to the goal, the crown of the calling he has from God in Christ. He urges them to live in accord with the understanding they have reached.

To that end they should imitate him, Paul, for he imitates Christ. Yet many live like enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end will be destruction. Their God is the belly, their glory is in their shame, they think of the things of this earth.

In contrast, the citizenship -- way of life -- of the Christian, is in the heavens. From there our Savior, Christ, will come, and will transform this lowly body and make it like His glorious body, by the power by which He can make all things subject to Himself.

Comments on Chapter 3

Paul is insistent on the need to rejoice in the Lord -- he will repeat it in 4:4. St. Francis de Sales speaks of the "fine point of the soul."¹² He means that in a human there are various levels of operations, both in the flesh and in the spirit. We might think of a 25,000 foot mountain. It can happen that on some days the lower slopes will all be engulfed in storm and blackness, while the tip of the mountain sticks out above the clouds, into calm and sunshine. So too it is possible for one who is very devoted to Christ -- as Paul was -- to be in great distress in all the lower levels of his being, but yet on the fine point that sticks out above the clouds, there is a peace that nothing can take away.

Some think it is "un-Christian" to say anything harsh to anyone. They do not notice that Jesus Himself called the Pharisees a "nest of vipers" (Mt 23:33), and said they were like whitewashed sepulchers (Mt 23:27) -- pretty on the outside, inside filled with rottenness and dead men's bones. When there is need, one can and sometimes should use harsh words. So Paul here, for the protection of his converts, calls the Judaizers dogs -- Jews commonly called pagans dogs. And he speaks of circumcision as a mutilation! Christians have the spiritual circumcision, cutting off the love of things of the world.

Paul even asserts that before his conversion he kept the Jewish law perfectly. We recall his words in Galatians 2:16, implying that no one can keep the law. In the focused view (we explained that in comments on Galatians 2:15 ff.), no one can -- but in the factual view, with the help of Christ's grace, one can do it. Paul even before he knew Christ, had that help offered to him, and he used it.

There are two ways of speaking of the things of the world -- on the relative scale, or on the absolute scale. On the absolute scale, we say they are all good, for God made them good. They have added dignity from the fact that in the incarnation Christ took on a created nature, used created things.¹³ Some today try to say: Since they are all so good, there is no value in voluntarily giving up anything! This notion is devastating, it undermines religious vocations (which call for giving up things) and leads to ruined marriages (making people immature by always doing only what feels good, only as long as it feels good. But then, since marriage must be a permanent commitment, they are incapable of that, having grown up never holding themselves to anything they did not like at the moment).¹⁴

Paul here speaks on the relative scale, that is, in comparison to Christ, everything on earth is so much junk, even dung. It is in this sense that older writers used to speak of the nothingness of creatures, or of despising the world, or contempt of the world. They did not mean to deny the goodness of creatures on the absolute scale -- they spoke on the relative scale. And they were keenly aware that even though creatures are good, they can also be "thorns" as the parable of the sower calls them. And they thought of the words of Christ about the camel and the needle's eye.¹⁵ The more one acts on the view that Paul proposes here, the more he is likely to gain that peace on the fine point of the soul mentioned at the start of the comments on Philippians 3. And the greater will be his power of spiritual eyesight.

We notice too that Paul here says he has not yet reached the resurrection of the dead. Of course not -- but there were people in his day who said it had already come.¹⁶

Here again Paul tells them to imitate him, and thereby to imitate Christ. This is not a case of pride, a lack of humility in Paul. He understood deeply with a realized knowledge his own nothingness -- the sort of things we saw in explaining 2:13 above -- that every bit of good he is and has and does is simply God's gift to him (cf. 1 Cor 4:7). For most people, however, to speak as Paul does here would be dangerous, a temptation to pride, for not many have the deep realization of their own nothingness in comparison to God. The words, "Let not your right hand know what your left hand does" apply well here, i.e., do not dwell on any good you do. You might begin to grab undue credit at least subconsciously.

Paul speaks of some who are enemies of the cross of Christ -- those who follow the unfortunate spirituality of giving up nothing, of whom we spoke above, would be an example today. Such a spirit was surely around in Paul's day too. But more specifically, he might mean the Judaizers here -- then the belly would allude to dietary laws, and shame to circumcision. But he might also mean libertine Christians.

Paul also speaks of Christians as having a citizenship in heaven. This in the spirit of Hebrews 13:14 -- "We have here no lasting city, but look for one that is to come."

We look forward to the resurrection, when our bodies will be transformed -- the more we are like Christ here in phase one, that of His hard life, suffering and death -- the more will we be like Him in glory, in the transformation of the resurrection.

We notice too that Paul speaks of Christ as going to "transform" our bodies. His Greek here uses, in a compound form, the same root (morphe) as that which he used in speaking in Philippians 2:6-7 of the "form of God . . . the form of a slave." Here he means more than outward appearance -- so we have an indication, inconclusive but interesting, that Paul really means divine nature . . . human nature in 2:6-7.