But the moment he has Christ before him thus, he judges according to the affections of Christ, and he looks at the need of saints here below. Is there the struggle of the old with the appearance sometimes of the new? They nevertheless seem to have been disheartened, even distanced, from their faith by Pauls imprisonment. And he said, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus." and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Now, Paul was a classic example of what Jesus was referring to. The word if can be translated as since: Since I will attain to the resurrection from the dead is the The very fact, or way of putting it, supposes Him to be a divine person. Does this content our hearts? And what is the true divine rule? Hers is a more delicate place than that which becomes the man, and one which a man attempting it would awkwardly fill. The history of the Jews had dispersed them all over the world. This last is but a confirmation of the same truth. And any moment I could lose it. Here and there at strategic military centres the Romans set down their colonies. The power of the resurrection follows the fellowship of the suffering and the cross. The supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus shows itself in dependence, and this expresses itself therefore in prayer to God. "The one preach Christ of contention supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. "Therefore," says he, though I am in a strait betwixt two," as he had said before, "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. But let us not be turned aside, and think that it is merely a question of believing and of knowing our place secure; but let us live of that very Christ who is our life. It is the apostle giving us what his heart was occupied with when he could not go forth in the activities of work, and when it seemed as if he had nothing to do. We are kept by his mighty power through faith unto salvation,1 Peter 1:5. With Him you will be right about the gospel, right about the church, right about doctrine, walk, and service. I am forestalling the plan of God. The words that Paul used seem to indicate that he was thinking of a resurrection from among those who were dead. This is the more remarkable because it is so intensely practical. We cannot know everything that Paul meant by this phrase; but the Resurrection of Christ is the great dynamic in at least three different directions. For such conflict we need the power of the Lord and the whole armour of God. Probably Paul meant that he hoped he would live to experience the Rapture, the "out-resurrection from among the dead," before he died. Whatever the case, all should make sure that they do not slip back from the standard of practical holiness they have already reached (15-16). There is a certain indestructibility in Christian joy; and it is so, because Christian joy is in the Lord. And therefore, "whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." The one thing that suits is to pursue the glory before him, till he is in the same glory along with Christ. It was God the Father that made Him Lord and Christ, but God the Father never made Him Jehovah. So, by the trial and error method, the redoing a lot of the seams and all, and the hem wasn't really straight, but it was a good effort. But so it is; and thus the food of faith becomes the poison of unbelief. This commonly is apt to give occasion for strife as well as vain-glory. They are out there, there are many of them. It will be observed that there is no such thing in the first instance as "to the glory of God," when we hear of all bowing in the name of Jesus. So tender, so delicate is his sense, that he would not spare what was needful if there had been any want of thought, but at the same time he hastens to make whatever apology love could suggest. Because of that, righteousness nearly always for Paul has the meaning of a right relationship with God. So he says, "Out of my experience I tell you that the Jewish way is wrong and futile. I might attain unto - I may come to, or may secure this object. The effect upon the individual is usually pride and the developing of a judgmental attitude.As the Pharisee who went in before the Lord and said, "Father, I thank you that I am not as other men. "Rejoice in the Lord alway." The apostle had his heart upon Christ as his righteousness. Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. He was in prison, long shut out from that which had been his joyful service, though in constant toil and suffering for so many years. It was not thus that the true-hearted Philippians felt; and spiritual feeling is worth more than all reasoning. The Lord has laid down their places respectively with distinctness. The effect of it usually on the individual who has obtained such a thing: I keep the rules; I never do anything wrong; I always do what is good; I am a doo bee; I am just living by these righteous standards. Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." "For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him." He puts it as a matter left for him to judge of and decide by Christ. It is not Paul's aim to know about Christ, but personally to know him. It was to Israel that they in the most special sense traced their heritage. Paul does not want his readers to misunderstand what he has just said. Why, it was gain. Observe, His care to be found in Christ was in order to his attaining the resurrection of the dead. Why? It was a dynamic power which operated in the life of the individual Christian. But still, that is not enough to bring a man an entrance into the kingdom of heaven.Now, here they were going around and trying to tell the Gentile believers that you had to keep the law to be righteous. Paul means something when he applies the title to Jesus in the context of citizenship. How can they say . The Lord may inspire you to some good work that He wants you to do. Download Commentary. WebPhilippians - (NIV Application Commentary) by Frank S Thielman (Hardcover) $26.99When purchased online Out of Stock About this item Specifications Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up Number of Pages: 256 Genre: Religion + Beliefs Sub-Genre: Biblical Commentary Series Title: NIV Application Commentary Format: Hardcover Publisher: Zondervan Academic Anything I do for myself is a waste of time and effort. As he went on, the cheerfulness and composure of his countenance were amazing to all the spectators." If by any means I, might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Reasonings on such matters are in general miserably wrong. With us it is far otherwise; and only as we live on Christ do we remove, as it were, from the enemy's hand that which would furnish him abundant occasion. It is not at all a question of what one has here. Is He really so far from any of those that call upon Him? Men whose whole minds are earthbound! Here I am, you know, come and I will teach you. No teacher must find it a trouble to go over and over again the great basic truths of the Christian faith; for that is the way to ensure the safety of his hearers. And so, when He is finished with me here, this robe of flesh I will drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize and shout while passing through the air. Now we all know that when a man is carried on the top of the wave, when the winds fill the sails and all goes prosperously, when hearts are gladdened in sorrow, when one witnesses the joy of fresh deliverance from day to day, it is a comparatively easy thing. In by far the most of them it does not signify what we might call abstract perfection but a kind of functional perfection, adequacy for some given purpose. When the revival swept England the son was in York jail. This is interesting, for it must mean that Paul had written other letters to the Philippians which have not survived. He had proved long the power and the joy of Christ for every day, and for every circumstance of it. But it is working through it, but it is agonizing. "Filled," says he, "with the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ;" for it is all supposed to be fruit, not isolated fruits here and there, but as a whole, which adds greatly to the strength of it. No further discipline and no further effort were necessary. He must have felt that he had been setting a high challenge before the Philippian Church. It is the same in Greek thought; the dog stands for everything that is shamelessly unclean. The peace which God has in everything He will communicate to keep you in everything; and not only so, but the heart, being free from care, will enter into what pleases Him. I am interested in what is your relationship tonight with the Lord. But such things as I could humanly reckon as profits, I came to the conclusion were all loss for the sake of Jesus Christ. (ii) To that end Paul says two things. It is his own personal experience; and this is the reason why we have "I" so often here. Give me the power," and we are so power-hungry. (iii) We place no confidence in merely human things. He was born and circumcised a Jew and trained to be a zealous law-abiding Pharisee, but he found that trying to do good by keeping laws could not make the guilty sinner acceptable to God. i. Such is the sense of it here. At any rate, such is the picture that the Holy Spirit gives of him there. God never can fail; and the very trials that would seem to crush all hope for the glory of Christ on the earth are the precise occasions in which God proves that after all it is He alone who triumphs, while man always fails even if he be an apostle. There will be a resurrection of the unjust, who shall arise to shame and everlasting contempt; and our care must be to escape that: but the joyful and glorious resurrection of saints is called the resurrection, kat exochen--by eminence, because it is in virtue of Christ's resurrection, as their head and first-fruits; whereas the wicked shall rise only by the power of Christ, as their judge. You see, there would be no security in that kind of righteousness at all. When they returned from the exile, it was from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah that the nucleus of the reborn nation was formed ( Ezra 4:1). This is, accordingly, what flows forth in praise from himself, and in calling out praise from other hearts. If you read any Greek, you can pick up on the play on words. "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise [ i.e. Let us be humbled on account of our sins. They are enemies to the cross of Christ, not to Christ Himself, but to that aspect of suffering with Him,". [Note: W. E. Vine, Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, 1:86.] Sweet and wondrous word to say that Christ is our life; but the question is, how are we living? His language comes from the world of war and athletics and emphasizes the strenuous nature of his efforts to fulfill his vocation. No wonder Paul opted for the new righteousness, though he had done pretty good up until this point. Christian worship is not a thing of ritual or of the observation of details of the Law; it is a thing of the heart. Partner with StudyLight.org as God uses us to make a difference for those displaced by Russia's war on Ukraine. WebPhilippians 3:1-11 Bible Study Commentary And Questions. Long before them, Mill had given his judgment in favour of the more ancient reading; and Wetstein repeated it apparently with approval. It would be mere independence of Christ if he could have stood without a single flaw, as blameless, in fact, as in a certain sense outwardly he was under the law, until the Spirit of God gave him to see what he was in God's mind. Let us uphold the glory of His person, but, nevertheless, let us not forget how the apostle's picture of the saint resembles the Master! Paul felt that when Christ stopped him on the Damascus Road, he had a vision and a purpose for Paul; and Paul felt that all his life he was bound to press on, lest he fail Jesus and frustrate his dream. "Well, where did you place?" Observe, Those who think they have grace enough give proof that they have little enough, or rather that they have none at all; because, wherever there is true grace, there is a desire of more grace, and a pressing towards the perfection of grace. By this claim Paul makes it clear that he is not an Ishmaelite, for the Ishmaelites were circumcised in their thirteenth year ( Genesis 17:25), nor a proselyte who had come late into the Jewish faith and been circumcised in manhood. And so accordingly His servant says here, "If I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour.". Now I do count them, thirty years later, I still count them loss. "I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity." Yet these were evidently physical experiences, not spiritual realities. Many times the worst thing you can do is share with your friends what the Lord has laid upon your heart to do. We may enjoy the "fancy things" at meat times, but it is the basic foods on which we live. What a God is ours, so to treat that which, connected with the world, Christ Himself calls "unrighteous mammon!" "Let your moderation be made known unto men." He desires for them, not anxiety about the issue of it, but true gravity of spirit, because of feeling that it is a question between God and the devil, and that we have to do with that struggle in the most direct way. Other Scripture points to the judgment seat of Christ as the time when God will make this distinction, not the resurrection. Not our keeping hold of Christ, but his keeping hold of us, is our safety. The happiness of heaven is here called the resurrection of the dead, because, though the souls of the faithful, when they depart, are immediately with Christ, yet their happiness will not be complete till the general resurrection of the dead at the last day, when soul and body shall be glorified together. Better not make them known to men; it is a dangerous snare. Paul did not express doubt by this statement; he asserted a fact. One of the elements of heavenly happiness will be the calm and settled knowledge of all that we have been here below. Wednesday of Fifth Sunday in Lent Our Savior/Redeemer Pettibone/Woodworth, ND: Wed, Mar 31, 2004 cold and nakednessbesides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches" (2 Cor. When, under Rehoboam, the kingdom had been split up, ten of the tribes went off with Jeroboam and Benjamin was the only tribe which remained faithful with Judah ( 1 Kings 12:21). I made it myself." He did feel it. Seven times in the book of Hebrews, the author captures the heart of Christianity in a simple, wonderful command: draw near. They said that in Christianity all law was gone and that the Christian had liberty to do what he liked. It was by this name that the Jews called the Gentiles. It was the teaching of these Jews that, if a man wished to be saved, he must earn credit in the sight of God by countless deeds of the law; and, further that salvation belonged to the Jews and to no one else, and that, before God could have any use for him, a man must be circumcised and, as it were, become a Jew. "I'll show you a mystery, we are not going to all sleep, but we are all going to be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of any eye. Other people would have merely thought of or seen bonds under the Roman emperor, the bonds of that great city that ruled over the kings of the earth. The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them: You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page. He associates Timothy with himself, not merely, as elsewhere, himself apostle and Timothy in some other relation, but here conjointly "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ." Philippians 3:14. , one thing) viz. I do. , the things that are behind) even the very part of the course that has been finished. ) that is literally, extending myself over. Christ shone as the true light in the world the light of life. Nevertheless, energy there is, and this assuredly judges what is contrary to Christ. Then, as to our practical every-day expectation, "the Lord is at hand." The rite of water baptism is really not a physical rite, but a spiritual experience. There is always danger of these, and the more so where there is activity among souls. His intent is to bring to mind the resurrection, not of "all who are in the grave," but more specifically, the resurrection of the saved (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The words, as they stand in the best MSS., are as follow: , to that resurrection which is of the dead. Though he wist not to choose what between the two before, when the need of souls rises before him, he says that he shall live, and is not yet going to die. 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