Philippians 3

Notes

Ver. 1. After all, my dear Christian brethren, make it your constant study to rejoice and glory in the Lord Jesus, his person, offices, relations, and blessings, as altogether excellent in themselves, and by the gospel given and applied to your hearts. This will support your spirits under trouble, and prevent your seduction by judaizing teachers.—And, without any irksomeness, I repeat the admonitions which I formerly gave you, as I find it necessary for your establishment and edification. 2. Beware of all flattering, malicious, mischievous, and dividing preachers, particularly those of the judaizing kind, who, with all their boastings of circumcision, are extremely disgraceful and hurtful to the church, tearing it asunder, and cutting themselves and others off from Jesus Christ. 3. For we who are true believers in Christ are the very reverse of such—being truly circumcised and renewed in our hearts, and truly instated in favour with God; and accordingly we worship him, not by ceremonial rites and carnal ordinances, but with our whole souls, in the exercise of all spiritual graces, under the direction and influence of the Holy Ghost, and with abundant joy triumph in Jesus Christ, as our only Mediator, righteousness, and ground of acceptance and hope; while we renounce all dependence upon and expectation of favour with God on account of circumcision, or any other Jewish ordinance, or anything we have or can do in performing the righteousness of the law by natural principles. 4-6. None of the judaizing teachers have more ground to boast of these carnal privileges than I myself.—I was duly circumcised on the eighth day, according to God's appointment.—I am no proselyte from among the Gentiles, but a true native Israelite, descended from Jacob, by his beloved Benjamin, the son of Rachel his dearest wife.—I am of a tribe which furnished the first king to God's peculiar people, and which did not, with the other ten, revolt to Jeroboam and his idolatrous worship. I am a Jew of pure extraction, both by my father and mother, and one who used the Hebrew language in our synagogue worship. I was, by education and profession, one of the strictest sect for observation of the laws of God and traditions of the elders.—I was so zealous for the ceremonial ordinances that I furiously persecuted the Christians because their principles and professions were contrary to mine; and so sincere and careful an observer of the moral and ceremonial laws, that neither my neighbours nor my own conscience could charge me with any flagrant or wilful transgression thereof. 7. But how advantageous soever I once did, or any carnal Jew may still, reckon these things for recommending to God's favour, or entitling to heaven, I was no sooner enlightened by his Spirit, and called by his grace, than I saw them all misguiding, empty, and insufficient, and that my dependence thereon was inexpressibly hurtful; and so I abandoned them all as nothing, and worse than nothing, when relied on in competition with Jesus Christ. 8. And now, after many years' knowledge and experience of the way of salvation by him alone, I still, with the greatest assurance, reckon these, and all possible worldly enjoyments, and even all my religious and moral services since my conversion, to be but loss in comparison of the superabundantly more important, real, and experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, in his person, offices, relations, fulness, and work: for the sake of and in comparison with whom, I have renounced and parted with all other things; and I do count them but dung, dregs, or dogs'-meat, in point of justification and substantial happiness—that I may gain the complete enjoyment of Christ and all his saving benefits: 9. And that, in the day of death and judgment, I may be found dwelling in him as my city of refuge, united to him as my spiritual Head, and comprehended in him as my representative; and so may stand and be judged before God, not according to my own personal righteousness, but as clothed with that righteousness which does now indeed consist in faith, either as in habit or act, and is received as the free gift of God, by faith in Christ—even that righteousness of the purity of his human nature, his obedience of life, and atoning sufferings and death, by which he fully met the law and justice of God in our stead, and which God appoints, accepts, offers, and imparts to us, to discharge us from guilt and condemnation, and entitle us to eternal life in believing. 10. And that, even in this world, I may have an experimental growing acquaintance with him, in the glory of his person and offices, and in the efficacious virtue of his resurrection, as the Head of his mystical body, for confirming my joyful hopes of eternal life on the ground of it, for animating me to the most vigorous holy obedience in conformity to him, and in preparing me for the blessedness of heaven; and that I, in holy fellowship with him in his sufferings, by faith, may be enabled to crucify my inward sinfulness till it be utterly destroyed, and may patiently endure sufferings and death for his sake; 11. That, by these and other means of God's appointment earnestly practised, I may, in the general resurrection of the dead, arrive at the harbour of eternal rest, being raised up in glory, and admitted into the perfect and inexpressible blessedness which is prepared for believers. 12. I have not as yet indeed received the prize for which I run; nor am I sufficiently prepared by holiness for the crown of righteousness; but I eagerly pursue my course, that, in God's time and way, I may reach that perfection, and lay hold on that eternal life, for the attainment of which Jesus Christ, by his power and grace, laid hold on me in the way to Damascus, plucked me as a brand out of the fire, and took possession of me for himself. 13, 14. Whatever your judaizing preachers or others may pretend, I freely acknowledge that I do not reckon myself to have attained perfect holiness any more than perfect happiness; but, fixing mine eyes upon it as the mark which I have in view, without valuing myself upon either my judaism or even my past advances in holiness, as an earnest racer I press forward to that perfection which is necessary to my receiving that eternal glory to which God has from heaven divinely called me, and every true believer, by Christ Jesus, and which is obtained only in and through him. 15. Let therefore as many of us as have all the essential parts of the new nature formed in us to a much greater degree than it is in weak believers, attend to this main point of counting all things but loss and dung to win Christ, to be found in him, and thoroughly to be conformed to him; and if, in other matters of less importance, any of you should have different apprehensions, God will in due time discover the truth to you. 16. It is nevertheless necessary that we hold fast whatever truths we have already embraced and professed; and that, in the exercise of all that knowledge, grace, and holiness which we have attained, we should, with the greatest exactness and harmony, think and act according to the plain revelations of Scripture. 17. In your whole principles and practice study therefore, with one accord, to imitate me and my faithful brethren in the ministry, whom the Lord has led into the spirituality and light of the New Testament dispensation. 18, 19. And this I recommend to you with the greatest earnestness and care, to prevent your being misled by judaizing teachers; for they and many other professors—as I often warned you while I was with you, and now again assure you, with deep concern and grief for the dishonour done to Christ and hurt to the souls of men—whatever their pretences be, are, from an aversion to take up their cross and follow Christ, both doctrinally and practically, inveterate enemies to the fundamental article of salvation through active faith alone, and their wickedness shall issue in their everlasting destruction; and even now they have nothing but the gratification of carnal views and pleasures for their principal aim and chief good, in opposition to God and his glory; and, boasting of their shameful doctrines and success, under all their religious professions, they attend to, relish, and pursue after nothing but mean, empty, uncertain, unsatisfying, and defiling earthly enjoyments. 20, Never follow nor imitate such corrupt and pernicious leaders, but make us your pattern, whose tempers and conduct are quite the reverse; for, being citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, our hearts and affections are set upon things above, and carry on a constant correspondence with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—looking, longing, and hoping for Christ's descent from thence at the last day to receive us to himself: 21, Who will then transform these vile and mortal bodies of ours—which for the present are so marked with weakness, weariness, or disease, and are clogs and hindrances to the spiritual and holy exercises of our soul, and which will be quickly rotten and corrupted in the grave—into the beautiful resemblance of his own most glorious body, by the working of that almighty power by which he is able to overcome every difficulty, and entirely subdue under himself every enemy, death not excepted.

Ver. 2. Beware of dogs. Rather, 'the dogs,' 'the evil workers.' The judaizing teachers are so emblematically called, either because they prowled or hunted like dogs in search of prey, or because they professed to be watchful as dogs in guarding against the apostle, whom they misrepresented as a robber. In the former sense it would be a term of reproach, which the apostle would scarcely use; in the latter, a self-chosen title, which he was therefore at liberty to employ. This circumstance renders the latter interpretation the more probable. C.

Ver. 5. An Hebrew of the Hebrews. A genuine Hebrew both by father and mother, without any admixture of foreign blood. C.

Ver. 7. The word translated 'loss' is applied to loss in trade, and especially to that kind of voluntary loss which is incurred by casting wares overboard to lighten and save a sinking ship. C.

Ver. 11. If by any means. Rather, 'in order that by any means (or sacrifice) I might attain to the resurrection from among the dead'—the resurrection that selects the justified for everlasting glory. C.

Ver. 12. Attained—had reached the goal, as in a race, and gained the prize.—Perfect. Declared the conqueror, and decorated with the allotted honours.—I am apprehended. The apostle describes himself as 'apprehended of Christ' because he did not enter his service willingly, but was laid hold of with a gracious violence, and impressed, as it were, into the service of his Lord. C.

Ver. 14. High calling. Rather, 'of God calling from on high;' or, 'calling me on high.' See Col. 3.1,2. C.

Ver. 15. Perfect. Of full growth, as men, and not children, in Christian knowledge. That it cannot mean moral perfection, is evident from ver. 16.—Be thus minded to press toward the mark, ver. 14.—Otherwise minded. And if you be once fully minded to press toward the mark, should differences of sentiment or feeling upon minor matters unhappily exist or arise, God will in due time reveal it, and bring you by his Spirit to see eye to eye. C.

Ver. 18. Enemies of the cross—because they superadded Jewish rites and observances as necessary to pardon, peace, and acceptance with God. C.

Ver. 21. Who shall change, &c. 'Who shall re-fashion this body of our humiliation, that it may become conformed to the body of his glory.' C.

Reflections.—With great earnestness should professors guard against the seduction of false teachers, especially such as set up men's own righteousness in the room of the justifying righteousness of Jesus Christ. And ministers have need to repeat their warnings on this head. Nothing goes down more sweetly with a corrupt heart than the doctrine of justification by self-righteousness. Amiable, yet very rare, is a lively, devout, cheerful, a duly self-denied Christian. But contemptible are all external privileges in comparison of Christ and his righteousness; and very unprofitable are human works in the matter of our justification. The faith and enjoyment of free justification through his glorious sacrifice powerfully animates and enables to the diligent study of holiness. And though there is no absolute perfection in this life, yet every one ought to press as near to it as possible, and carefully avoid the smallest appearance of backsliding in faith, profession, or practice, and tenderly bear with others in lesser differences. It is a great mercy for a church to have ministers of an exemplary practice and heavenly conversation. Eternal glory will crown their and their followers' labours along with Christ. But what a burden to ministers, a plague to churches, and what enemies to Christ, are untender, sensual, and worldly-minded preachers and professors!