Philippians 3.

(Php_3:1-21).
The Apostle now exhorts the saints to rejoice in the Lord; a word, to his mind, so important, that he repeats it emphatically in Php_4:4. He has already spoken of different kinds of joy: (1 ) In making request for the saints, (2) That Christ was abundantly preached, (3) In seeing the saints walking together in unity, (4) In being poured out as a drink offering. Here he leaves the streams, as it were, and traces all up to the source, directing their hearts to the Lord Himself. To write such things could not be grievous (irksome) to him, and it was safe for the saints. How much we need to be reminded of the true source of all our joy! We undoubtedly find joy in the fellowship of the saints, and in the service of Christ; but it is unsafe for our hearts to rest there. The saints may cause pain and disappointment, and the service may discourage; where then the joy? But if the heart is set upon the Lord, whatever the days or circumstances, all is well.
But there are things that cloud our joy, and intrude themselves between the soul and Christ. The Apostle proceeds to speak gravely of one in particular. Judaising teachers were everywhere at work; active enough when he was moving about, they were probably much more so now that he was a prisoner. He describes them unsparingly as "dogs," for they had no sense of conscience or of shame; as "evil workers," because they were corrupting the work and truth of God; and then contemptuously calls them "the concision." The saints were to "beware": to be led by these teachers after the law and ordinances would ruin their joy, and separate them in heart from Christ. Any merely outward rite * is of no value in the eyes of God (circumcision now is only "concision," i.e., maiming): "we are the circumcision," finding our death and separation to God in the death of Christ, "who worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh."** It is to be observed that it is not the grossness of the flesh that is spoken of in this chapter, but its religiousness: it is worthless, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
{*I do not include the Lord's Supper here. That is connected with the new creation and stands on wholly different ground.}
{**It is worthy of remark, as confirming the character of this epistle, that sin is not once named in it, and the flesh here only just to say we have no confidence in it. The believer is regarded throughout as walking in the power of the Spirit.}
If any one thought he had whereof he might trust in the flesh, Paul had more. He was a circumcised man, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Benjamite, a Pharisee, zealous against all who appeared to slight the law, and as touching the righteousness which was by the law, he was blameless. Who could show a fairer picture? But whatever Saul of Tarsus might have gloried in, Paul the saint and Apostle gloried in Christ alone. "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." The ardent legalist and persecutor was arrested by a glorified Christ at the height of his course; he saw, on that memorable day, the despised Nazarene, whose followers he was pursuing to death, in the glory of God. His conscience was touched, his heart attracted. He saw a righteousness revealed in Christ, which put all human doings in the shade, so that what he had regarded as gain, he now counted but loss; he would no longer stand in his own righteousness, even if it were possible. Henceforward his heart was occupied, not with himself and works, but with Christ. And after many years of suffering and loss for His Name (a path surely of unparalleled trial, except as we remember the path of his Lord) he was of the same mind, Christ was all. Every thing to him was but loss and dung, as compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. Unlike the foolish Galatians, he continued to run well, allowing none to hinder. He regards Christ here as a prize to be won at the end, and divine righteousness as that in which he will stand in that day, which is quite in accord with the character of the Epistle. In another aspect, Christ was his when he wrote, and divine righteousness too; but throughout Philippians the believer is regarded as passing through the wilderness to the heavenly goal. The Apostle kept the goal before him — Christ; allowing nothing to divert the attention of his heart, and thus he was energised for, and sustained in, the path of peculiar trial, reproach, and labour to which the Lord had, from the first, called him. To him the end was so blessed, to have Christ for his own, and to be found in Him, not having his own righteousness, which was of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that he cared not how bitter and rugged the path might be which led him to it. He desired a yet deeper experimental knowledge of Christ, and the power of His resurrection (and who knew it better than he?) and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. To him it was no small privilege to drink of His cup, and to be baptised with His baptism: indeed the deeper his sufferings, the more he would be like Christ, and that was enough for him. In Php_3:11 we must read — "The resurrection from among the dead." What possible meaning can be attached to "of the dead"? The general fact of resurrection can scarcely be an object of desire, for no man can evade it, all must rise again; but Paul had before him the glorious day when Christ will return and call His own from their tombs to bear His heavenly image, the rest of the dead being left in their graves until the judgement of the great day. The resurrection of the believer is of the same character as that of the Lord Jesus; "from among the dead," for blessedness, for glory in the Father's house.
Clearly to this the Apostle had not yet attained, nor was already perfect; but he followed after, if that he might apprehend that for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus. Christ had laid hold of him for glory; he desired to lay hold of it that the glory might have its full power over his soul. He would forget all the things behind, and do but one thing, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the calling of God on high in Christ Jesus. He would not forget grace, and what it had done for him (1 Timothy 1:12-16), but would forget, i.e., not rest in — all attainments by the way. If I had a twenty-mile walk before me, I might be thankful when the fifteenth mile stone is passed; but it would not do to rest there, but I must leave the fifteenth and sixteenth behind as all others, and press on towards the end. So pressed Paul: the glory, yea Christ was before him; he would not stop short of that. He exhorts the saints to do the same: "let us, as many as be perfect,* be thus minded "; and if any had not properly learned their heavenly calling, God would reveal even this unto them. But all are responsible to walk up to attainment, whether great or small. The Apostle then calls upon the saints to imitate him (in 1 Corinthians 11:1 he qualifies it, "even as I also Christ") in running this race towards the heavenly goal, and bids them mark any amongst them who walked in the same way.
{*"Perfect" here is in the sense of full growth, in Php_3:12, it is likeness to Christ in glory.}
There is another class of men we are to "mark" according to Romans 16:17 — those who cause divisions and offences (stumbling blocks) contrary to the doctrine which we have learned. Such are to be avoided, but all who walked as Paul walked, and were thus ensamples to the believers in word, in behaviour, etc. (1 Timothy 4:12), were to be studied and imitated. The mention of this brought to the Apostle's heart a painful thought; there were those of whom he had often spoken, and of whom he now spoke weeping, who were enemies of the cross of Christ. They were not necessarily persons who had abandoned the profession of Christ, though they never had life; they were enemies of the cross. Having found the path one of reproach and loss, they had renounced it, loving earthly things, and preferring a path of self-indulgence and ease. Their end was destruction; but the Apostle felt keenly the open dishonour to the Name of the Lord Jesus.
The Christian's citizenship is in heaven, not here; his home, his portion, his all, is where Christ is. From heaven we look for Him, as Saviour, to complete His work in us by changing our poor bodies. The salvation of the soul we have now; for the salvation of the body we wait till that day. He will then change our body of humiliation (a better reading than "our vile body"), and fashion it like unto His own body of glory. Wondrous thought! The same power which He will display in the millennial kingdom in subduing all things to Himself, He will presently put forth upon the bodies of all who are His. He is thus the Hope of our hearts in the close of this chapter, as He is the Object of our hearts in the centre of it.