Philippians 3:1–11

1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not tiresome, but for you it is safe.  2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.  3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh; 4 though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has confidence in the flesh, I yet more:  5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;  6 concerning zeal, persecuting the assembly; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. 

7 However, I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ.  8 Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ  9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;  10 that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death;  11 if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  

Commentary

In my younger years (I hope I have gained just a little wisdom with age – there’s no point getting old if you don’t also get wiser!)… I used to read this passage with some exasperation. The first paragraph is especially hard. It sounds a bit racist for modern ears, and Paul sounds like a bit of a boaster. Didn’t his mother tell him that self-praise is no recommendation?

But now when I read it, I understand more of the nuances. Let me explain.

Paul starts by telling us to rejoice – the theme of this letter. But instead of telling us why, he starts a diatribe against the Jews. He calls them ‘dogs’! Then he boasts about how good a Jew he himself is. At least this reduces any racism that we might have accused him of. 

Though, of course, we should always be careful about reading 21st century sensitivities back into ancient times. That’s a reading failure that C. S. Lewis called ‘chronological snobbery’.

Paul is criticising the fiercely religious-patriotic Jews who trust more in their national identity than in God. To be circumcised was to be set aside as a citizen of Israel. It was common practice to call the uncircumcised ‘dogs’. To be called a dog was one of the worst insults.

No English Bible translation that I'm aware of has managed to express the wordplay that the Greek expresses in vv2–3. The last word in v2 in Greek is katatomen. Just four short words later in v3 is the word peritomen. (There’s actually no ‘n’ at the end, because of the grammar, but I'm adding it to show the point more clearly). You can hear the sound-echo clearly. Say them aloud, one after the other: Katatomen … peritomen.

Katatomen means to mutilate, to cut into little pieces especially in the sense of self-mutilation as in castration; peritomen means to circumcise; literally: to cut around. Paul is making the quite direct point that these hyper-traditional Jews don’t actually realise what they are doing in their cutting. True circumcision, he says, is to be willing to cut yourself off from the world, and serve Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God. 

In our era, we have no conflict with Jews as Paul did in his day. But we do have a similar kind of argument with those sometimes found in Christian leadership roles, who hinder ordinary people from living full lives as Christians by their rejection of orthodoxy or their too-liberal theology. We do battle, for example, with academics and senior church leaders who don’t believe in miracles or the resurrection, or who choose to reject vast numbers of Jesus’ words in the Gospels as having been spoken by Jesus because they don’t like the content. 

So I’m going to attempt a modern paraphrase of vv2–3 to help us read them in the 21st century, using some of Paul’s sound-alike words and his direct, confronting terms, but using contemporary issues in place of his:

The ones you need to be careful of are those who present themselves with pious faces in their academic or ecclesial gowns but are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. They might have been baptised, but they’ve bastardised the Christian faith. They think that they’re teaching Christianity but they’re just cretins when it comes to true faith. We who are holding faithfully onto the real, true faith of Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, who performed real miracles, who was crucified and resurrected in a real body in real time, and whose story is told in accurate history in the Gospels – it’s we who are teaching the true Christian faith.

Paul then shows how in terms of being an authentic Jew, he could outshine most others. I won't dwell on this, to save some space, but it’s worth digging into a little if you have time.

In contrast to this significant personal history, Paul says that he has finally come to learn that it’s all pretty worthless – when you set it against the unsurpassable joy of knowing Jesus Christ in all his fullness and truth. It’s like coming out of darkness into light – for the very first time in your life. It’s like someone who has lived their whole life in a dark cave or prison finally being released, and stepping out into the sunlight. To feel that special warmth and seeing the delicate shades and brightnesses of the world in real sunlight after only knowing darkness or artificial light.

If circumcision was the old way of being identified with Israel, then being baptised is the marker of the New Israel: going under the waters, dying to the old life and being raised (resurrection) to the new life in Jesus Christ 

If we had more space, we could do a word study on that great word, righteousness. But it’s a long (and very rewarding) study all on its own. Paul uses it a lot, and especially here in v9, to mean that special gift of God that allows us to be able to know God intimately and personally – and not have to turn our faces away in shame or guilt.

He talks about knowing Christ, being intimately acquainted with him, in v8 and again in v10. The word he uses is the same that was used in Gen. 4:1 when Adam knew his wife, and she conceived a child.

Knowing Christ has the same sense of intimacy as a married couple in love. This reminds us, incidentally, of why casual sex or ‘free love’ is neither casual nor loving. Nor is it free; it is very costly to the human psyche.

When a woman gives herself to any man, she is known intimately for that moment, in that act. If, after that event, the man says, “I’ll give you $20”, or if he says, “Thanks, I probably won't see you again”, then she knows, deep inside her soul, how the other person values her on the basis of his knowing of her. No wonder she feels cast aside, worthless. It’s not the sex that was paid for; it was the human valuation fee – and it clearly didn’t come to much, because she is not worth much. At least that is what her mind tells her. Over and over, for years, as she seeks more and more to find someone who will truly value her worth. 

The best advice any young person can get from their parents and their teachers is not that they should have “safe sex” – this is perhaps the wickedest publicly-funded deceit ever foisted upon young people in the history of the world. Rather, they should be taught only to have sex when their mutual commitment to knowing each other on a lasting and loving basis is guaranteed by a wedding ring. 

Because then, the “payment” for knowing the other is to give oneself to the other utterly. “My life is of equal value to yours. I love my life. And now I'm going to love yours just the same as I love mine.” Anything less than this is to settle for being sub-human, in a Christian sense. Our inner selves, our emotional beings fall into disarray when we attempt unity of being via a string of casual sexual relationships.

Marriage (at its best) is a unifying experience for the body and soul as two become one. They are integrated, made-one-whole beings. To give oneself away casually is to become disintegrated, i.e.  to have one’s whole being, one’s integrity, one’s integral-being broken. It’s no wonder that after a decade or so of such relationships, people have to consult psychologists to be put back together again. They have been emotionally and spiritually dismembered. They have literally, as we say, “come apart at the seams”.

Well, that’s all just for human relationships. But now Paul takes us still deeper. He tells us that our true finding of self will only come when we know Christ truly. Indeed, as he puts it, when we are found by him (v9). Knowing Christ creates an intimacy that grounds us and founds us in our true humanity. We are reminded of the creatures all coming to their final home in the final book of the Narnia series (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle):

I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in! 

To know Christ, says Paul, that is the final goal of human being: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death.

What this actually means in all its totality is too large a topic for this study, but it is worthwhile spending some time thinking through each of the phrases in that short quote.

Group or Individual Questions for Reflection

1.    Discuss how some traditions may have taken too much focus in your religious observance at some time in your life – perhaps even still.

2.    How do you identify your belonging to the household of Christian faith? What is the most important marker?

3.    Discuss with others some of the questions posed by academics that seem to threaten the simplicity of the Gospel and the truth of the Christian tradition. Do any of them trouble you?

4.    Can you identify a time or a moment when you knew for certain that you had ended the old life and emerged from darkness into life? Or has it been a slow journey of awakening for you?

5.    How do you know that you know God – in Jesus Christ?

6.    What do you learn from the goal in vv 10–11?

Passage for Memory:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.Phil. 3:10.

Prayer Time:

1.    Ask for grace in dealing with those who are still to discover the deep truths of Christian faith.

2.    Give thanks for the revelation of God’s grace in your life.

3.    Pray for those people in your own circle who are still outside the household of faith.  

4.    Ask God to teach you more deeply what it is to truly know him.