WebPhilippians 3:1214. Yet these were evidently physical experiences, not spiritual realities. Faith is the ordained means of actual interest and saving benefit in all the purchase of his blood. Is He really so far from any of those that call upon Him? But life is more than simply being born into Gods family. He says that he proposes to write things to them that he has written before. Love does not calculate these costs and dangers, but goes calmly forward, come what will, trouble, scorn, or death. It seems the church of the Philippians, though a faithful and flourishing church, was disturbed by the judaizing teachers, who endeavoured to keep up the law of Moses, If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain. But there are the things, or if you will, the persons under the earth which can never be delivered. "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead. Paul had discovered that a right relationship with God is based not on Law but on faith in Jesus Christ. But so it is; and thus the food of faith becomes the poison of unbelief. ", And this nearness of Christ I take simply to be the blessed hope here made a practical power. A burning zeal for God was the hall-mark of Jewish religion. She laid the thing out, carefully cut it out, but she really had never sewn anything before. Returning, however, to the women Evodia and Syntyche, they had devoted themselves to an exceedingly happy and prized service. Let us be humbled on account of our sins. Comment: Amazing, transforming grace, is able to change a But while he was on his way, just before arriving in Damascus about noontime, there came a light from heaven brighter than the noonday sun. They were more obedient in his absence than in his presence. "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus," feeling, judgment, everything, guarded and governed by this precious peace of God. If he desired for them that they should be without one stumble till the day of Christ, it was the purpose to which grace had girded up his own loins. In modern speech that would mean that the body is an utterly evil and horrible thing; but vile in sixteenth-century English still retained the meaning of its derivation from the Latin word vilis which in fact means nothing worse than cheap, valueless. Thus we know how on approaching Rome Paul was lifted up and comforted, as he saw those who came to greet him. How truly he accounted himself less than the least of them! J. It was in the body that Christ rose and it is this body which he sanctifies ( 1 Corinthians 6:13 ff.). Let this be the end of everything; before you get to the end of it, and when you do get to the end of it, rejoice in the Lord.. What they did seems a much more proper thing, in my judgment, for a woman. As far as his zeal and according to the righteousness that is in the law, he was blameless. WebFee's commentary on Paul's letter to the church in Philippi. He is my Lord." In fact, I think sometimes it is impossible to rejoice in circumstances. All these things Paul might have claimed to set down on the credit side of the balance; but when he met Christ, he wrote them off as nothing more than bad debts. Here the King James Version is dangerously misleading. Far from losing sight of our past ways, it is a very wholesome thing indeed to remember them: we are never safe in forgetting what we are and have been. The very language Paul uses to describe the Law--excrement--shows the utter disgust for the Law which his own frustrated efforts to live by it had brought him; and the joy that shines through the passage shows how triumphantly adequate he found the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I can't get over that. The Apostle John says, "Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). It was not simply something which had happened to Jesus, however important it was for him. He stresses the fact that he had been born into the Jewish faith and had known its privileges and observed its ceremonies since his birth. May it be so with us! " b. Was this all the apostle had to say? Here and there at strategic military centres the Romans set down their colonies. Not so: Christ is always better; and so says he, "Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. c. The Lord Jesus Christ: The title Lord was also applied to the Roman Caesar. He and Wesley carried out a mission in Cornwall, near Land's End, and Nelson tells about it. For them there was the possibility of the same kind of persecution, and even the same kind of death, as threatened himself. He therefore puts all his energy into his efforts to reach this goal, just as a runner strains every muscle to reach the finishing line and gain the prize (12-14).Mature Christians will have the attitude to life that Paul has just outlined. The Lord is at hand." His only pride is that he is a man for whom Christ died. what than the testimony for God? But this is not the character of Christian joy. Then he turns, not to doctrine after this opening, but to circumstances, to circumstances, however, illumined with Christ The most ordinary details are taken out of their own pettiness (though it is really a little mind which counts them petty), and are made simple and genuine, and this through Christ Jesus intermingled with them. and here I am in my little pompous righteous throne, judging everybody else who isn't living by my standards. 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. Because he lives, we shall live also; his victory is our victory. But if a man is to be in special relationship with God, something far more is needed than a mark in his body. First of all He emptied Himself, becoming a slave and a man; and having thus come down, so as to take His place in the likeness of men, He, found in figure as a man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to the lowest point of degradation here below. WebPhilippians 3:611 The New International Version (NIV) 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he said, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus." But "that in nothing I shall be ashamed." To rise with the saints; to enter with them into the blessedness of the heavenly inheritance, was an object that the apostle thought was worth every effort which could he made. Phinehas had saved the people from the wrath of God, and been given an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God ( Numbers 25:11-13). They were coupled with the gospel in all its conflict and progress. If then, matter is essentially evil, the body is essentially evil and will remain evil whatever you do with it. "Let me be found in Christ, that I may attain the resurrection of the dead, be found a believer in him, and interested in him by faith," Observe. WebJamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 14. high callingliterally, "the calling that is above" (Ga 4:26; Col 3:1): "the heavenly calling" (Heb 3:1). He had his heart on these two great peculiarities of the Christian religion. Paul evidently expected that the Rapture could happen before he died (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Now I do count them, thirty years later, I still count them loss. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are [really] the enemies of the cross of Christ ( Philippians 3:17-18 ): You know, there are a lot of people who talk a lot about Jesus Christ but are enemies of the cross of Christ. "I want to hang on to the flesh. The effect of their teaching was to take men further away from God instead of to bring them nearer to him. Includes commentary, questions, and applications on Philippians 3:1 I am sure he wasn't rejoicing in the circumstances themselves. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. But the phrase, the resurrection of the dead, also might be used, in a more limited sense, to denote the resurrection of the righteous as a most desirable object; and this might be secured by effort. I found it no better than skubala ( G4657) ." There is nothing so unaffectedly humble as real faith, and, above all, that character of faith which lives on Christ, and which consequently lives Christ. Oh that the Lord might make it true of His own! They said that, since grace was wide enough to cover every sin, a man could sin as he liked and not worry; it would make no difference to the all-forgiving love of God. Click to enable/disable _gid - Google Analytics Cookie. WebMatthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Philippians 3:9-14. And so, it is an established righteousness. His language comes from the world of war and athletics and emphasizes the strenuous nature of his efforts to fulfill his vocation. Otherwise you will be prompted again when opening a new browser window or new a tab. I have no confidence in the flesh. Not only was an utterly wrong spirit indulged in the work itself, and toward others engaged actually in it; but even as to the apostle, shut out from such service, a desire to pain and wound was not wanting. "Again I say, Rejoice." So I gave up trying to create a goodness of my own; I came to God in humble faith, as Jesus told me to do, and I found that fellowship I had sought so long.". 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. This is what the Lord intended for me, to be with Him in His kingdom, to share with Him His glory. "Rejoice in the Lord alway." Not in a figurative sense, the resurrection from the death of sin to a life of grace, of which Christ is ". If I could, I would have done it a long time ago," and looking back I am discouraged of trying to go ahead.Or, on the other hand, a person looks back and glories in their victories of the past, and they are resting on their accolades. So these Gnostics taught that gluttony and adultery and homosexuality and drunkenness were of no importance because they affect only the body which is of no importance. (ii) It means to know the fellowship of his sufferings. The Scotchman, too, wherever he may be, remembers the land of brown heath and shaggy wood. And the Irishman, too, let him be where he will, still thinks the Emerald Isle the first gem of the sea. Whence our grace comes--from our being apprehended of Christ Jesus. Now, when the Lord apprehended us, He had in His mind a plan and a purpose for each of our lives. This he must wish for them, if he wished them well. Again, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended (Philippians 3:13; Philippians 3:13), ou logizomai. It is perfectly possible for him to observe all the outward observances of religion and yet have hatred and bitterness and pride in his heart. Did he want more for himself? "That I may win Christ," therefore he says; "and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law." Few preachers would dare to make the appeal with which Paul begins this section. because he. The lad had found a joy which not even the scaffold could take away. The apostle's aim in these actings: I press towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,Philippians 3:14; Philippians 3:14. As far as he was concerned, therefore, why could he choose? Videos. And so looking back to the past, oftentimes, we look at our failures and we are discouraged from trying to go on. "All that time, Mr. Wesley and I lay on the floor: he had my greatcoat for a pillow, and I had Burkitt's notes on the New Testament for mine. Let us then try to see what Paul thinks about when he speaks about righteousness. It is not Paul's aim to know about Christ, but personally to know him. John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. How lovely that even such a man should speak, not merely of his own prayers, but of theirs, turning all to such account. Such is the thought that the apostle had before his soul of that which became the Christian. And she was so excited over the fact that she had been able to labor and work and make her way through college and was going to be graduating. Eternal life is the gift of God (Romans 6:23), but it is in Christ Jesus; through his hand it must come to us, as it is procured for us by him. Impossible that He could be made Jehovah. All we want is, that the eye of faith be a little open; but it is only Christ before the eye that keeps it open. To him to live was Christ. He pressed towards the mark. For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness." ( Judges 5:14; Hosea 5:8). WebThe allusion is to the white line, or mark, which the runners in the Olympic games made up to, and to which he that came first received the prize; and by which the apostle intends the Lord Jesus Christ, who is ( skopov) , "the scope", or "mark", of all the thoughts, purposes, and counsels of God, to which they all aim, and in which they all (i) He was a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents. 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. Joy should be the normal state of the Christian. They say, that in training for the Olympics, you have got to go till it hurts, and you have to work yourself through the pain. Such did, such was, Christ. But this Christian joy enables a man to accept even them with a smile. In a certain sense too he could not, and in another he would not choose. And whereas these judaizing teachers were for drawing them off from Christ, and weakening their joy and glorying in him, he exhorts them in the first place to rejoice in Christ, Php 3:1, and to beware of them, whom he describes as dogs, as evil workers, as the concision, Php 3:2, and opposes to them the characters of real saints, who are truly what they vainly boasted of, really circumcised persons in a Gospel sense, spiritual worshippers of God, joyful believers in Christ, and such as placed no confidence in outward things, Php 3:3, This the apostle illustrates in his own case, who had as much reason for trusting in such things as any man whatever, Php 3:4, of which he gives an enumeration in several particulars, Php 3:5,6, upon which he passes his judgment, and shows of what account, and in what esteem they were with him before, and now; that formerly they were reckoned gain, but now loss, Php 3:7, and which he explains as referring to every thing short of Christ, and in comparison of the knowledge of him, and which he preferred to everything; and this he confirms by his willingness to suffer the loss of all things for him; his ends in which were, that he might win him, and be found in him, without his own righteousness, that legal one the false teachers extolled, and with the righteousness of God which faith receives, and is the only justifying one; and that he might know more of him, feel more of his power, have more fellowship with him, and conformity to him, Php 3:8-10. 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Of their teaching was to take men further away from God instead of to bring them nearer to.! Of actual interest and saving benefit in all the purchase of his efforts to his!
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