Philippians 2:3-11
A Spiritual Cheap Shot
Some incidents may be small relative to the scheme of things, but they stay with us. During my young adult years, I played in a church softball league. On the drive home after one of our games, one of my friends realized he had left a ring at the game. It was not a wedding band, but he was shaken anyway. The four of us agreed to go back to look for it.
We scoured the area around the infield for about an hour. Finally, our friend agreed that the prospect was hopeless, and we got back into the car.
Everyone was quiet for the first part of the drive back. I could tell that our friend grieved the loss of his ring.
Then one of the guys said, “You know, when something like this happens to me, I try to think about what kind of lessons I can draw from it.”
We took the cue, and one by one began to invoke little points of forced application. I added my own.
My actions felt like a betrayal. Our words told our friend, “Your loss lacks significance unless we can attach some kind of symbolic spiritual value to it.” We might as well have said, “Real Christians shouldn’t be so attached to their things.”
The Real Meaning of Loss
In his letter to the Philippian church, the Apostle Paul resorts to language that reveals a deep attachment to personal loss.
The church at Philippi came about because of his work, and it became his closest fellowship (see Acts 16:6-40). For that reason, Philippians reads more like a personal letter than a teaching document. A lot of detail that was obvious to Paul and the church remains unstated, and we are left to fill in the blanks.
One of these blanks occurs in chapter 3, where Paul calls the church to look out for dogs who mutilate the flesh (Philippians 3:2-3). Obviously, he refers to Jews who practice circumcision, but beyond that, we have little hard information.
We know that Judaism was tolerated by the empire. As a matter of conjecture, some of the Christians in the church may have considered becoming proselyte Jews to avoid persecution by Rome.
Paul sees their plans as spiritual compromise. The term he uses—three times in Philippians 3:3-4—is “confidence in the flesh.” Their anticipated circumcision will diminish the value of their faith by lessening the cost of discipleship. The tactic that he uses is to show them what his stand has cost.
He builds a three-part argument. First, he lists his boasting points from his former Jewish faith. Second, he shows that he had lost everything for his stand in Christ. And third, he unveils the gains that Christ has given him.
In verses 5-6, Paul lists seven points of confidence in the flesh, the marks of pride that he once had treasured. The first four hearken back to his pedigree as a Jew:
- Circumcised on the eighth day
- Of the people of Israel, that is, one who could prove his Jewish heritage
- Of the tribe of Benjamin, a prominent tribe in Israel
- A Hebrew of the Hebrews, in other words, one of the pure Hebrews
In other words, his pedigree was impeccable. Following these, he added three points of accomplishment:
- As to zeal, a persecutor of the church
- As to the law, a Pharisee, one who practiced the law codes scrupulously
- As to the righteousness of the law, blameless
The Value of Being
These seven points summarize everything that he valued before he became a believer. Notice two qualities about them.
One, they have to do with self-identity. They are the points of definition that once defined his being as a man.
Two, they are history. He has lost every single one. Ss deliberately as he defined his cultural manhood, he gave them up equally deliberately when he came to faith.
The Cost of Loss
The cost of his faith becomes clear in the second section of this passage. He describes his losses in accountant’s terms:
Philippians 3:7-8 (ESV)
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…
Many have considered this part of the passage to be triumphal, the words of the indominable apostle who can mock his past.
I do not think this is the case. For one, the cost accounting language alone denies the notion. When Paul declares “everything as loss,” he means that his losses are real.
Additionally, if we make Paul’s language out to be triumphal rather than a statement of grief, we deny him the value of his relationship with Christ. Notice that he says, “…in order that I may gain Christ.” Without genuine loss, his gains would have no meaning.
The third section will show exactly what he means gaining Christ.
The Value of his Gain
Paul’s gains in Christ form a mirror image of the things he has lost—that is, three points of Christ’s accomplishment for him, and four points of position in Christ. Verse 9 shows what Christ has given him, in contrast to what he had accomplish on his own in the past:
- To be found in Christ
- Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law
- To have the righteousness from God that depends on faith
Then, in contrast to his earlier four points of pedigree, verses 10-11focus on points of intimacy with Christ:
- That he may know Christ
- That he may know the power of his resurrection
- That he may share Christ’s sufferings
- That he may become like him in his death in order to obtain the resurrection from the dead
Paul’s life of faith began when his personal glory was stripped from him. He could come to Christ only with empty heart and hands. But now he is filled to overflowing. How could that be anything but infinite worth?
Doug Knox