Pastor Luther Walker resumes the Sunday morning service in Philippians, turning to the more excellent way. In Philippians 2:19-24 Paul notes that no one shared the same soul-level emotional concern for the Philippians that he possessed. In chapter 3 he issues a clear warning: beware of dogs—those who return to their former sins after being helped; beware of evil workers; and beware of the mutilation—those who insist on physical circumcision and life under the Mosaic Law. True circumcision is of the Spirit. Believers render religious service to God in spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and place no confidence in the flesh.
Paul then demonstrates that fleshly credentials hold no lasting value. If anyone could boast in the flesh, it would be him: circumcised on the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee concerning the law, zealous to the point of persecuting the church, and blameless in the righteousness that is from the law. He had been trained under Gamaliel, the teacher of Israel, and held authority sufficient to consent to Stephen’s death. Yet every earthly advantage—position, training, status, and zeal—he now counts as loss for the surpassing excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. He regards them as rubbish so that he may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of his own derived from law, but the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
Living by faith means taking God at His word without requiring visible miracles, audible voices, or emotional experiences. The Holy Spirit indwells and teaches the believer how to abide in Christ. The power of Christ’s resurrection is the inherent ability given to every believer: freedom from the mastery of the sin nature, victory over Satan, and the capacity to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). This same resurrection produces a living hope—an expectant anticipation of God’s fulfilled promise that can be applied in the present (1 Peter 1:3).
Fellowship with Christ’s sufferings involves sharing the passions of one who has crucified the flesh with its desires (Galatians 5:24). It includes the intense pressure that arises when the believer refuses the sin nature, resists Satan, and continues in righteousness even when that choice brings grief or opposition (1 Peter 4:1; 5:8-9; 2:19-21). Believers are also being conformed to His death: the old man who belonged to Adam has been crucified so that the body of sin is rendered idle and no longer rules (Romans 6:6); the world system has been crucified to the believer and the believer to the world (Galatians 6:14); and a carnal mind that seeks emotional experience rather than truth produces death, while a spiritually minded life produces life and peace (Romans 8:6).
Paul’s aim is to attain the resurrection from the dead in the sense of fully living out his identity in Christ now—not earning eternal life, which is already possessed by everyone who has the Son (1 John 5:11-12), but laying hold of that life through the proper struggle of the faith (1 Timothy 6:12), working out salvation with respect for the consequences of sowing and reaping (Philippians 2:12), and practicing the armor of God. Christian life is not presented as ease; it involves suffering for righteousness, yet that suffering is itself a gracious gift.
Paul does not claim to have already reached full maturity or his intended end. He presses on—pursues with the intensity of a persecutor—so that he may lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of him. He forgets what lies behind, including his former persecution of the church, and reaches forward to what lies ahead. He pursues according to the goal, on the basis of the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus—a prize he already possesses. The goal is Christ Himself and the consistent living out of identity in Him. Believers are to keep their eyes fixed on that mark, carefully scoping those who walk according to the same pattern, and refuse to be distracted by past failures or present fleshly credentials.
