In this chapter we get the energy that carries the Christian on through the wilderness in view of the glory. It does not give us the meekness and gentleness of Christ like chapter 2, but the energy that counts all but dross and dung to win Him. Doctrine is not the point in this epistle. Salvation is always looked on as at the end of the journey. The Christian is viewed as in a race, and in that race he is entirely under the power of the Spirit of God; the flesh is not looked at as acting. Christ is before us; the thing we are predestinated to is to be conformed to His image. There is no thought now, inasmuch as there is a man in the glory, of any place or object for the Christian but to be with and like that man in the glory. As Christ was taken up as man into glory, we shall be taken up the same way to be like Him. The thought of the believer can never rest short of that. Paul says that he wants not to be unclothed, but clothed upon. “To depart and be with Christ” is blessed, but it is still waiting. The apostle here says that he will “change our vile bodies.” The cross having come in, it has given us the death of the old man, and the reception of Christ as head of the new family in glory; we look off from everything to this. The hope that is in Christ is that when He appears we shall be like Him. The hope we have is to be like Himself, with Himself surely, but like Himself: nothing short of this is the object of the believer. He would grow undoubtedly, but still it is growth by looking at an object we shall never attain to till we are raised from the dead in His image or changed into it.
There is no mending of the flesh, no sanctification of nature, no forming of man as he is—there is death. The old man has been entirely and finally judged, but Another is now in the glory as man. This we could not have as all object of faith until Christ was risen. God has “provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect” — “perfect,” that is, in glory. That could not be, nor was there any title for it, till the work upon the cross; there was the title and groundwork for all this. There was no connection with Christ as man among the children of Adam; He was a true man, but union there was none whatever. He was one of them, but He was alone. He was a man without sin; we were men with sin: you can never unite the two, for they “are contrary the one to the other.” He could come in grace as a true man amongst us, but He abode alone. In Heb. 2 four reasons are given why Christ took flesh and blood: first, to make atonement; second, for God's glory and counsels; third, to destroy him that had the power of death; fourth, that He should go through every sorrow, and so have sympathy with us. There was perfect grace in Him, but He was alone. People speak of Him as “bone of our bone,” but this is totally false; we are bone of His bone now that He is on high. Wherever you find the thought of Christ being bone of our bone, you get redemption and atonement made unnecessary, or at any rate muddled up. “When atonement has been wrought, then by the Holy Ghost He unites us to Himself, and says we are “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.”
Thus we learn that the only thing by which the flesh can be dealt with is death. Until atonement was made God could not deal with sinners in the way of righteousness; He could forbear— “For the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God.” The difference with us is that righteousness is there before Him, and we are in it. Our souls stand in divine righteousness in the presence of God.
The apostle does not talk of sin in the flesh here. The flesh has its religion as well as its lusts, and this is much more attractive than worshipping God in the spirit, the flesh cannot do this. “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh,” such is the flesh's religion. Paul was the most positive enemy of God all the while. Suppose this blamelessness of Paul— to whose credit was it? Paul's. Wherever religion is a credit to us, it is not worth anything; worse than that, it deceives us. You may have all the truths which do not test faith, and yet be without this. The time will come when whosoever “killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” They thought they were doing God service, but they would not hear of the truth that tested faith—the Father revealed in the Son.
Thus the whole system of the religion of the flesh is set aside here. It is always the truth that tests faith. Suppose I fast twice in the week, and give tithes of all I possess, to whose credit is this? Mine. The moment I get the cross the flesh is judged, and that is no credit to me. The thing that tests faith flesh resists. The disciples would not hear of the Lord's death because it tested their faith. Peter, the very man that owned what He is going to build the church on, says, “That be far from thee,” and the Lord has to call him “Satan.” Although he had got a truth, he had not the flesh judged up to the measure of what he knew; he would not have a truth that breaks through the flesh in a way he does not like.
“That I may win Christ— “this is the great principle of the whole chapter, and you get perseverance in it, which is more. Suppose a man just saved, what does he think about the world? That it has deceived him. Leave him for a while, and his family twine round him, and soon he begins to seek the things of the world. Paul saw Christ on the way to Damascus, and he gives up his importance, his Pharisaism, his teaching, everything else, and he counts all but loss that he may win Him. “And do count them but dung that I may win Christ;” not “did count” such would be comparatively easy. The value of Christ must be fresh enough in the soul, as a present thing, to enable one to count all the rest mere dross and dung. Everybody is governed by the object he is pursuing, and what is more everybody judges of others by the thing he is pursuing himself. One man makes money his object, another pleasure. The man who loves money says, “Oh! what a fool that man is to spend so much on his pleasure,” and the man who loves pleasure says, “What a fool that man is to hoard up his money, it is no better to him than so much clay!”
The moment I want to win Christ, all besides is dross and dung. “You have only to lay aside every weight.” Paul could say, with Christ as his object: only to lay aside is easily said, but the moment it becomes a weight it is easy. When I say “I must get Christ,” death may be on the road, but never mind so that I get Him. The desire is not weakened by the eye being dimmed by present things. Paul goes on. There we get testing. He went on looking at Christ. He had found Christ the satisfaction of his soul, and he did not hunger, he did not thirst, as the Lord says, for anything else. People talk of sacrifices; but there is no great sacrifice in giving up dung. If the eye were so fixed on Christ that these things got that character, it would not be a trouble to give them up. The thing gets its character from what the heart is set on. The moment the heart is set on Christ, all the rest becomes dross. The man with one object is the energetic man. The Christian's one object is Christ— the object God has and the object the Spirit gives to the heart of the Christian. We have not only to say that Christ is the one sole object of the heart; there are distractions. We allow other things to come in, the eye is not single.
Paul however would “be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness.....but the righteousness which is of God by faith.” The apostle was still looking forward as he is always doing in this epistle. Here he speaks of righteousness in contrast (not to his sins, but) to his righteousness. A poor man may not part with his old coat; but if you give him a new one instead, he will soon have done with it. The moment the soul has the eye fixed on the Lord Jesus all his righteousness becomes filthy rags, and the heart revolts from mixing it up with Him. When the Spirit is come, He will convince the “world of sin, because they believe not on me.” The world's sin was proved by not believing on Jesus; all are under sin together. The one single righteous person was turned out of the world: where will you find righteousness now? At the right hand of God. The world will never see Him again except in judgment. Satan was never called “the prince of this world” till Christ came, till the cross. When He comes, Satan raises the whole world against Him. “There is the prince of this world,” the Lord says. He was ruler before, but in the cross Satan was proved the prince of this world.
Again, we hear of “the righteousness which is of God by faith;” not now righteousness of man for God, but of God for man. “Being made conformable unto his death.” In a world where Christ had been rejected, the object of all my hopes is at the right hand of God. I have got a life completely paramount over death. The resurrection of Christ was past sin, past Satan's power, past judgment, past death. The Second man had gone into death—was made sin; but He is risen, and all that is past. God has been glorified, and death belongs to us now as we belonged to it in the first man. We have got this divine life which is above everything in this world. If I know Him, I want to know the power of His resurrection that left everything behind. What comes next? “The fellowship of his sufferings. “Being made conformable unto his death;” all was gain to Paul. Do not we see the blessedness of being a martyr?
“If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead;” death might be on the road, but death would be positive gain because one would be like Christ. Christ risen becomes power in me, going through the same scene as He did. The apostle was a man of like passions with, us, but he was single-eyed. Here he gives us not only the Christ he was going to win, but something he was going to win for himself— “the resurrection from the dead.” In Mark 9:9, 10, we read of “the rising from the dead'' about which the disciples questioned; every Pharisee, every orthodox Jew, believed in the “resurrection of the dead.” What did the resurrection of Christ mean? It was God's seal on everything He was, and everything He had done during His life here. He took Him out from among all the other dead. If He takes people out from among the rest of the dead because He delights in them, that is the seal of their acceptance. Paul says, “No matter what it costs me, I will attain to that.” What condition is the saint raised in? “Sown in weakness, raised in power; sown in dishonor, raised in glory.” “Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.” As God put His perfect seal on Christ and Christ's work, and raised Him, so when He raises us up, He puts His seal on us: only it is because of His righteousness, not our own. The apostle was apprehended of Christ Jesus, but he had not got it yet. “What I am looking for is to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold for me.” When we attain to that, we get Christ Himself and being like Christ; we could not get that down here.
Perfection as to the state of the Christian means perfect conformity to the image of Christ in glory.
Three classes are spoken of here, the “perfect,” those “otherwise minded,” and those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ. The perfect are those who have entered by the power of the Spirit of Christ into this thought of being perfectly like Him. Many a Christian knows only the forgiveness of sins; he has not got the thing that is before him, but the thing that is behind him. The thought of having Christ in glory and being like Him, governed Paul completely; but, like a man going through a strait passage with a lamp at the other end of it, he got more of the light as he went on, though as yet he had not attained. Every step the Christian takes he has got more of the light, “Beholding......we are changed into the same image,” though in a certain sense we have none of it. One has not merely seen redemption that has given him the object, but he is running after the object. He has got what Christianity gives—got all of it, and that, in a certain sense, is perfection. “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling (calling above) of God in Christ Jesus.” Till we are above, we have not got the calling—the effect of it, I mean. It cost Paul suffering, it cost him difficulty, but it filled his heart with joy—filled it with Christ.
You know persons who have found they are poor sinners, who see their sins are forgiven, but they do not see farther; they are “otherwise minded,” but God will reveal this to them; wait a while, have patience. “But many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ” —those who call themselves Christians and love the world. Men who mind earthly things are the enemies of the cross of Christ. The cross and the glory go together, not at the same time of course, but the one depends on the other. The cross of Christ toward this world is saying, “The world seeth me no more.” The cross is perfect security for heaven, but entire judgment of this world. Paul's heart having followed Christ up there, his object, his heart, is there. “One thing I do” —that is the Christian. You may be in various circumstances, you may be a carpenter as Christ was; but the Christian's “conversation is in heaven.” What is he waiting for? For Christ to come and take him to Himself. His heart is fixed on Christ's person. He has won him at the cross, and He has carried him into heaven with Him. I am changed into the same glory as Christ, while it is acting on my soul that I am to be like Him; it governs the heart all the way. The righteousness of the law was the righteousness of man, the law was the measure of man's righteousness. Christ Himself is our righteousness. I have got life from God and righteousness: both are Christ. The power that raised Christ from the dead the Spirit will exercise to raise or change our bodies. These are God's thoughts about us. What am I going to get? Christ, and to be like Christ; then do you run after Him. Can we say we are doing that?
I distrust the moral condition of the man that thinks much of crimes. The thief went into paradise to be with Christ, the moral man went out.
Can we say “this one thing I do"? I have but one thing, and I am pushing on. If you wanted a person to get to London, whether would you rather meet him four miles from London with his back to it, or four miles from Holyhead with his face to London? Even a babe may have his face turned to Christ. Are you going God's way? Can we honestly say, with glory before us, with Christ before us, “One thing I do"? Which way does your eye turn? Which way are you going? God has only one way—Christ.
There is the constant solicitation of distractions on the road: quite true, everything round us is a temptation. When the people came to Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, of what was it the occasion to Him? Of perfect obedience. Of what to Peter? Of temptation.
What one looks for in the Christian is a single eye.
One of the comforts of heaven will be that there I shall not want my conscience; I want it every moment now; I cannot let my heart out now.
The Lord give us in all liberty of heart so to see Him before us that we may run bard after Him, having our hearts kept by the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.