“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20.)
The Apostle Paul, in Phil. 3, exhorts to “rejoice in the Lord.” He is our unfailing resource above all untoward circumstances. He himself had proved this in the prison at Philippi, on his first entrance with Christ’s gospel into Europe, when lie had preached Christ and was thrust into the inner prison for His sake; and now, when, near the close of his life, he had been four years in prison at Rome, he, still, says “rejoice in the Lord.”
The apostle was himself a man in Christ, and in a new creation where all things are of God; and he had given up all that accredited him on earth.
1. A new system, heavenly state or living association was his “by the faith of Christ.” (Phil. 3:20.) He had been divinely translated by seeing the glorified. Jesus in the heavens, and consciously so, by the working of the Holy Ghost, from one divine system into another (Phil. 3): from the Jewish, or the earthly into the Christian, or the heavenly. Of course he knew it only by faith as it was in the Spirit, but what could be more real? For so thoroughly had the glorious Man, the Son of God, who is the Head and Center of this new order of things captivated him that he became dissatisfied with everything here and pushed his way through all to get at Him where He is. A great thing it surely is to be fellow-citizens with the saints, of the household of God, and children of God; blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. This changes all.
We are dead and risen with Christ; “the circumcision” of this day: that is the people so characterized because of Christ’s circumcision or death, in which we have put off the body of the flesh. (Col. 2:11.) A bad habit may be got rid. of in life by energy and effort; an evil nature only by death, and says the apostle “I have been crucified with Christ, and no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me:” and, identified with Christ in his dying to sin, he had died to sin and was no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit; no longer a man in the world under law, but a man in Christ, under grace: the old man and his world, sin’s sphere, gone to the eye of faith—there is a new creation! If we look at the whole system for testing man by law while still in the flesh, it is gone too by our being outside of it if looked at as here in witness; for we stand in the place of God’s judgment of man outside the camp: but this is found in Hebrews, not exactly the subject here, yet there is some resemblance, in principle, for “Ye are come unto mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Saul of Tarsus and the saints, being dead and buried with Christ and risen also with Him, they thus recognize themselves as now in living association with Him in the Spirit and by faith in the heavens. They are in living association with Him in the new constitution of God in Christ in heaven—that mystery which embraces Christ and Christianity and reaches on to the kingdom. Paul was never out of system, i.e., never left to his own will about his place before God and his religion (as, indeed, no saint is): he was no sooner out of the earthly system, than he was translated into the new and heavenly one, the new order of God in Christ; and made meet to be a sharer of the inheritance there, by the Father through Christ’s redemption, (Col. 1:12, 13)
There were two sets of people against which Paul warns in this chapter; the legalists (vs. 2), and the antinomians, or “enemies of the cross of Christ,” (vss. 18,19). Wherever you find persons disporting themselves like young horses, and praising God that they are now free from all system, you may be very sure they are doing so with fleshly breath; ignorant of themselves and of the end that God makes of us in Christ crucified. The boast is a carnal one, and the persons who so ostentatiously make it, will be found ignorant of themselves, antinomian in spirit and enemies of the cross of Christ—for that cross has not become to them the end of self, or the means of delivering and of “separating them from this present evil age,” nor of cutting them off by death to sin from all their estate as men born of the first Adam and living in the world. Their freedom from all system is the mere carnal enjoyment of now being able to do their own will free from all control and mind earthly things, ignoring the claims of the Risen Man in the center of a divine state in heaven which demands a walk and a worship in obedience here, suited to the administration of the mystery in Christ by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
Slaves in Egypt, the children of Israel were delivered by the power of God out of it, by the opening of the Red Sea, and they were brought to Himself by that which had become destruction to their enemies; but, though they were God’s ransomed people singing their song of deliverance as Jehovah’s free men, they were placed ultimately under the theocratic government, all the laws and ordinances of which they were commanded to observe. They were placed by Jehovah Himself in His system of things for an earthly people, and the minutest directions were given them for work, walk, and worship, and all on the ground of redemption. This was the system of God in goodness and government in which they were tested whether they would be obedient or not; and they were disobedient and rebellious and were set aside by God; and another order of things was introduced and manifested here in the power of the Holy Ghost. This is Christianity.
And the Christians of this period are as really placed in God’s new order in Christ for the heavens as the Hebrews were placed in His old system in Moses for the earth. God has a present order, and it is the privilege of His saints as it is their responsibility, practically to own it, by renouncing all merely human systems and being with the Lord who is its center and those who are divinely gathered in spiritual order around Himself, as led by the Holy Ghost. To be outside of that which is a practical owning of Christ and God’s system in the heavens by rebelling against that which is a practical response to it in the presence and present action of the Holy Ghost on earth in gathering saints to the name of the Lord Jesus on the divine basis of the unity of the Spirit:— “One body and one Spirit” is a denial of Christianity or what the cross has done in severing saints from the world and shutting them in to God and Christ in heaven.
This then, is the order of things into which Paul found himself translated., as did all the saints of God’s assembly; the heavenly system for the glory of God’s Son, being in union and living association with Him above, by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven, and under the guidance, governance, and grace of the same Spirit, giving a practical expression of our oneness with a glorified Christ in the heavens by our walking, working, and worshipping with all such as own Christ, and stand by His interests outside the world and everything that is not of Him or of the new creation where all, things are of God. God be praised for the privilege of being consciously and practically in this new and heavenly system of things, that is, in living association with the beloved Son of God, to show our love to Him practically by our obedience.
Instead, then, of indulging in fleshly glorying that we are “out of all system,” (God’s as well as man’s, for that is what men, in their carnal hardihood, now dare to do) let us be thankful if He has given us to feel something of the seriousness, solemnity, responsibility, and exceeding and eternal weight of glory, as well as blessedness, attaching to being in practical fellowship with God’s counsels and actings for the glory of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Christian being normally “enlawed to Christ,” or duly subject to Him (1 Cor. 9:21), “he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4, see also Eph. 4:1-7).
Though it is only as yet precautionary, the apostle gives energetic warning against those who would lead them practically out of the heavenly state into the earthly— “See to dogs; see to evil workers; see to the concision.” Some think he meant the heathen with their low and degrading practices: Christian teachers not rightly dividing the word of truth: and Jews with their formal ceremonies. It is more likely they were the same men, Judaizing false teachers—so characterized, and a real danger to the Christian state. As distinguished from them the apostle says— “For we are the circumcision (1) who worship by the Spirit of God, (2) and boast in Christ Jesus and (3) do not trust in the flesh.” The Jewish system had its worship in sacrifices, services and ceremonies, and was conducted by an ordained priesthood, and the people were not directly and personally occupied with their worship. But we have the Holy Ghost, and according to the Lord’s word we worship God in Spirit and in truth; and “by the Spirit of God,” and not by others or by anything outward. And our boast is in Christ Jesus known in glory, where He now is: and we have no confidence in the flesh—that is, in whatever would make anything of us on the earth, such as being well-born, “exceedingly zealous for the traditions of the fathers,” or accomplished legalists, “mighty in word and in deed.”
Then Paul describes what his trust in the flesh was, when he was in the old system with Saul as his center; and he enumerates the things that were gain to him. He, above all men, had, in this, a ground of trust. None could say of Paul that he was despising the things he did not possess: for, in the very form of the words he uses, he asserts his having all the privileges and advantages which made him superior to all these Judaizing men— “dogs, evil workers, the concision” if he cared to claim them. He was no mere proselyte, but in regard to circumcision an eighth-day one; of the tribe of Benjamin—not an Ephrainaite; a descendant of Israel—not an Idumean: a Hebrew, born of Hebrew parents, not one of his ancestors having been other than a Hebrew: therefore of pure descent. Then follow what distinguished him in his personal position; (1) as regards the law of Moses—a Pharisee; (2) as concerning zeal persecuting the church; (3) as touching the righteousness which is grounded on the law having become blameless, having carried it so far (Gal. 2:13,14). But all these things and whatever was gain to him besides—privileges, attainments and prospects—these very things, the entire category, in the bloom of youth, he had counted. “loss for Christ.” It is not the sins of the flesh he here renounces but its righteousness—its cherished religiousness the last thing a pious and zealous legalist would have parted with.
But the secret of his so regarding and renouncing them is thus revealed; he had found—
2. A new object at his conversion, to which his language glances back; for he had seen the glorified Son of God in a blaze of light above the brightness of the noonday sun, and he had heard Him challenge his persecution of His saints as if of Himself; and this new object never left his life-long gaze, and when He was revealed, not only to him, but in him, he had no hesitation in cleaving to Him, though this was done at the expense of renouncing all that went to make a man of him in the world, and give him the most superior ground for glorying in the flesh. Saul is no longer the center of his thoughts, or of his pursuit, but the glorified Son of God has become so. His faith in Christ supplanted all confidence in the flesh. This new object so charmed, enchained, and engrossed him, that all the good things to which he is referring were regarded by him as one tremendous loss, positive damage and disadvantage. A career, rich in all sorts of gain, was opened up to him, for which his university course at Tarsus, and his theological training at Jerusalem, under the famous Gamaliel, had eminently fitted him. But, said he, “These I have counted loss on account of Christ.”
And in vs. 8th, by the use of various particles and forms of words, the apostle introduces a supplementary and extended statement, in which the present is substituted for the past, and “these things” become “all things;” and “the surpassingness of the knowledge of Christ” is given as the reason for his present decision. What are all gains, attainments, possessions, or prospects in comparison with the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ? As in 2 Cor. 3 he contrasts “the ministration of condemnation,” and “the ministration of the Spirit,” and says, “For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth;” so here, the “excellency of the knowledge of Christ” eclipses, darkens, and annihilates “all things” as an object. “All things” in comparison of “Christ Jesus my Lord” are as nothing. For Him I have suffered the loss of all things at my conversion, that I might have Him as a possession, and I have them no more; but I would not have them if I might, for I now count them but rubbish and refuse. This is my present mind after a life of suffering in His service, that they are refuse and Christ is all. He counts all but refuse that he may gain Christ and enjoy Him as His prize at length in the glory in heaven, and have a spiritual foretaste of it in his daily experience by faith. True, Paul knew Christ and had Him when converted; but, just as his old advantages in the flesh would have led on to more and more gain of all sorts likely to fall to the lot of a strict, religious, capable, and energetic Pharisee, so this gaining Christ (though He will only be really had as his at the end,) was enjoyed in the Spirit as he acquired more and more of his object while he went on in the path of faith and experience, and his object became so precious that he spoke of the things he had “in the flesh” with positive scorn and disgust, in comparison of Christ and the joy he found Him even now to be to him. When the things which accredit us “in the flesh,” are by faith and grace, counted as the refuse or leavings of a feast, or, as our version has it, “dung,” it is not difficult to give them up. The Judaizing Christians who boasted of being “the circumcision,” regarded the uncircumcised as dogs, as all ritualists, to this day, do those who boast in Christ and “worship by the Spirit of God.” But the apostle shows, in his own case, that all those things in which they boasted were regarded by him as mere refuse. Forms, ceremonies, services and legal observances, are looked upon by those who get Christ as the nearest object to their hearts, as nothing better than mere refuse; and when this is so it is not difficult to give them up. But it was not Paul’s experience that he gave up all the things that had himself as a center of importance, and then he got Christ; but he first saw the glorified Son of God, and He became so entirely his object that all the things which made something of him were given up as a natural necessity of his new life in Christ; and not only were they parted with on account of Christ, but cast from him with disgust and contempt as filth and refuse.
In “Galatians” he goes fully into the mischief which a mixing of law and gospel, ordinances and the Spirit, would produce; but, here, he contents himself with warning against the instruments of this confusion of “flesh” and “spirit”; and with spewing that, in his own case, and at the outset of his Christian course, he had been cleared of all this, as a ground of confidence, by having his confidence placed in Christ alone, and having him as an object before his mind and heart. He says, emphatically, “we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God; and who glory in Christ Jesus; and place no confidence in the flesh.” The three go together, but our boast in Christ Jesus occupies the central place. “On account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,” shows how exclusively he rejoiced in the Lord: but he was to him “Christ Jesus my Lord.” And no man will rejoice in the Lord until he can say of Him as the object of his supreme affection “my Lord.”
The attainment of this possession is the ground for determining the value of all other possessions in their relation to this “excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord” and the conviction and estimate with regard to them are that they are hindersome, and hurtful, and, besides, entirely valueless. With Christ as gain, these are loss. As the rising of the sun in its glory, not only dispels the darkness but also blots out all the stars of heaven, so Christ surpasses all that Saul counted gain; and his life follows his convictions. Christ had become supremely precious to him, and this moral revolution having been produced within him, there has also been generated a divine energy and spiritual activity, which impel him onward in the Christian course towards more and more attainment of the knowledge of Christ; and this moral energy flows from its living source in Christ risen and glorified in the presence of God in heaven, and works continuously in the renewed mind and affections.