Paul warned the saints in regard to mixing Judaism with the gospel of grace. Those who taught such things, the apostle said, were dogs, evil workers of malice and wickedness. Paul was severe upon such because of His love for the assembly. The Judaizing teachers were the concision.
Paul could boast of what belonged to the flesh in a religious way, but he was changed when he saw a glorified Christ. All religious flesh disappears in the light of the righteousness of God and a glorified Christ.
Paul desired to win Christ; he had Him as Savior and Lord, but he deeply longed to lay hold of His Person as the Object of his heart. He wanted to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. This he desired to obtain at all cost.
Beloved, it is one thing to have our sins forgiven and to be assured of heaven, but it is more, oh so much more, to follow the path of humiliation, in fellowship with Him and with our eyes upon Him.
Peter was a witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory; Paul was a witness of the glory of Christ and a partaker of His sufferings.
We have the present joy of fellowship with One who went into death, leaving the testimony of all of His sufferings to attract our hearts to heaven where He sits at God's right hand, His work and sufferings completed.
Two things stand out in Paul's thoughts here: God's righteousness and the knowledge of Christ.
If resurrection with Christ and to have His likeness were his hope, Paul had not yet attained to it; perfection lay ahead. He was on the road and Christ had apprehended him for it, so he pressed on for the prize.
It was not his sins that he spoke of leaving behind but all of his religious past. It all was dung so that he might win Christ. With his eye fixed only upon Christ he could say to the saints—"Be followers together of me."
Paul had in mind the outward universal assembly, not Philippi, when he said, "For many walk, of whom I have told you often... that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." Professors with an outward form of the faith could walk undetected among real Christians because of a low state in the assemblies. Their end is destruction; they mind earthly things.
Paul says our citizenship is in the heavens. It is there that we look and expect the Savior. Then our vile body will be changed to be like unto His glorious body, because He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.