“Finally my brethren, rejoice, in the Lord.” (Phil. 3:1.) “Every tongue” shall “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” (see Phil. 2:11,) that time is not yet come, but we in spirit know Him to be the Lord, and we are to rejoice in Him, but to do so we must be where He is; He is not here; but though unknown, though unseen here, we know Him. Here, we announce His death till He comes, we express His severance from this scene, as well as our own release from the judgment of it. We rejoice in the Lord because God has highly exalted Him, and we know it, are with Him in spirit, and can thus, rising out of all the contrariety here, rejoice in Him. We cannot if we are in the flesh, hence the apostle adds “we are the circumcision... who have no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil. 3:3.) Concision is paying off, shaping, and altering the flesh; circumcision is being clean out of it.
The excellence of the knowledge of Christ, where He is now, outweighs all the perfection of flesh; be refuses the lower, as he finds his place in the higher; lie finds a righteousness suited to his new place in Christ, and to win Him—to know Himself as possessing Him, is the desire and aim of his spirit; he would suffer anything here in company with Him. “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling,” (Phil. 3:14) glory is my home, I am rejoicing with my Lord, where He is. He is acknowledged Lord in glory, but not here yet, I know Him there; glory’s light has reached me, because now there is no check to it. It is the ministration of righteousness. When at Mount Sinai glory spoke to man, it was that of condemnation. When it opened on Saul of Tarsus it spoke in righteousness.
Righteousness that enabled the glory to shine down on Saul and not consume him; it shone around him to reveal a Saviour to him, it was the ministration of righteousness; thus it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. (See Gal. 1:16.) If there were not divine righteousness filling the glory, the light of the glory would not shine down and arrest a sinner in the midst of his sins, like Saul.
The gospel now is light from the glory; and the glory is the home and locality natural to the one in Christ.... If you are in the glory you must be divinely righteous; if you are divinely righteous, you are not at home save there. Glory is connected with it. Glory comes to you because of it, and you run on to glory. “Christ in you, the hope of glory;” (Col. 1:27) because of it. You wait for the Lord to take His great power, and to change your vile body. (Phil. 3:21.) But being out of yourself, and in Him, you rejoice in Him as your Lord, and look for Him in the day of His power.