Philippians 3:4b-14 Commentary

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, Paul speaks extensively of “gain” [kerde*] and “loss” [zemian]. While the terms are largely financial, to Paul they refer to something far more important than money and assets. 

He employs these financial concepts to refer to the impact of God’s amazing grace on his whole person. The apostle is talking not about his wallet or financial portfolio’s gains and losses, but about his eternal wellbeing.

While Paul likely wasn’t financially wealthy, his Jewish contemporaries initially thought of him as spiritually wealthy. The religious credentials of the one whose parents had named Saul were, quite simply, impeccable.

In fact, the apostle begins this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson by asserting that he had every reason to put his “confidence” [pepothenai] in what he calls “the flesh,” which was another name for his “obedience of God’s law.” Paul, in fact, insists he had more reason to be confident in his obedience than anyone else (4). No one had more reason to literally trust in their obedience to meet God’s expectations than the apostle.

Paul could be that confident because, among other things, the Torah’s guidelines for godly parenting shaped his background. His parents, after all, had him “circumcised on the eighth day” (5a). That means the apostle was no Johnny-come-lately convert. He’d been Jewish from birth.

Paul’s family tree was also highly impressive. He was, after all, “of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin” (5b). The apostle was, in other words, something of a Jewish “blueblood.” Israel’s first king, Saul, was among his ancestors. 

Paul’s observance of Torah was, what’s more, highly conformed to God’s law. “In regard to the law,” he was “a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting of the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless” (5c-6). He’d been and done everything his Jewish contemporaries thought God expected of them. No one had a better religious track record than the apostle.

In some ways we might summarize the apostle’s obedience to God as what verse 6b calls amemptos (“faultless”). Initially his Jewish contemporaries literally thought of him as “blameless.” Paul was what The Message paraphrases as “a meticulous observer of everything set down in God’s law.”

It’s tempting for Jesus’ friends to simply condemn Jews like Paul’s confidence in their godliness without any kind of concurrent self-examination. It’s tempting to assume this is strictly a Jewish (or other religions’) problem.

It’s among the privileges of proclaimers of good news through Jesus Christ to encourage Christians to examine the basis for our own confidence. We might pastorally note that while we profess God saves us by God’s grace that we receive with our faith, we’re tempted to see our behavior as setting us above our brothers and sisters in Christ. Preachers might even share concrete examples of our own temptations to be confident not just in Jesus Christ, but also in our own relative morality.

Then preachers can turn, by God’s grace, to a profession of our gains and losses through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In verse 7 Paul speaks of the apparent “gain” [kerde] that was his Torah-obedience. While that term may not be easily understandable, The Message calls his gain “credentials” that his Jewish contemporaries thought of as “something special.”

Yet Paul goes on to insist the religious credentials others thought of as so valuable he now considers worthless. “Whatever were gains to me,” he writes in verse 7, “I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.” In verse 8 Paul echoes that assertion with its “I consider them garbage [skybala].”

In other words, the apostle’s rigorous Torah-observance his Jewish contemporaries thought of as amazing accomplishments, he now considers to be a colossal waste of time and energy. What’s more, his impeccable credentials most of his Jewish neighbors thought of as invaluable, he now considers to be literally the kinds of scraps people feed to dogs or livestock.

Of course, Paul’s obedience had value. As it showed his love for God above all and his neighbor as himself, it honored God and blessed the people around him. The commandments he obeyed reflected the kind of lifestyle for which God creates us.

But Paul insists all of that obedience is trash when we compare it to the glittering treasure that is a faithful relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In verse 8-9 he insists, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I have [ezemiothen] lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain [kerdeso] Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.”

The apostle loads these verses with talk of loss and gain. It’s almost as if he’s expressing some regret at all the time he’d invested in things that ultimately turned out to be relatively worthless. It’s as if the apostle laments all the energy he expended meticulously keeping the commandments that he could have better spent enjoying and deepening his relationship with Jesus Christ. 

The Message paraphrases verses 8-9 as Paul grieving how “Everything I once thought had going for me is insignificant – dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.”

After all, the Spirit has convinced the apostle that he simply cannot generate enough righteousness [dikaiosynen] to convince God to accept him. Paul now understands the only righteousness that pleases God is the righteousness that comes “through faith [dia pisteos] in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God [ek Theou] on the basis of faith [epi te pistei]” (9).

Here is a dazzling summary of the greatest news the world will ever hear. This is the news our culture is dying to hear. It certainly sobers us by reminding us that while we may be better than most of our neighbors, we can’t be good or kind enough to convince God to rescue us. 

The gospel is that Jesus’ friends can receive the gift of righteousness by faithfully receiving God’s amazing grace to us in Jesus Christ. Through the saving life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has done for us what we neither want to nor can do for ourselves: justify us.

So we can stop our worthless attempts to save ourselves, each other and our world that finally lead only to more death and its deadly ways. God’s adopted children simply faithfully accept the treasure that is God’s acceptance of us that raises all of God’s adopted children to a new life of love for God above all and our neighbors as ourselves.

Yet while God’s gracious acceptance of us for Jesus’ sake is instantaneous, Paul goes on to admit our faithful acceptance of God’s acceptance is only gradual. “Not that I have already obtained [elabon] all this, or have already arrived at my goal,” he writes in verse 12. In verse 13a he continues, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of [kateilephenai] it.”

It’s almost as if the apostle admits that he hasn’t yet emptied his hands or pockets of all of those worthless things he once considered so valuable. He hasn’t yet traded in all of his religious credentials and zealotry for the joy of a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul implies he’s still hoarding a few of those things he now recognizes are worthless.

As a result, he admits in verses 12b, “I press on [dioko] to take hold [kateilephenai] of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of [katelemphthen] me.” In verse 13b-14 he adds, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward [epeketeinomenos] what is ahead, I press on [dioko] toward the goal [skopon] to win the prize [brabeion] for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

There’s a whole lot of pressing on, straining toward and taking hold of in this dazzling profession. Paul longs to let go of worthless things so that he may more fully take hold of the Christ who has taken hold of him. He is, as The Message paraphrases this, “Reaching out for Christ who has so wondrously reached out for” him. Paul longs, quite simply, to more fully embrace and welcome the Christ who has so graciously received and welcomed him. 

Paul, in fact, strains and presses on toward the “heavenly” prize God graciously has in store for him. It’s not a prize, as the NIV may imply, that we can somehow win. Verse 14’s original Greek, after all, contains no word for “win.” Paul gives us the sense that he longs to simply receive God’s gift that is the apostle’s heavenward calling, that is, his full participation in the kingdom of God and its righteousness.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

Paul’s observations about “garbage” and Christ’s righteousness may bring to mind a kind of Holy Spirit “recycling.” All of the things the apostle once considered spiritual treasures, such as his ancestry, upbringing and obedience of Torah, he now considers junk. It’s as if he’s slowly emptying his pockets and dumping them in a kind of garbage can.

Yet we also might say the Spirit is graciously recycling those things which are no longer of any value to Paul. The Spirit transforms acts of obedience that are worthless as applications for God’s acceptance into acts of loving service to God and our neighbor. 

So, for example, honoring one’s parents and other persons in authority has no value as a way to impress God. But the Spirit can transform them into faithful responses to God’s amazing grace that is loving our neighbors who are all those God puts in authority over us.