Chapter 3
2024 - Look how this ties directly back to Isaiah 28,29, which are today's reading in the OT. The Law has fallen. Paul is telling them that there is no longer a "self-earned" righteousness, that in fact it was never possible. This is what Isaiah was prophesying about !
2023 -Much argument in here against "Salvation of the Soul".
2022 - First verse:
1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you. [Phl 3:1 ESV]. MSB says Paul is saying he doesn't mind repeating in writing what he told them when he was there. By repeating it, he hopes to keep them "safe" from the false teachers. This makes sense in light of verse 2...
Early in this chapter, Paul gives the Philippians a general warning about people they should be careful about:
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. [Phl 3:2 ESV]
Also, in the NASB:
2 Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; [Phl 3:2 NASB]
MSB confirms that Paul is "reversing" the usual connotations of these words. The Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs, but Paul here uses the word of Jews. MSB says the word translated as circumcision here is more like mutilation. Rather than a sacred thing, showing covenant relationship, Paul says it is now like the prophets of Baal, mutilating themselves to get the attention of their god. This is such a huge reversal of connotation as to "jolt" us into recognizing how much things have changed with the coming of Christ. Now, the circumcision are those who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus.
2022 - When you read these first three verses, it is easy to see why the "elite" Jews would have absolutely despised Paul. They would have seen him as distorting their teachings - targeting their congregations specifically - for recruitment into his new and, to them, entirely false religion. In that time, killing those who opposed them was probably not even unusual. After all, Paul had made a living throwing Christians into prison, and now he is their most outspoken evangelist. Paul was telling the Jews that their day had come and gone. That they ought to abandon the rules with which they were brought up, eat some bacon, and relax. Imagine telling all the SBC preachers that they are no longer needed because there is a new "vehicle" for spreading God's word, and churches are no longer how we do that. Not saying they'd kill people, but you know they'd fight it as false teaching and say that anyone who took that road was likely to go to hell.
2023 - This verse: 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [Phl 3:7 ESV]. So if we take the Chitwood/Davis position that it is works that save the soul, though belief saves spirit and body (IF I am understanding what they believe!) then explain to me how that is different from what Paul did under the Law? The Law is what was in force and effect when Paul started out, and besides mere compliance with the Law, he recounts his "works" in the previous verses- circumcision on the 8th day, "on the roll" of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, zealous to the point of physical persecution of "detractors", perfect under the rules of the law, and blameless as to the law. That's a lot of good works. And then we get vs 7. All that gain was loss in the light of Christ's grace. But under the Law, it IS fair to say that works were required, though not saving. Omission of the sacrifices and trips to Jerusalem and so on could presumably get you "excommunicated", or banished might be a better word, from the theocracy of Israel. So...under grace, faith without works is dead. Under grace, there is NO requirement of works, but lack of them calls your salvation into question. So shall we say that the more works their are the more potent your salvation? You have to ask "why the works"? And I think it is shown below, in that works are now done from a grateful heart, than as a debit on the balance sheet. Maybe I need to break down and just read that book again, and make a final decision on what, if anything, is the false teaching in that book. Yes. I need to do that. That will be my December book to read.
2023 - vs 9, How can Paul call his works "rubbish" if they are what will ultimately "save" his soul???? That's like Paul saying he is GLAD he baptized so very few people. If works are critical to saving our souls, then they are most certainly NOT rubbish, any more than an evangelist who's life goal is seeing as many saved as possible would refuse to baptize if that baptism completed the process of salvation, and was indispensible to it!!!
Paul gets biographical now, showing that if anyone at all has reason for confidence in their "Jewishness" it is him. This verse is worth noting:
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- [Phl 3:9 ESV]
Here is the way of salvation. Not because of our own righteousness, whether we think we earned it by perfect obedience to the Law as many Pharisees believed they had, or inherited it as physical descendants of Abraham, or were born with it, or even because we never lost it. Salvation comes through faith in Christ! Christ IS the righteousness of God, and righteousness comes only through him. Note yet again the reference to being "in him". We are righteous only in that we are hidden in Christ, and God sees the righteousness of Christ as our righteousness. We don't have it, but it is imputed to us based on our position "in Christ". We only "enter" Christ through belief in him. This is what you have to believe to be saved.
2021-2, These first 11 verses are all about demolition of the concept of righteousness through the law, through what we do, what we don't do, what we obey. The Quran is very specific about the contest that is Islam. Those who do the most of these things, who give the most, pray the most, and so on, will be first in line to get into heaven. Belief is necessary in Islam, but it is not sufficient. Only those who DO the most will get into heaven. Here, in these 11 verses, Paul tears down this concept with respect to Judaism, which predates Islam by x,000 years or so, and says this will not work any more. Other places say that works were never the key to salvation, it was always faith. "...no confidence in the flesh...", in vs. 3, is a far cry from both Judaism - still today - and from Islam. The two religions make slaves of their followers. Christianity removes the burden. Redeems those slaves.
2022 - This verse:
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [Phl 3:11 ESV]. It would seem that Paul is making this his ultimate goal. Resurrection. He doesn't say heaven is the goal. But...all saved will be raptured, so hasn't he already accomplished this goal? Does this tie back to "the day of Christ", when the raptured will be judged at the bema seat? Is Paul again referencing that final phase of church-age dispensation, when the raised will be rewarded in heaven by Christ, in their new bodies. This is now what, the fourth time that he has made reference to this as the "last stage". It's four if I am reading it right...
2023 - Putting vs 10 in here also to go with 11 above: 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [Phl 3:10 ESV]. Paul is clearly giving primary importance to the goal of attaining "the resurrection from the dead". How are we to understand this if Paul is already saved? Isn't resurrection at the rapture "automatic" when we're saved? Don't we find Job looking forward to his resurrection, doesn't Mary say she knows Lazarus will rise at the last day, and there are other OT references to resurrection. So...those with true faith under the "dispensation of the Law", expected to be resurrected. So what is Paul talking about? Is he saying he still gets if he believes in Christ? In 7 through 11 Paul is contrasting righteousness under the Law with "knowing Christ Jesus my Lord". Maybe the idea is that the ultimate goal of each of those is the final resurrection. Under the Law, that resurrection is attained by adherence to the Law, which Paul says he had in spades, by circumcision, which Paul had properly done according to the Law, by perfect compliance with the Law which he accomplished as a, and by the rules of, the Pharisees. Paul is saying I WAS ALREADY THERE as far as "earning" the resurrection of the dead, because I did all that the Law required, BUT I GAVE UP that reward, in order to obtain the BETTER WAY to resurrection by following Jesus, by trying to live and to be as he was. JESUS lived, walked, preached, and behaved in a certain way, and Jesus died, and was resurrected and went to the right hand of the Father. Paul is so "focused" on imitation Jesus - indeed he claims that as a goal and he urges others to behave like him because he behaves like Jesus - because he wants to follow Jesus footsteps right up to the throne of God. He wants intensely to be "the image of Christ". He seems to believe that by doing so, he can still achieve the sought after, the promised resurrection of the dead. By doing the same things Christ did, including suffering, dying, and being buried, because Christ did all those things. AND, in vs 12, Paul says "I am not, however, just like him yet, so I must keep working on that!" These are the works Paul has in mind. This is about sanctification. Ok. I think that is the way to look at it.
Then this verse:
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. [Phl 3:12 ESV]
Paul is not done, he has not achieved, he has not become perfect. Sanctification is ongoing, so long as we are alive.
2023 - This verse: 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, [Phl 3:13 ESV]. We often interpret this to mean forgetting the sins we left behind. What Paul left behind was his "perfection" as a circumcised Jew, and what he strains for is the resurrection of the dead that comes instead through FOLLOWING Christ up to and including physical death. Paul believed he had obtained the resurrection of the dead by what he had accomplished as a Pharisee, and by perfect lifelong observance of the Law. He DID BELIEVE he'd done that. And he left that behind to follow Jesus. He does say elsewhere that: 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. [Rom 3:20 ESV]...but here Paul is saying it was always faith, even under the Law, that brought justification. I think Paul had faith in God under the Law. I think Paul means he could have stayed where he was and gone to heaven, but HE GAVE THAT UP and started over as a follower of Jesus, BECAUSE Jesus spoke to him on the Damascus road! That is where Paul is ALWAYS coming from, and is vital to understanding what he means.
2021-2, In contrast to the 2021-2 note above, Paul ALSO makes clear that the work of sanctification is never done. There are still commands - the Great Commission for one, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God" for another, and "love thy neighbor as thyself" is a third. All these things require constant effort and refinement. So it isn't exactly "Come to Christianity in faith and never "work" again", it is "Come to the certainty of eternity in heaven that Christianity conveys through faith, through the work of Christ, work out of gratitude for the grace we are given, rather than out of a debt that must be paid." How much better to work out of a thankful heart than out of life or death obligation?
2022 - This verse - connecting back to 11 possibly:
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. [Phl 3:14 ESV]. Wow. Thinking about Arlen Chitwood and Jed's obsession with works. Paul seems very much to be saying that his eyes are on that prize. That he is motivated on earth by the reward that he will receive on the day of Jesus Christ. As if his whole purpose in life, post salvation, is to press on toward that goal. I can see that this little chapter might be the proof text for looking at things that way. Even so, this all comes immediately after Paul saying that his "previous works" are of no value in this pursuit. That works of the law are irrelevant to this pursuit. But. is he referring to things done under the Law, to all the self-serving works of the Law that allowed the Pharisees to brag about achieving salvation by their devotion and strict adherence to the Law? No...I think that is going too far. Elsewhere, he talks about his beatings, his shipwrecks, the dangers of the road that he faced, and says all that is nothing. So...what does Paul himself say that he "counts" as accomplishment under the New Covenant? What things are considered sanctifying? Perhaps those who have been saved because of his teaching the gospel? Those he has moved along on their own sanctification? Does he count "people" and not deeds? Pretty hard to make this idea stick too. But it is interesting to see that maybe this is the foundational text for what Jed believes.
2021-2, This verse:
[Phl 3:21 ESV] who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
We usually think of the transforming of our bodies in connection with the verses in Thessalonians. But here it is, in so many words, in Philippians also. It is interesting that we will still have a body, though a much better one, to house our spirit and our soul. We will still be different than the angels in this respect.
2022 - Here it is again! Paul is making resurrection in a glorified body the "end point" of Christian life, the goal, the end. The end is not dying in Christ, the end, in these verses at least, seems to be the resurrection...and/or the bema judgment.
2022 - One last thing though. Even if I take this as referencing what Jed says about "the real goal", I note that there is nothing whatsoever in this "proof text" that talks about saving the soul. That's how Jed sees it. The things we do in this world, the works that we do to reach the goal, are about the goal of saving our souls too, along with our already saved spirits (at the moment of salvation) and resurrection anticipating physical bodies (saved at the rapture. I could be wrong, but I think this is what Arlen Chitwood taught Jed. That the soul is, in fact, saved by our works, and our status in heaven will be based on our works. And if you think about the verses that talk about crowns, and things burned by fire, and suffering loss...you can see that, though I don't trust this as the proper and complete way of understanding it based on the teachings of, so far as I have determined, one man. BUT, it does not seem that in a place of perfect justice, that rewards would not be based on some kind of merit system. I do see that.).