Original Meaning
Paul Forestalls a Misunderstanding (3:12–16)
According to 3:8–11, Paul had suffered the loss of all things in order to gain Christ, to be found in him, to know him in both his suffering and in his resurrection power, and to attain the resurrection of the dead. Did this mean that he had reached spiritual perfection? Paul was aware that at least in Corinth some would have drawn that conclusion from his words (1 Cor. 4:8; 15:12). He did not intend to allow such notions to take root in Philippi, however, and so in Philippians 3:12–16 he affirms the incompleteness of his own journey toward the final day stating that, paradoxically, only those who understand their lack of perfection (teteleiomai) have reached spiritual maturity (teleios).
In verses 12–14 Paul reveals the intensity of his concern that the Philippians not misunderstand verses 8–11 as a claim to spiritual perfection in two ways. (1) He repeatedly states that he is imperfect—he has not “obtained,” he has not “been perfected,” and he has not “taken hold” of his ultimate goal. (2) Although the NIV supplies the phrase “all this” after the verb “obtained” in verse 12, the Greek text leaves the object of the verb unexpressed. Literally, Paul’s Greek reads, “Not that I have already obtained, or have already been made perfect.” The effect of this is to focus the reader’s attention fully on the notion that Paul knows he is not perfect. In English we obtain the same effect when we say, “John thinks that he has arrived.” The word “arrived” has no qualifier to tell us at what John thinks he has arrived. Thus all the emphasis is placed on the verb and the attitude of haughtiness it conveys. Although if asked what he had not obtained, Paul might have responded, as the NIV assumes, by pointing to the goals listed in verses 8–11, he has not made the object specific in order to stress the incompleteness of his spiritual journey.2
Paul also speaks positively in verses 12–14 of what he is doing in light of the incompleteness of his spiritual journey. His language comes from the world of war and athletics and emphasizes the strenuous nature of his efforts to fulfill his vocation. In verse 12 he says that he presses on to take hold of the goals listed in verses 8–11, choosing a pair of words that could, in military contexts, refer to the pursuit of one army by another.3 Together the two terms connote a single-minded attempt to reach a particular goal.
According to the NIV, Paul’s goal is to reach “that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” But the Greek phrase behind “that for which” (eph’ ho) usually expresses cause in Paul’s letters, and it probably carries a causal force here. So the goal Paul pursues probably remains all that he has described in verses 8–11, and the second part of verse 12 should be rendered, “because Christ Jesus took hold of me.”4 That is to say, Paul vigorously pursues the knowledge of Christ, his sufferings, his resurrection power, and union with him at the final day because on the road to Damascus, Christ took hold of him (Acts 9:1–19; 22:3–16; 26:9–18). Had that event not taken place, Paul might still be busy “persecuting (dioko) the church” (Phil. 3:6) instead of pressing on (dioko) toward these goals (vv. 12, 14).
Even more expressive of the difficulty of Paul’s exertion to reach these goals is the athletic imagery in verses 12–14. Like a runner who knows that a backward glance at ground already covered will only slow his progress toward the finish, Paul says that he forgets what is behind and stretches out toward what is ahead, so that he might complete the race and win the prize.5 Some interpreters have taken Paul’s claim that he forgets what is behind as a reference to his pre-Christian past (cf. vv. 5–6), but two considerations point away from this interpretation. (1) The point under discussion here is Paul’s progress as a believer, not his progress beyond his days of persecuting the church. (2) When Paul uses athletic imagery elsewhere, the subject is his apostolic labors (cf. 2:16; 1 Cor. 9:24–26). These labors are his focus here too. Paul’s point, then, is that he refuses to rest on his past successes but presses on toward that day when he will present the Philippians and his other congregations blameless to Christ (1:10; 2:14–18; 1 Cor. 1:8; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23).
What is this prize? The term “call” in Paul’s letters, both as a noun and as a verb, possesses a rich theological significance. Just as God called Israel to be his people in the Old Testament (Isa. 48:12; 51:2), so, in Paul’s letters, God calls people from many ethnic and social backgrounds (1 Cor. 1:26; Eph. 3:1; 4:1) into fellowship with Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:9) and into his kingdom (1 Thess. 2:12), and he does this by his grace (Gal. 1:6). This call is not, moreover, to something that will be fully realized in the present but to the future for which the believer now hopes (Eph. 1:18; 4:4). Thus, the heavenly call toward which Paul stretches with all his might is God’s call to be part of the people, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, who will stand justified before him on the final day because of their identification with Christ (vv. 8–11).
Paul’s next statement (v. 15), at least in the Greek text, comes as a surprise. Literally, he says, “Those of us, then, who are perfect, let us think this.” Having just denied that he has been “made perfect” (tetleiomai, v. 12), Paul now numbers himself among the “perfect” (teleioi). Why? The answer comes through a close examination of Paul’s use of the term teleios in his other correspondence. When Paul applies this word to believers, it has the connotation not of perfection in the ultimate sense but of the maturity necessary to distinguish the wisdom of God from the wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 2:6; cf. Col. 1:28) and to use spiritual gifts appropriately (1 Cor. 14:20; Eph. 4:11–13).
Paul’s use of the term in 1 Corinthians 14:20 provides an example. “Brothers,” Paul says, “do not be children in your thinking. In evil be infants, but in your thinking be perfect” (pers. trans.). Paul’s contrast between those who think like “infants” and those whose thinking is “perfect” shows that his primary concern is not with ultimate perfection but with spiritual maturity.6 In Philippians 3:15, then, maturity is a matter of refusing to focus on the spiritual attainments of the past and of realizing how much effort must be expended on the course that lies ahead.
Paul recognizes that everything he has just said will not be acceptable to some believers, perhaps even to some in Philippi. Is it possible that some in Philippi were already showing signs of the perfectionism that had made such deep inroads into the church at Corinth? Might the disunity at Philippi, like the disunity in Corinth, be related to the germination of this way of thinking? There is no need to imagine an itinerant group of troublemakers stirring up controversy at Corinth and then spreading their net in Philippi too. The Hellenistic world was full of notions of religious perfection and salvation, and it would have been as easy to mix these notions with the gospel at Philippi as it was at Corinth. If this had happened, the mixture was not as serious as it had been at Corinth (1:3–11). Thus Paul offers the mild corrective in 3:15b: If some among the Philippian believers hold another position, God will reveal to them the truth.
Paul has only one request of them in the meantime (v. 16): The believers in Philippi should not turn back from the progress they have already made in living lives worthy of the gospel. The verb the NIV translates “live up to” is a rare word in Paul (stoicheo), used only three other times in his letters. In these other occurrences, the word refers to living the life of faith (Rom. 4:12), a life characterized by the Spirit’s fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–25), and a life that God himself has re-created (Gal. 6:15–16). God has begun a good work in the Philippians, and many of these qualities are evident among them (1:6, 9–11), but Paul does not want the slight deviations from the truth that may be present among them to destroy the progress they have already made. That would mean that his apostolic labor on their behalf had been in vain and that he would stand before Christ on the final day, at least with respect to the Philippians, empty-handed (2:16).
Bridging Contexts
AS WE TRAVEL with this passage out of the first century and into our own time, we must remember that it is a warning both against the notion that it is possible, prior to the day of Christ, to “arrive” spiritually and against some disastrous side effects of not allowing this truth to sink deeply into our spiritual consciousness. The passage also offers an antidote to these problems by claiming that believers should have a correct understanding both of God’s requirements that his people be set apart from the rest of the world by their conduct and of God’s intention to end the present suffering and sin in the world by the future appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Both the problems and their solutions have much to say to the contemporary church if we are careful to find true correlations between Paul’s situation and ours and to avoid some common interpretive pitfalls.
True Parallels Between the Ancient and Modern Contexts. In Paul’s time the problem lay in the commonly accepted notion that the world of human existence was a changeable, unpredictable, and corruptible place that everyone would do well to escape or manipulate. Astrology and magic offered ways of “controlling” the forces that were thought to govern the world, and various new religions from the eastern part of the empire offered redemption from the world itself.
In places like Corinth and Philippi, it is easy to see how recent converts might be tempted to combine elements of these popular religious convictions with the gospel message they had lately embraced. Manifestations of the Spirit’s power in miraculous healings and ecstatic utterances could become signs that the believer had already been transferred out of the realm of the corruptible world and into the pure, spiritual realm of the heavenly world. Since the body belonged to the corruptible realm, moreover, its conduct was irrelevant—some might feel that denying legitimate bodily pleasures such as sexual intercourse within marriage was consistent with their new status as spiritual people (1 Cor. 7:1–7), while others might insist that bodily appetites could be indulged without restriction (1 Cor. 6:12–13).14
In some parts of the modern church a similar merger of astrology, magic, and Eastern mysticism in the form of the “New Age” movement continues to pose a threat. Like their ancient counterparts, the religions that make up the New Age movement give greater importance to the mind than to matter and greater weight to the imagination than to rational thinking. The result, as in ancient times, is often moral relativism. “There are no victims in this life or any other,” says New Age publisher Jack Underhill. “No mistakes. No wrong paths. No winners. No losers. Accept that and then take responsibility for making your life what you want it to be.”15 Evil is an illusion, and salvation comes from within. As in ancient times, the threat to certain parts of the church is real. New Age spokespersons have occasionally received a warm reception among certain Roman Catholic groups and in the mainline Protestant denominations.16
More theologically conservative parts of the church have their own version of this ancient error, however. Some extreme groups whose theological heritage stems from the American holiness movement of the late nineteenth century have fallen prey to an imbalanced understanding of what God has accomplished and will accomplish for his people in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Within these groups, too great an emphasis on the presence of the eschatological age within the church sometimes results in the claim that mature Christians should not experience sickness, should have all their material desires met, or should have wholly overcome sin.17 Physical wealth and physical health can belong to any who follow the inexorable “laws of prosperity,” say the advocates of this other gospel. As in ancient times, although for different reasons, the biblical emphasis on ethical behavior sometimes becomes lost in all of the excitement over the Spirit’s supposedly miraculous manifestations of power; and as in the modern New Age movement, a sober understanding of human evil seems to dissolve into a self-actuated vision of utopia in the present.
These are only examples of the theological deviations to which this passage supplies an antidote. The passage is equally applicable to any theological error that places a less than biblical value on the present physical world and a less than biblical emphasis on the fallenness of humanity. Paul’s antidote consists of two elements.
First, Paul urges the Philippians to imitate him and others like him who follow the pattern of behavior he has laid down. Today, of course, we do not have the memory of Paul’s physical presence to guide us; thus, we must infer the shape of that behavioral pattern from his letters. Several passages give clear hints about its content. In 1 Corinthians 4:16–17 the imitation of Paul is a matter of following his “way of life in Christ Jesus.” This phrase should in turn be defined by the statement a few paragraphs later in this letter, that the Corinthians should imitate Paul just as he imitates Christ. Following Paul’s example, therefore, means following Christ’s example. As we have already seen in our study of Philippians 2:5–11, that is primarily a matter of humble service to others, of putting their interests above our own (cf. 2:4; 2 Cor. 8:9). As Jesus himself said,
You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:42–45; cf. Matt. 20:25–28; Luke 22:24–27).
Like Paul, Jesus says that his life of humble service provides an example for his disciples to follow. They should be slaves of all because he came to serve.
The opening of the new era in which the Sinaitic covenant is no longer valid (3:5–9), then, does not mean that believers are thrown into a world of fuzzy ethical guidelines where virtually anything can be legitimized with the claim that mistakes and wrong paths are only a figment of a warped consciousness or with the assertion that “the Spirit has led me thus.” We are, instead, to follow Christ, and here we have an advantage over the Philippians. They had Paul’s adequate, but limited, knowledge of the story of Jesus, but we have four Gospels rich with accounts of his teaching and ministry, each from a different, Spirit-inspired perspective. They had Paul’s teaching and example to interpret the ethical ramifications of Jesus’ life and instruction, but we have thirteen Pauline letters, an account of the early church, other apostolic letters, and an apocalypse to reveal the ethical implications of the gospel.
This new covenant contains clear ethical guidance just as its ancient counterpart did, and although Paul can only expect the Philippians to follow the “pattern” he left with them, the modern church should understand Paul’s advice to cover all that is now available that reveals and explains such a pattern. The difference between the old covenant and the new is not that the old covenant was dominated by works and the new by grace. Both covenants are gracious and both demand works, not for salvation, but as the outworking of the sanctity that should characterize the people of God.
Second, Paul pointed the Philippians forward to the final day when Christ would transform the bodies of believers to make them like his glorious body. Since that day is still awaited, it is important not to rest on past accomplishments but to strain forward in anticipation of winning the prize at the race’s end. Paul wanted the Philippians to know that although he was confident of God’s willingness and ability to bring “to completion” the “good work” God had started in them (1:6), there was no time for them to relax the effort to become “blameless and pure” (2:15; cf. 1:10) and no time for him to rest in his struggle to help the Philippians in the effort (2:16).
In the modern church we too should seriously consider the witness of Scripture that the visible church is a mixed company. Matthew’s Gospel affirms this perhaps more clearly than any other portion of Scripture. There Jesus teaches that some people who call him Lord and even claim to prophesy and do miraculous works in his name do not belong among his followers because they have not borne the fruit that is the sign of genuine membership in his people (Matt. 7:15–23; cf. 25:11).18 He also implies that the visible church consists of both wheat and weeds and that an infallible distinction between the two will only be possible on the final day of harvest (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43; cf. 25:10–13).19 All of this serves as an admonition to Christians of every age to make their calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10) and to maintain a healthy respect for that harvest day when God will come and purge all offenses from his field. It stands as a warning against every teaching that assures the believer so completely of salvation that it engenders complacency and every teaching that so focuses on the signs and wonders of the new age that it encourages spiritual pride and moral laxity.
A Major Interpretive Mistake to Avoid. None of this should be taken to mean, however, that Paul now assigns some role to human effort in salvation. The righteousness in which he will stand before God on the final day is still not his own but God’s, and it still comes by faith (v. 9). Two elements of the passage demonstrate this. (1) Although Paul speaks of his own strenuous efforts to take hold of all that he has described in verses 8–11, he also explains that he does this because Christ has first taken hold of him. In other words, had Christ not first intervened and dramatically reoriented Paul’s life on the Damascus Road, his efforts would be in his own strength and misguided. Instead of salvation at the end of the race, he would find only condemnation, for his own efforts could never bring him to a successful finish (cf. v. 9; Rom. 9:30–33). Thus the effort Paul describes in Philippians 3:12–14 is not expended in working for his salvation but in working out his salvation—in living out the implications of Christ’s intervention in his life (cf. 2:12–13; cf. Eph. 2:8–10).
(2) Paul asserts that his effort to attain all that he has mentioned in verses 8–11 is a “prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (v. 14). His efforts are a response to God’s call, and God’s call is always effective. God’s call brought the universe into being from nothing, it is equally effective in accomplishing salvation (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6; Rom. 4:17), and it cannot be revoked (Rom. 11:29).20 Thus Paul can be confident that what God has started he will finish (Phil. 1:6), and that at the end of the day he can take no credit for achieving the goal toward which he runs with all his might.
In this passage, then, Paul is essentially applying to himself the principle he expresses even more clearly in Ephesians. After describing the immense privileges that belong to the Ephesians because they, although Gentiles, have been included among God’s people (Eph. 2:11–22), he says “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (4:1; cf. 1 Thess. 2:12; 4:7). Those who have been called must stretch every muscle in the effort to live out their calling, but they must also remember that “the one who calls [them] is faithful and he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
We must be careful in interpreting this passage, then, not to lose sight of the point Paul has made in Philippians 3:1–11. The righteousness in which we stand on the final day, although we will have been busy working out its implications from the moment of our initial encounter with the gospel, is not our righteousness but God’s. It came from him to us as a gift. It was not won by our strenuous efforts but appropriated by faith.
Four Minor Interpretive Mistakes to Avoid. In addition to avoiding this major interpretive mistake, it is important when applying this passage to escape four less serious pitfalls. First, it is easy to misinterpret Paul’s claim that as he stretches forward toward his final goal, he forgets what lies behind him. This statement is frequently taken to mean that Paul does not continue to feel the weight of his pre-Christian sins, particularly the persecution of the church that he has mentioned in verse 6. Thus, one popular exposition of Philippians interprets the statement through the lens of Paul’s claim in 1 Timothy 1:12–17, that he was once a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man but that God had mercy on him. The author of this usually helpful work then implies that when Paul remembers these events, he also remembers God’s mercy to him and so encounters the future with greater confidence.21
But that is not Paul’s point. The contrast Paul draws in verses 12–14 is between the mistaken notion that he has already “arrived” spiritually and the reality that he has yet to reach the goal and win the prize. Within this context, the past things he forgets in order to strain forward are spiritual successes that might lend specious support to the fiction that he had already been perfected. This passage is not about overcoming remorse for preconversion sins, but about humility and realism in assessing spiritual maturity. The mature believer, Paul says, will not rest on past obedience but will labor to maintain purity and blamelessness until the day of Christ.
Second, it is also tempting to interpret Philippians 3:12–14 as a description of moral progress, as if Paul is saying that he constantly strives to do better and better. During Paul’s time Stoic philosophers divided people into two categories, “wise” and “foolish,” and actions into two categories, “virtuous” and “sinful.” Between the “wise” and the “foolish” person stood the person who attempted to progress toward wisdom, and between the “virtuous” and “sinful” action lay actions that might be neither in themselves but were “fitting” in a given situation. The goal of the person who wanted to progress toward complete wisdom was to do what was “virtuous” whenever possible and to do what was “fitting” with the certainty that can only flow from a wise disposition.22
In our own time, analogous notions of moral progress are well understood and highly valued. The “self-help” section of the local book store offers ample evidence that people are searching for ways to improve their financial discipline, parenting skills, and ability to relate well to others. The idea behind such literature, of course, is not bad, and Christians have properly provided self-help literature on a variety of topics from a biblical perspective, but this is not Paul’s concern in this passage.
Here Paul speaks from an eschatological perspective as foreign to notions of moral progress in our own time as to the Stoic notions of his own.23 He works hard to be faithful to the call of God, not in order to become a wise man who can always decide what is best in a given situation but so that when he stands before God on the day of Christ, he will not have run the race in vain (2:16; cf. Gal. 2:2). His present striving, then, is oriented toward the final day in a way that seems strange to our culture. It is important, in spite of this strangeness, not to “update” and therefore cloud Paul’s meaning with the notion that he is simply trying to become a better person. He is evaluating his life in light of the judgment seat of Christ, before whom he, and all believers with him, will one day stand (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rom. 14:10).
Third, it would be a mistake to miss the way in which Paul, as elsewhere in the letter, provides a personal example for the Philippians to imitate (v. 15). The disunity within the Philippian church (2:1–18; 4:2–3) may have resulted from disputes over theological matters; in verse 15 Paul provides a model of the humility he has admonished the Philippians themselves to exhibit in their disagreements with one another. On one hand Paul does not compromise his convictions on not having yet attained perfection, maintaining that those who are mature will agree with his perspective (v. 15a). On the other hand he shows his unwillingness to break fellowship with or lash out against those who think differently on this matter (v. 15b). Instead he trusts that God will make the truth clear to them in his own time.24
The passage demonstrates the simple but often neglected principle that we should not expect every believer to be fully mature. As long as the church is composed of fallible people, it will include some who try the patience of mature believers. When that happens, Paul’s example shows us that we should trust such people to God’s care and not allow our disagreements with them to disrupt the church’s unity.
Fourth, because this passage mentions the transformation of the believer’s body into a body like that of the risen Lord, it raises an issue that has sometimes produced controversy among evangelical Christians: What was the nature of Christ’s resurrection body, and what will be the nature of the believer’s resurrection body? The New Testament evidence on the nature of the resurrection body is not entirely clear, and this ambiguity has engendered a debate over whether Jesus’ resurrected body was a fleshly body or had been transformed into a new, non-fleshly body.25
In light of Jesus’ own affirmation that he had flesh and bones (Luke 24:39), and because the passages that appear to require Jesus to be immaterial speak only of the disciples’ perception of Jesus (Luke 24:31b, 36; John 20:19, 26), it seems best to affirm that Jesus’ resurrection was the fully physical resurrection of the body that had died.26 As Philippians 3:21 says, and as many other passages of Scripture affirm, it was a body that had taken on new properties (Luke 24:31a, 37; John 20:15b, 17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–44), but it was nevertheless a physical body of flesh and bones that could consume and digest food (Luke 24:39–43).27 If this is so, then the resurrection was a powerful affirmation of the goodness of God’s physical creation prior to the corrupting effects of sin and of God’s ability to reverse those corrupting influences through the work of Christ. As Athanasius put it long ago, Jesus saw the ravaging effects of sin on the human race and, “moved with compassion for our limitation,” he took
to Himself a body, a human body even as our own…. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when He had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection.28
Interpreting 3:12–4:1: A Summary. In bringing this passage into the modern church, we must apply Paul’s primary point that a mature spiritual outlook is impossible if the tension between what God has already done and what he will do in Christ is destroyed. An extreme form of this error produces not believers but “enemies of the cross of Christ,” who do not take seriously enough the need to strive toward the final goal to which God has called his people. As we apply this perspective, however, we should avoid the other error of thinking that Paul has now reintroduced human achievement into the process of salvation. That process, though it will result in strenuous effort in the life of all true believers, is nevertheless God’s from start to finish. We should also avoid several smaller interpretive mistakes that can prevent the passage from having its full impact and dull the sharpness of its primary message: Believers must not rest on past successes but must earnestly strive to take hold of the one who has already apprehended them, to love him who first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Contemporary Significance
IN 1741 JOHN Wesley preached a sermon on “Christian Perfection” from Philippians 3 that has become a landmark within Protestant Christianity of the great divide between Reformed and Wesleyan groups on the doctrine of sanctification. In his sermon Wesley tried to define carefully his teaching that the believer can attain sinlessness. He noticed that Paul refers to perfection twice in this chapter, once in verse 12, where he maintains that he is not already perfect, and once in verse 15, where he implies that he is. From this Wesley deduced that the Christian must be imperfect in some sense in this life and perfect in another.29 The senses in which the believer continues to be imperfect, he said, are in “ignorance, or mistake, or infirmities, or temptations,” but the believer can and should attain freedom from outward sins and from sins of the heart, including “evil thoughts” and “evil tempers.”30 The sermon concluded with a paraphrase of Philippians 3:13–14 and the admonition that believers should cry to God “day and night” until they experience deliverance “from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (cf. Rom. 8:21).31
The Reformed response to this emphasis has focused on the depth and complexity of sin’s inroads into humanity and the present incompleteness of God’s eradication of sin. If the apostle John has said that it is self-deception to claim that we have no sin (1 John 1:8), if Jesus instructed us to pray for forgiveness for our sins (Matt. 6:12), and if Paul assumes that the believer is the battlefield on which the fallen flesh wars against God’s indwelling Spirit (Gal. 5:16–17), then surely the Bible does not envision Christian perfection until Christ’s second coming.32 The Wesleyan view can be realistic, then, only if the definitions of both sin and perfection are weakened to allow for the obvious foibles toward which humanity is prone.
The Wesleyan and Reformed traditions were both thoughtfully constructed on the basis of biblical evidence. Wesley claimed that he came to his conclusions after a careful study of the Bible, “the only standard of truth and the only model of pure religion.”33 The Reformed response was built on John Calvin’s understanding of sin and the depths of Adam’s fall, itself forged on biblical teaching. Wesley stressed the biblical evidence that God had overcome sin in Christ and that the Bible called upon all believers to live in undivided devotion to their Savior. The Reformed tradition refused to relinquish the notion, based on Galatians 5:17, that as important and necessary as sanctification is, “there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part” of the believer and that this condition would remain until the final day.34
Both traditions have produced groups that have accentuated the distinctive emphases of their primary spokesman. Wesley himself emphasized the importance of a second work of God’s grace by which the believer’s sanctification is perfected, but maintained that even this experience does not exempt the believer from spiritual growth. Some of Wesley’s followers in the American Holiness movement, however, place such weight on this crisis experience that they pay insufficient attention to the spiritual growth Wesley believed sanctification requires.35 The result is occasionally a rigorous demand for absolute rejection of minutely defined worldly ways and occasionally a freewheeling claim that those who have experienced instantaneous sanctification are free from the bothersome rules of any moral code.36 The Reformed tradition, on the other hand, has produced churches and groups so uninterested in the Spirit’s power that they have retreated into a sterile and outwardly lifeless scholasticism. Doctrinal precision occasionally becomes so important to them that they forget that the believer’s life is to be characterized, as Wesley said, by a heartfelt and visible love for both God and people.37
Philippians 3:12–21 has much to contribute to the debate between followers of these two noble Christian traditions. Its first contribution is to the rules of the debate. Both Wesleyans and Calvinists believe that they hold what Paul calls the mature view of sanctification (v. 15), and both believe that the departure of the other from this mature view is a serious matter. Paul would instruct both to continue the debate because the subject is important and misunderstanding of it can have serious effects. But Paul would also commend his own example to the participants in the debate. Each should recognize the other as a brother or sister in the Lord, acrimony should find no place in the discussion, and if no consensus is possible, then Paul recommends simply leaving to God the task of revealing the truth to the other.
Second, the passage also makes a contribution to the substance of the debate. It demonstrates that the extreme positions on both sides of the debate are wrong. Holiness groups should not lay such emphasis on a past experience of God’s second work of grace that they forget to work out their salvation with fear and trembling in the present, and Reformed groups should not so emphasize the manifestation of God’s grace in justification that they neglect the manifestation of his grace in sanctification. To adherents of both positions, Paul would advise not looking back to the past but forward to the future and to strain every spiritual muscle in the effort to be faithful to God’s gracious call to salvation.
In part because each one was steeped in Paul’s letters and theology, both Calvin and Wesley embraced this notion. After saying that it is possible to be a Christian without attaining “evangelical perfection” and that all are far removed from that state, Calvin qualified his position this way:
What then? Let that target be set before our eyes at which we are earnestly to aim. Let that goal be appointed toward which we should strive and struggle. For it is not lawful for you to divide things with God in such a manner that you undertake part of those things which are enjoined upon you by his Word but omit part, according to your own judgment.
… Only let us look toward our mark with sincere simplicity and aspire to our goal; not fondly flattering ourselves, nor excusing our own evil deeds, but with continuous effort striving toward this end: that we may surpass ourselves in goodness until we attain to goodness itself.38
Wesley, in attempting to explain his teaching on Christian perfection, said that on his way back to England from America in 1738, he expressed his understanding of perfection in the following verse:
O grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell, but Thy pure love alone!
O may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown;
Strange fires far from my heart remove;
My every act, word, thought, be love!
His point, like Calvin’s, was that the believer’s heart should be undivided in its devotion to God. Wesley appropriately commented, “I never heard that anyone objected to this. And indeed who can object?”39 Wesley and Calvin were of different minds about how close the believer could come to the ideal of undivided devotion to God in this life, but the emphasis of both lay on the ideal itself and on the necessity of striving for it, not on whether or not one could reach it. Paul’s emphasis on not attaining perfection until the final day appears to favor Calvin’s understanding of sanctification. But Wesley as much as Calvin, and largely because of this passage, emphasized the necessity of striving for complete godliness.40 That should be the emphasis of every believer, and it is an emphasis that can draw Christians of both the Wesleyan and the Reformed traditions closer to the kind of unity Paul wished for the Philippians.
If the believer’s effort to remain faithful to God’s heavenly call is the point of this passage, however, it is difficult to see how it squares with the influential teaching usually associated with the Keswick convention. This school of thought teaches that believers can be divided into two groups, subnormal and normal, and that the normal Christian has somehow “let go” of personal efforts to attain godliness and “let God” do the work of sanctification. Normal Christians are usually said to be in the minority, and the average Christian experience is supposedly of the subnormal type. Advocates of this view believe that a faith crisis is often necessary for an average, subnormal believer to surrender fully to God and move into the realm of normal Christian experience. The Keswick conventions, which have been held annually in Keswick, England, since 1875 and have given birth to parallel meetings in the United States and Canada, have provided the opportunity for this faith crisis.41
Although much good has come from the Keswick movement and although its advocates are often godly, charitable people who provide worthy examples for all believers to follow, their division of believers into defeated and victorious and their emphasis on passively surrendering to God seem out of harmony with passages such as Philippians 3:12–14 and 1 Corinthians 9:24–27. Paul was unwilling to claim victory in the Christian life even for himself. Thus, although he was certain that when God had started a good work, he would complete it (1 Cor. 1:8–9; Phil. 1:6), he was unwilling to claim for himself in the present a victory that still lay in the future. The spiritual dangers of his apostolic labor were too vivid, the labor too strenuous to claim victory yet (1 Cor. 9:27). Instead, like an athlete, the apostle went into strict training and stretched toward his final goal so that on the final day his running and labor would not be in vain.
The evidence does not indicate, moreover, that Paul would have been happy with the division of Christians into classes of subnormal and normal. He knows a distinction between believers who are mature and those who are not (Phil. 3:15), but the mature believers appear to realize how far they have to go before they finally lay hold of victory, while the immature apparently claimed victory too early. The more biblical view is that if people are Christians at all, they understand the effects of Christ’s death and resurrection to be not only salvation from God’s wrath (Rom. 1:18–3:26; 5:9) but also rescue from the dominion of sin (6:1–23; 8:1–17).
Some, because of their biological makeup and family history, struggle to keep in step with the Spirit who indwells them; others, because of their biological and environmental advantages, find it easier to keep the righteous requirements of the law under the Spirit’s power. A believer converted out of a desperate situation may always look like a subnormal Christian to those who divide believers into such groups, but in God’s eyes that person may be as faithful as the believer who has absorbed many of the Christian virtues during his or her upbringing and therefore finds it easy follow to the example of Christ.
As C. S. Lewis has said, when we stand before God on the final day, all external advantages and disadvantages will dissolve, and our true selves, the part of us that chooses good or ill, obedience or disobedience, will remain. Then we will see ourselves as we really are, and this moment of revelation will contain surprises.42
Original Meaning
Paul Warns Against Error (3:17–4:1)
To forestall that possibility, Paul now addresses the problem of more serious theological error directly. The error itself is not new, for Paul has warned the Philippians of it often (v. 18a), but here he feels compelled to increase the intensity of his warning (v. 18b). We can only speculate about why Paul felt this urgency, but the reason may lie in his experience with the Corinthian church.
If Paul wrote Philippians from an otherwise unknown imprisonment in Ephesus, then the Corinthian situation must have been fresh on his mind.7 The Corinthians had grown weary of the suffering apostle whose life had adopted the weak character of the crucified Savior whom he preached (1 Cor. 1:18–25; 2:1–5; 4:8–13; 2 Cor. 4:7–12; 13:4). Knowledge and power were their watchwords, and possession of both meant the possession of a spiritual maturity that freed them from Paul’s injunctions against participation in cultic meals in idol temples (1 Cor. 8:1–10:22). It also allowed the wealthy among them to indulge their physical appetites at the Lord’s Supper and remain oblivious to the needs and feelings of the poorer members of the community (11:17–34).8 Moreover, since spiritual illumination and power alone were important, physical indulgence in shameful sexual conduct was not only tolerated in their midst but celebrated as a sign of spiritual freedom (5:1–13; 6:12–20; 2 Cor. 12:21).
These may be the problems Paul has in mind when he warns the Philippians against “enemies of the cross of Christ” (v. 18) whose “god is their stomach” and whose “glory is in their shame” (v. 19). Such thinking can only result in the eternal destruction of those who hold to it (cf. 1:28), Paul says, and is the product of a mind focused on earthly things rather than on the things of God (v. 19). “Earthly things” are not the practical affairs of everyday life, but things that characterize worldly life in opposition to God—“sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires … greed … anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language” (Col. 3:1–11).9 Only impurity and evil desires among this list are not specifically social sins; the rest of the list certainly works like a destroying acid on the unity of the church. If this type of thinking has already started to gain ground in Philippi, perhaps it accounts, in part, for the complaining and arguing that Paul addresses throughout the letter (esp. in 2:14; 4:2).
Paul recommends two antidotes for these problems: He asks the Philippians to unite in their efforts to follow the example he and other mature Christians have provided for them (v. 17), and he admonishes them to remember that they are citizens of a heavenly commonwealth (v. 20).
Paul has frequently reminded the Philippians of his example in subtle ways throughout the letter. He has claimed that his suffering and the Philippians’ suffering are parallel (1:29–30), hinting that the Philippians should learn from his perspective on suffering (1:12–26). He has demonstrated what it means to put the interests of others ahead of his own (2:4) by his willingness to send Epaphroditus back with his commendation (2:25, 29–30). His own willingness to reject a past marked by confidence in his own righteousness rather than by confidence in God’s righteousness exemplified how the Philippians should respond to any Judaizers who might arrive on their shores (3:1–11). And he has just urged the Philippians to think as he thinks about the need to continue striving for the final goal of full identity with Christ (3:15). All of these inferences that the Philippians should imitate him now become explicit in verse 17.
To us it may at first seem brash that Paul would urge the Philippians to imitate him. Is this compatible with what he has just said about not having “arrived” spiritually? Paul’s words are not an egocentric claim that everyone should act precisely as he acts, however, for the pattern is larger than Paul himself. As Paul says in verse 17, others also can serve as examples of how to follow the pattern (cf. 1 Cor. 4:17), and as he says elsewhere, his example is worthy of emulation only insofar as it in turn follows the example of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1; cf. 1 Thess. 1:6).10
In addition to following Paul’s example, the Philippians should remember that their “citizenship is in heaven” (3:20). The term the NIV translates “citizenship” (politeuma) appears only here in the New Testament, and like the verb “conduct yourselves” (politeuesthe) in 1:27, has political overtones.11 Paul probably chose it carefully. Philippi at the time during which Paul wrote this letter was a Roman colony. This meant that it was ruled by Roman law rather than native custom and that its citizens were Roman citizens, something of which at least some of them were proud (Acts 16:21). Paul probably plays on this civic pride here and encourages the Philippians to think of themselves as members of a commonwealth located in heaven. As citizens of the heavenly realm, he explains in verses 20b–21, they understand that the fallen earthly realm is not the sum of their existence. The goal of their existence will instead be reached on the day when the Lord Jesus Christ returns (v. 20b).
When that happens, Paul says, Christ will transform fallen existence into glorious existence, and Paul’s beloved friends in Philippi, already his joy and crown, will become his crown in the fullest sense (3:21–4:1). This statement reminds the Philippians of three truths. (1) The reference to Christ’s coming reminds them of the day when both they and Paul will stand before Christ to give an account of themselves. Paul hopes that on that day the Philippians will stand before their Savior pure and blameless (1:10), as the fruit of his apostolic labor (2:14–16). They are his joy and his crown even now (4:1) because he is confident (1:6) they will adorn his brow at the final day, just as the crown of leaves adorned the brow of a victorious athlete in Paul’s time (cf. 1 Thess. 2:19).12 Only if they stand firm (Phil. 4:1) by avoiding the excesses of the enemies of the cross of Christ, however, will this be possible.
(2) The way in which Paul describes Christ’s coming in verse 21 reminds the Philippians that as long as they are in their fallen, “lowly” bodies, they have not arrived at their ultimate goal (cf. vv. 12–14). Fully apprehending Christ’s resurrection power and fully attaining the resurrection of the dead lie in the future, and the believer must patiently, albeit eagerly, await Christ’s appearance and full conformity to his resurrection body.
(3) Verse 21 echoes the description of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation in 2:6–11 and reminds the Philippians of the result for them of that event. Just as Christ humbled himself (etapeinosen heauton), became obedient unto death on the cross (2:8), and was exalted as a result (2:9–11), so at that final day he will, from his exalted position where all things are subject to him (v. 21b; cf. 2:10–11), draw the lowly bodies (to soma tes tapeinoseos hemon) of believers up into his glorious existence. He identified with their humility so that they might in turn be identified with his resurrected body.13
In 3:12–4:1, then, Paul hopes to prevent a misunderstanding of 3:1–11 and to forestall problems similar to the ones he has encountered in Corinth. The times have changed, the Mosaic law is no longer in force, and believers are now united with Christ; but this does not mean that they have “arrived” spiritually. Still less does it mean that spirituality is divorced from behavior. The gospel reveals a pattern of conduct that believers must follow as they await the final chapter in God’s redemption of his fallen creation.
Bridging Contexts
AS WE TRAVEL with this passage out of the first century and into our own time, we must remember that it is a warning both against the notion that it is possible, prior to the day of Christ, to “arrive” spiritually and against some disastrous side effects of not allowing this truth to sink deeply into our spiritual consciousness. The passage also offers an antidote to these problems by claiming that believers should have a correct understanding both of God’s requirements that his people be set apart from the rest of the world by their conduct and of God’s intention to end the present suffering and sin in the world by the future appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Both the problems and their solutions have much to say to the contemporary church if we are careful to find true correlations between Paul’s situation and ours and to avoid some common interpretive pitfalls.
True Parallels Between the Ancient and Modern Contexts. In Paul’s time the problem lay in the commonly accepted notion that the world of human existence was a changeable, unpredictable, and corruptible place that everyone would do well to escape or manipulate. Astrology and magic offered ways of “controlling” the forces that were thought to govern the world, and various new religions from the eastern part of the empire offered redemption from the world itself.
In places like Corinth and Philippi, it is easy to see how recent converts might be tempted to combine elements of these popular religious convictions with the gospel message they had lately embraced. Manifestations of the Spirit’s power in miraculous healings and ecstatic utterances could become signs that the believer had already been transferred out of the realm of the corruptible world and into the pure, spiritual realm of the heavenly world. Since the body belonged to the corruptible realm, moreover, its conduct was irrelevant—some might feel that denying legitimate bodily pleasures such as sexual intercourse within marriage was consistent with their new status as spiritual people (1 Cor. 7:1–7), while others might insist that bodily appetites could be indulged without restriction (1 Cor. 6:12–13).14
In some parts of the modern church a similar merger of astrology, magic, and Eastern mysticism in the form of the “New Age” movement continues to pose a threat. Like their ancient counterparts, the religions that make up the New Age movement give greater importance to the mind than to matter and greater weight to the imagination than to rational thinking. The result, as in ancient times, is often moral relativism. “There are no victims in this life or any other,” says New Age publisher Jack Underhill. “No mistakes. No wrong paths. No winners. No losers. Accept that and then take responsibility for making your life what you want it to be.”15 Evil is an illusion, and salvation comes from within. As in ancient times, the threat to certain parts of the church is real. New Age spokespersons have occasionally received a warm reception among certain Roman Catholic groups and in the mainline Protestant denominations.16
More theologically conservative parts of the church have their own version of this ancient error, however. Some extreme groups whose theological heritage stems from the American holiness movement of the late nineteenth century have fallen prey to an imbalanced understanding of what God has accomplished and will accomplish for his people in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Within these groups, too great an emphasis on the presence of the eschatological age within the church sometimes results in the claim that mature Christians should not experience sickness, should have all their material desires met, or should have wholly overcome sin.17 Physical wealth and physical health can belong to any who follow the inexorable “laws of prosperity,” say the advocates of this other gospel. As in ancient times, although for different reasons, the biblical emphasis on ethical behavior sometimes becomes lost in all of the excitement over the Spirit’s supposedly miraculous manifestations of power; and as in the modern New Age movement, a sober understanding of human evil seems to dissolve into a self-actuated vision of utopia in the present.
These are only examples of the theological deviations to which this passage supplies an antidote. The passage is equally applicable to any theological error that places a less than biblical value on the present physical world and a less than biblical emphasis on the fallenness of humanity. Paul’s antidote consists of two elements.
First, Paul urges the Philippians to imitate him and others like him who follow the pattern of behavior he has laid down. Today, of course, we do not have the memory of Paul’s physical presence to guide us; thus, we must infer the shape of that behavioral pattern from his letters. Several passages give clear hints about its content. In 1 Corinthians 4:16–17 the imitation of Paul is a matter of following his “way of life in Christ Jesus.” This phrase should in turn be defined by the statement a few paragraphs later in this letter, that the Corinthians should imitate Paul just as he imitates Christ. Following Paul’s example, therefore, means following Christ’s example. As we have already seen in our study of Philippians 2:5–11, that is primarily a matter of humble service to others, of putting their interests above our own (cf. 2:4; 2 Cor. 8:9). As Jesus himself said,
You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:42–45; cf. Matt. 20:25–28; Luke 22:24–27).
Like Paul, Jesus says that his life of humble service provides an example for his disciples to follow. They should be slaves of all because he came to serve.
The opening of the new era in which the Sinaitic covenant is no longer valid (3:5–9), then, does not mean that believers are thrown into a world of fuzzy ethical guidelines where virtually anything can be legitimized with the claim that mistakes and wrong paths are only a figment of a warped consciousness or with the assertion that “the Spirit has led me thus.” We are, instead, to follow Christ, and here we have an advantage over the Philippians. They had Paul’s adequate, but limited, knowledge of the story of Jesus, but we have four Gospels rich with accounts of his teaching and ministry, each from a different, Spirit-inspired perspective. They had Paul’s teaching and example to interpret the ethical ramifications of Jesus’ life and instruction, but we have thirteen Pauline letters, an account of the early church, other apostolic letters, and an apocalypse to reveal the ethical implications of the gospel.
This new covenant contains clear ethical guidance just as its ancient counterpart did, and although Paul can only expect the Philippians to follow the “pattern” he left with them, the modern church should understand Paul’s advice to cover all that is now available that reveals and explains such a pattern. The difference between the old covenant and the new is not that the old covenant was dominated by works and the new by grace. Both covenants are gracious and both demand works, not for salvation, but as the outworking of the sanctity that should characterize the people of God.
Second, Paul pointed the Philippians forward to the final day when Christ would transform the bodies of believers to make them like his glorious body. Since that day is still awaited, it is important not to rest on past accomplishments but to strain forward in anticipation of winning the prize at the race’s end. Paul wanted the Philippians to know that although he was confident of God’s willingness and ability to bring “to completion” the “good work” God had started in them (1:6), there was no time for them to relax the effort to become “blameless and pure” (2:15; cf. 1:10) and no time for him to rest in his struggle to help the Philippians in the effort (2:16).
In the modern church we too should seriously consider the witness of Scripture that the visible church is a mixed company. Matthew’s Gospel affirms this perhaps more clearly than any other portion of Scripture. There Jesus teaches that some people who call him Lord and even claim to prophesy and do miraculous works in his name do not belong among his followers because they have not borne the fruit that is the sign of genuine membership in his people (Matt. 7:15–23; cf. 25:11).18 He also implies that the visible church consists of both wheat and weeds and that an infallible distinction between the two will only be possible on the final day of harvest (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43; cf. 25:10–13).19 All of this serves as an admonition to Christians of every age to make their calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10) and to maintain a healthy respect for that harvest day when God will come and purge all offenses from his field. It stands as a warning against every teaching that assures the believer so completely of salvation that it engenders complacency and every teaching that so focuses on the signs and wonders of the new age that it encourages spiritual pride and moral laxity.
A Major Interpretive Mistake to Avoid. None of this should be taken to mean, however, that Paul now assigns some role to human effort in salvation. The righteousness in which he will stand before God on the final day is still not his own but God’s, and it still comes by faith (v. 9). Two elements of the passage demonstrate this. (1) Although Paul speaks of his own strenuous efforts to take hold of all that he has described in verses 8–11, he also explains that he does this because Christ has first taken hold of him. In other words, had Christ not first intervened and dramatically reoriented Paul’s life on the Damascus Road, his efforts would be in his own strength and misguided. Instead of salvation at the end of the race, he would find only condemnation, for his own efforts could never bring him to a successful finish (cf. v. 9; Rom. 9:30–33). Thus the effort Paul describes in Philippians 3:12–14 is not expended in working for his salvation but in working out his salvation—in living out the implications of Christ’s intervention in his life (cf. 2:12–13; cf. Eph. 2:8–10).
(2) Paul asserts that his effort to attain all that he has mentioned in verses 8–11 is a “prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (v. 14). His efforts are a response to God’s call, and God’s call is always effective. God’s call brought the universe into being from nothing, it is equally effective in accomplishing salvation (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6; Rom. 4:17), and it cannot be revoked (Rom. 11:29).20 Thus Paul can be confident that what God has started he will finish (Phil. 1:6), and that at the end of the day he can take no credit for achieving the goal toward which he runs with all his might.
In this passage, then, Paul is essentially applying to himself the principle he expresses even more clearly in Ephesians. After describing the immense privileges that belong to the Ephesians because they, although Gentiles, have been included among God’s people (Eph. 2:11–22), he says “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (4:1; cf. 1 Thess. 2:12; 4:7). Those who have been called must stretch every muscle in the effort to live out their calling, but they must also remember that “the one who calls [them] is faithful and he will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24).
We must be careful in interpreting this passage, then, not to lose sight of the point Paul has made in Philippians 3:1–11. The righteousness in which we stand on the final day, although we will have been busy working out its implications from the moment of our initial encounter with the gospel, is not our righteousness but God’s. It came from him to us as a gift. It was not won by our strenuous efforts but appropriated by faith.
Four Minor Interpretive Mistakes to Avoid. In addition to avoiding this major interpretive mistake, it is important when applying this passage to escape four less serious pitfalls. First, it is easy to misinterpret Paul’s claim that as he stretches forward toward his final goal, he forgets what lies behind him. This statement is frequently taken to mean that Paul does not continue to feel the weight of his pre-Christian sins, particularly the persecution of the church that he has mentioned in verse 6. Thus, one popular exposition of Philippians interprets the statement through the lens of Paul’s claim in 1 Timothy 1:12–17, that he was once a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent man but that God had mercy on him. The author of this usually helpful work then implies that when Paul remembers these events, he also remembers God’s mercy to him and so encounters the future with greater confidence.21
But that is not Paul’s point. The contrast Paul draws in verses 12–14 is between the mistaken notion that he has already “arrived” spiritually and the reality that he has yet to reach the goal and win the prize. Within this context, the past things he forgets in order to strain forward are spiritual successes that might lend specious support to the fiction that he had already been perfected. This passage is not about overcoming remorse for preconversion sins, but about humility and realism in assessing spiritual maturity. The mature believer, Paul says, will not rest on past obedience but will labor to maintain purity and blamelessness until the day of Christ.
Second, it is also tempting to interpret Philippians 3:12–14 as a description of moral progress, as if Paul is saying that he constantly strives to do better and better. During Paul’s time Stoic philosophers divided people into two categories, “wise” and “foolish,” and actions into two categories, “virtuous” and “sinful.” Between the “wise” and the “foolish” person stood the person who attempted to progress toward wisdom, and between the “virtuous” and “sinful” action lay actions that might be neither in themselves but were “fitting” in a given situation. The goal of the person who wanted to progress toward complete wisdom was to do what was “virtuous” whenever possible and to do what was “fitting” with the certainty that can only flow from a wise disposition.22
In our own time, analogous notions of moral progress are well understood and highly valued. The “self-help” section of the local book store offers ample evidence that people are searching for ways to improve their financial discipline, parenting skills, and ability to relate well to others. The idea behind such literature, of course, is not bad, and Christians have properly provided self-help literature on a variety of topics from a biblical perspective, but this is not Paul’s concern in this passage.
Here Paul speaks from an eschatological perspective as foreign to notions of moral progress in our own time as to the Stoic notions of his own.23 He works hard to be faithful to the call of God, not in order to become a wise man who can always decide what is best in a given situation but so that when he stands before God on the day of Christ, he will not have run the race in vain (2:16; cf. Gal. 2:2). His present striving, then, is oriented toward the final day in a way that seems strange to our culture. It is important, in spite of this strangeness, not to “update” and therefore cloud Paul’s meaning with the notion that he is simply trying to become a better person. He is evaluating his life in light of the judgment seat of Christ, before whom he, and all believers with him, will one day stand (2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Rom. 14:10).
Third, it would be a mistake to miss the way in which Paul, as elsewhere in the letter, provides a personal example for the Philippians to imitate (v. 15). The disunity within the Philippian church (2:1–18; 4:2–3) may have resulted from disputes over theological matters; in verse 15 Paul provides a model of the humility he has admonished the Philippians themselves to exhibit in their disagreements with one another. On one hand Paul does not compromise his convictions on not having yet attained perfection, maintaining that those who are mature will agree with his perspective (v. 15a). On the other hand he shows his unwillingness to break fellowship with or lash out against those who think differently on this matter (v. 15b). Instead he trusts that God will make the truth clear to them in his own time.24
The passage demonstrates the simple but often neglected principle that we should not expect every believer to be fully mature. As long as the church is composed of fallible people, it will include some who try the patience of mature believers. When that happens, Paul’s example shows us that we should trust such people to God’s care and not allow our disagreements with them to disrupt the church’s unity.
Fourth, because this passage mentions the transformation of the believer’s body into a body like that of the risen Lord, it raises an issue that has sometimes produced controversy among evangelical Christians: What was the nature of Christ’s resurrection body, and what will be the nature of the believer’s resurrection body? The New Testament evidence on the nature of the resurrection body is not entirely clear, and this ambiguity has engendered a debate over whether Jesus’ resurrected body was a fleshly body or had been transformed into a new, non-fleshly body.25
In light of Jesus’ own affirmation that he had flesh and bones (Luke 24:39), and because the passages that appear to require Jesus to be immaterial speak only of the disciples’ perception of Jesus (Luke 24:31b, 36; John 20:19, 26), it seems best to affirm that Jesus’ resurrection was the fully physical resurrection of the body that had died.26 As Philippians 3:21 says, and as many other passages of Scripture affirm, it was a body that had taken on new properties (Luke 24:31a, 37; John 20:15b, 17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–44), but it was nevertheless a physical body of flesh and bones that could consume and digest food (Luke 24:39–43).27 If this is so, then the resurrection was a powerful affirmation of the goodness of God’s physical creation prior to the corrupting effects of sin and of God’s ability to reverse those corrupting influences through the work of Christ. As Athanasius put it long ago, Jesus saw the ravaging effects of sin on the human race and, “moved with compassion for our limitation,” he took
to Himself a body, a human body even as our own…. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when He had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection.28
Interpreting 3:12–4:1: A Summary. In bringing this passage into the modern church, we must apply Paul’s primary point that a mature spiritual outlook is impossible if the tension between what God has already done and what he will do in Christ is destroyed. An extreme form of this error produces not believers but “enemies of the cross of Christ,” who do not take seriously enough the need to strive toward the final goal to which God has called his people. As we apply this perspective, however, we should avoid the other error of thinking that Paul has now reintroduced human achievement into the process of salvation. That process, though it will result in strenuous effort in the life of all true believers, is nevertheless God’s from start to finish. We should also avoid several smaller interpretive mistakes that can prevent the passage from having its full impact and dull the sharpness of its primary message: Believers must not rest on past successes but must earnestly strive to take hold of the one who has already apprehended them, to love him who first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Contemporary Significance
IN 1741 JOHN Wesley preached a sermon on “Christian Perfection” from Philippians 3 that has become a landmark within Protestant Christianity of the great divide between Reformed and Wesleyan groups on the doctrine of sanctification. In his sermon Wesley tried to define carefully his teaching that the believer can attain sinlessness. He noticed that Paul refers to perfection twice in this chapter, once in verse 12, where he maintains that he is not already perfect, and once in verse 15, where he implies that he is. From this Wesley deduced that the Christian must be imperfect in some sense in this life and perfect in another.29 The senses in which the believer continues to be imperfect, he said, are in “ignorance, or mistake, or infirmities, or temptations,” but the believer can and should attain freedom from outward sins and from sins of the heart, including “evil thoughts” and “evil tempers.”30 The sermon concluded with a paraphrase of Philippians 3:13–14 and the admonition that believers should cry to God “day and night” until they experience deliverance “from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (cf. Rom. 8:21).31
The Reformed response to this emphasis has focused on the depth and complexity of sin’s inroads into humanity and the present incompleteness of God’s eradication of sin. If the apostle John has said that it is self-deception to claim that we have no sin (1 John 1:8), if Jesus instructed us to pray for forgiveness for our sins (Matt. 6:12), and if Paul assumes that the believer is the battlefield on which the fallen flesh wars against God’s indwelling Spirit (Gal. 5:16–17), then surely the Bible does not envision Christian perfection until Christ’s second coming.32 The Wesleyan view can be realistic, then, only if the definitions of both sin and perfection are weakened to allow for the obvious foibles toward which humanity is prone.
The Wesleyan and Reformed traditions were both thoughtfully constructed on the basis of biblical evidence. Wesley claimed that he came to his conclusions after a careful study of the Bible, “the only standard of truth and the only model of pure religion.”33 The Reformed response was built on John Calvin’s understanding of sin and the depths of Adam’s fall, itself forged on biblical teaching. Wesley stressed the biblical evidence that God had overcome sin in Christ and that the Bible called upon all believers to live in undivided devotion to their Savior. The Reformed tradition refused to relinquish the notion, based on Galatians 5:17, that as important and necessary as sanctification is, “there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part” of the believer and that this condition would remain until the final day.34
Both traditions have produced groups that have accentuated the distinctive emphases of their primary spokesman. Wesley himself emphasized the importance of a second work of God’s grace by which the believer’s sanctification is perfected, but maintained that even this experience does not exempt the believer from spiritual growth. Some of Wesley’s followers in the American Holiness movement, however, place such weight on this crisis experience that they pay insufficient attention to the spiritual growth Wesley believed sanctification requires.35 The result is occasionally a rigorous demand for absolute rejection of minutely defined worldly ways and occasionally a freewheeling claim that those who have experienced instantaneous sanctification are free from the bothersome rules of any moral code.36 The Reformed tradition, on the other hand, has produced churches and groups so uninterested in the Spirit’s power that they have retreated into a sterile and outwardly lifeless scholasticism. Doctrinal precision occasionally becomes so important to them that they forget that the believer’s life is to be characterized, as Wesley said, by a heartfelt and visible love for both God and people.37
Philippians 3:12–21 has much to contribute to the debate between followers of these two noble Christian traditions. Its first contribution is to the rules of the debate. Both Wesleyans and Calvinists believe that they hold what Paul calls the mature view of sanctification (v. 15), and both believe that the departure of the other from this mature view is a serious matter. Paul would instruct both to continue the debate because the subject is important and misunderstanding of it can have serious effects. But Paul would also commend his own example to the participants in the debate. Each should recognize the other as a brother or sister in the Lord, acrimony should find no place in the discussion, and if no consensus is possible, then Paul recommends simply leaving to God the task of revealing the truth to the other.
Second, the passage also makes a contribution to the substance of the debate. It demonstrates that the extreme positions on both sides of the debate are wrong. Holiness groups should not lay such emphasis on a past experience of God’s second work of grace that they forget to work out their salvation with fear and trembling in the present, and Reformed groups should not so emphasize the manifestation of God’s grace in justification that they neglect the manifestation of his grace in sanctification. To adherents of both positions, Paul would advise not looking back to the past but forward to the future and to strain every spiritual muscle in the effort to be faithful to God’s gracious call to salvation.
In part because each one was steeped in Paul’s letters and theology, both Calvin and Wesley embraced this notion. After saying that it is possible to be a Christian without attaining “evangelical perfection” and that all are far removed from that state, Calvin qualified his position this way:
What then? Let that target be set before our eyes at which we are earnestly to aim. Let that goal be appointed toward which we should strive and struggle. For it is not lawful for you to divide things with God in such a manner that you undertake part of those things which are enjoined upon you by his Word but omit part, according to your own judgment.
… Only let us look toward our mark with sincere simplicity and aspire to our goal; not fondly flattering ourselves, nor excusing our own evil deeds, but with continuous effort striving toward this end: that we may surpass ourselves in goodness until we attain to goodness itself.38
Wesley, in attempting to explain his teaching on Christian perfection, said that on his way back to England from America in 1738, he expressed his understanding of perfection in the following verse:
O grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell, but Thy pure love alone!
O may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown;
Strange fires far from my heart remove;
My every act, word, thought, be love!
His point, like Calvin’s, was that the believer’s heart should be undivided in its devotion to God. Wesley appropriately commented, “I never heard that anyone objected to this. And indeed who can object?”39 Wesley and Calvin were of different minds about how close the believer could come to the ideal of undivided devotion to God in this life, but the emphasis of both lay on the ideal itself and on the necessity of striving for it, not on whether or not one could reach it. Paul’s emphasis on not attaining perfection until the final day appears to favor Calvin’s understanding of sanctification. But Wesley as much as Calvin, and largely because of this passage, emphasized the necessity of striving for complete godliness.40 That should be the emphasis of every believer, and it is an emphasis that can draw Christians of both the Wesleyan and the Reformed traditions closer to the kind of unity Paul wished for the Philippians.
If the believer’s effort to remain faithful to God’s heavenly call is the point of this passage, however, it is difficult to see how it squares with the influential teaching usually associated with the Keswick convention. This school of thought teaches that believers can be divided into two groups, subnormal and normal, and that the normal Christian has somehow “let go” of personal efforts to attain godliness and “let God” do the work of sanctification. Normal Christians are usually said to be in the minority, and the average Christian experience is supposedly of the subnormal type. Advocates of this view believe that a faith crisis is often necessary for an average, subnormal believer to surrender fully to God and move into the realm of normal Christian experience. The Keswick conventions, which have been held annually in Keswick, England, since 1875 and have given birth to parallel meetings in the United States and Canada, have provided the opportunity for this faith crisis.41
Although much good has come from the Keswick movement and although its advocates are often godly, charitable people who provide worthy examples for all believers to follow, their division of believers into defeated and victorious and their emphasis on passively surrendering to God seem out of harmony with passages such as Philippians 3:12–14 and 1 Corinthians 9:24–27. Paul was unwilling to claim victory in the Christian life even for himself. Thus, although he was certain that when God had started a good work, he would complete it (1 Cor. 1:8–9; Phil. 1:6), he was unwilling to claim for himself in the present a victory that still lay in the future. The spiritual dangers of his apostolic labor were too vivid, the labor too strenuous to claim victory yet (1 Cor. 9:27). Instead, like an athlete, the apostle went into strict training and stretched toward his final goal so that on the final day his running and labor would not be in vain.
The evidence does not indicate, moreover, that Paul would have been happy with the division of Christians into classes of subnormal and normal. He knows a distinction between believers who are mature and those who are not (Phil. 3:15), but the mature believers appear to realize how far they have to go before they finally lay hold of victory, while the immature apparently claimed victory too early. The more biblical view is that if people are Christians at all, they understand the effects of Christ’s death and resurrection to be not only salvation from God’s wrath (Rom. 1:18–3:26; 5:9) but also rescue from the dominion of sin (6:1–23; 8:1–17).
Some, because of their biological makeup and family history, struggle to keep in step with the Spirit who indwells them; others, because of their biological and environmental advantages, find it easier to keep the righteous requirements of the law under the Spirit’s power. A believer converted out of a desperate situation may always look like a subnormal Christian to those who divide believers into such groups, but in God’s eyes that person may be as faithful as the believer who has absorbed many of the Christian virtues during his or her upbringing and therefore finds it easy follow to the example of Christ.
As C. S. Lewis has said, when we stand before God on the final day, all external advantages and disadvantages will dissolve, and our true selves, the part of us that chooses good or ill, obedience or disobedience, will remain. Then we will see ourselves as we really are, and this moment of revelation will contain surprises.42