Philippians 3:1-11
All for Christ
1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.
2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, 4 though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Our confidence is gained in our gaining Christ. This is cause for our great rejoicing and happiness as we greet each other in knowing and pursuing Him together! That is why we should remind one another of this confidence we share without ever thinking it to be tedious to do so as Paul wrote here to remind us all. We are also to heed his warnings which are God’s through his quill put down on parchment long ago to a certain church assembly meant to be read among all others and through time to us just as he wrote to the believers in Colosse (Colossians 4:16). We must look out for those who try to pervert the gospel requirements as the Judaizers did by requiring Jewish believers to keep the Law as a means of continuing to require works of man to supplement the already fully completed and sufficient work of Jesus Christ. These had demanded the believers continue to circumcise according to the covenant of works, missing the point of that act was cleansing that pointed to the real cleansing of the heart in Christ (Romans 2:28-29, Colossians 2:11), making such physical cleansing rituals unnecessary and misleading. We are free in grace by the work of Jesus Christ in our soul-cleansed state in His righteousness to worship God in our spirit instead of through symbolic rituals of the Law meant to point to the real (Galatians 3:23-23) cleansing of forgiveness through justification by faith earned by Jesus and not by our inadequate efforts. We therefore should never put any of our confidence in the efforts of our flesh of our ancestors like the Jews nor in our faulty adherence to our works, but in Jesus the Christ alone and nothing or no one else. Even Paul, the great Pharisee of such lineage, admitted that all that had no standing in the sight of God, even though according to that outward show he was considered blameless and righteous by man’s standards. He put all his upbringing, education, and nationality of his chosen nation in proper perspective; it was all a wash in eternity! He gave us the example to imitate by telling us that we should also find no redeeming value in ourselves or our striving for holiness to be acceptable to God because that is only possible in the work and person of Jesus Christ. We can likewise count all our own achievements as garbage also compared to having Christ alone and His righteousness through faith alone. By faith we know and have apprehended faith and holiness as proven by his resurrection promised to us as well as we suffer for the gospel’s sake and die daily to self (Mark 8:34-35, 1 Corinthians 15:31, Galatians 6:14) until we rise on that day apart from the presence of and striving against sin forever. This is our certain hope (Romans 5:5, Hebrews 10:23) and confidence gained of faith’s solid (Hebrews 11:1-3) proof inscribed in our souls by the Spirit of God who lives there.
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