Philippians 3:12-4:1 - Pressing Toward the Goal

Already but Not Yet

Phil 3:12-16

This letter was written 3 years before Paul’s death, about 25 years into his service to Christ. This man, who wrote so much of the New Testament, reveals much to us in this passage – of his own continued need of grace for each day.

Phil 3:12-16 (HCSB) Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Therefore, all who are mature should think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained.

He opened this chapter by describing the nature and character and behavior of saints (verse 3): For we are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God, boast in Christ Jesus, and do not put confidence in the flesh. Paul had not reached the goal, was not fully mature. His focus was the heavenly calling – he had been taken hold of by Christ. Paul impresses that those who have reason to worship God rightly, to rejoice in our Savior are those who have been circumcised in heart, who put no trust in our own being.

And yet, Paul has not reached the goal, Paul had found rest from his prior work as a pharisee but he cannot relax in his pursuit of the One Who had apprehended him. We can only pursue Christ if we have found rest in Him.

There is ONE THING he does: forgetting what is behind and reaching, straining forward to what is ahead – the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. One commentator said, “every stage in the upward and onward course of faith runs straight in the line of His will whose mighty, gracious grasp is on me as I go.”

This is what I believe Paul wants us to grasp – all we have, even the desire for godliness – is because we are united with Christ. We are maturing in our faith, a process that will end only at the end of this age – when our Lord returns to judge the nations, gather His own, and make all things new. He exhorts the mature to have this mindset; he tells the less mature that God Himself will reveal it to them.

And his final encouragement in this paragraph is that we all – to the degree we have attained – all walk by the same rule and be of the same mind. About that rule, Gal 6:14-16 (HCSB) But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world. For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. May peace come to all those who follow this standard (or rule), and mercy to the Israel of God!

About the same mind, Phil 2:5-8 (HCSB) Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross.

Self-focus in any form is incompatible with Paul’s instruction.

Phil 3:17-21 (HCSB) Join in imitating me, brothers, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself.

Paul bids us follow him (and the other apostles) as they were called to serve as examples – as are elders. There is a pattern of walking in the light we can follow if we have eyes to see. Some do not – Paul weeps about these souls who are doomed for damnation. They are set on earthly things. This is the contrast, emphasizing why it’s important for us to have the right focus. This is we have this warning in Hebrews 2: We must, therefore, pay even more attention to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. We have this tendency to drift away from our Lord and His ways when our focus is on earthly things.

Our citizenships is in heaven, not in Texas. Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world – it’s of the world to come!

We know it’s not sinful to take care how we live – eat right, live right, be wise in the ways of the world. For everything created by God is good, and nothing should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, since it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer. 1Tim 4:4-5 (HCSB) We cross the line when how we live – what we eat, wear, etc. – becomes the focus of our lives.

The point of our citizenship being in heaven is that is where the Lord is; heaven is not a place of peace and joy if Christ be not there. At the end if this age, He will return from heaven to gather His own – we who are eagerly looking for Him. As we read in Hebrews 9:27-28 (HCSB) And just as it is appointed for people to die once — and after this, judgment — so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.  

When He returns, He will transform us to be perfectly conformed to His glorious body – having subdued all things, making His enemies His footstool. There can be no greater source of peace and joy than being united and conformed to the glorious Christ! The Lamb of God has taken away our sin and secured for an eternal glory that no man and no thing can take away.

Commentary (H. C. G. Moule) observes:

The whole passage now before us is strongly characteristic of the New Testament way of dealing with sin. In the first place, there is no lack of urgent and explicit warning. The moral and spiritual evil is labelled unmistakably. It is pointed out as a danger not hypothetical but actual; not floating in the air, but embodied in lives and influences. Yet this passage, this heart-searching appeal, while it deals with warning, does not end with it. Its strongest and chosen argument is not fear but hope; not perdition but "the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto Him."

Phil 4:1 sums up what we have read: So then, my brothers, you are dearly loved and longed for — my joy and crown. In this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.  

"We are waiting, we are yearning for Thy voice

Through the long, long summer day and winter night;

We are mourning till Thou bid'st our souls rejoice,

Till Thy coming turns our darkness into light:

Come, Lord Jesus, come again;

We shall see Thee as Thou art,

Then, and not till then,

In Thy glory bear a part;

Then, and not till then,

Thou wilt satisfy each heart."

 

                                                                J. DENHAM SMITH. 

Genesis 31:22-55; Sin in the Camp

From 10 Sept 2023, Sin in the Camp; from Genesis 31:22-55. There is a very real risk of sin causing problems in the home and local assembly of saints. The only remedy is to be found in Christ.

 

The Old Man Was Crucified

The Old Man/Self: Who Died?

Stuart L. Brogden

I’ve become aware of some who say that Paul was referring to Adam being put to death in Romans 6:6, that the accepted understanding that Paul was referring to something in the Christian being put to death. Here is that verse, in the KJV: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. The argument is that natural man’s federal head is Adam and our “old self” refers to our identity in Adam and Adam’s body was destroyed, not ours – we still have our old bodies! Here’s a quote from an advocate of this view: “It is in this sense only that it can be said that the body of sin is destroyed. It has not been destroyed in us, because as long as we are in this flesh, even as sinners made alive by the Spirit of God, the sinful nature has not, cannot, and will not change, Romans 8:7,8. The body of sin then is the legal condemnation of sin imputed in Adam to our account.”  

There is much in this brother’s statement that is cause for concern, the first is his use of Romans 8:7-8 to refer to the status of Christians. Here’s the larger passage, to provide some context:

Rom 8:5-9 (HCSB) For those who live according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit. For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

Paul is contrasting unregenerate (those who live according to the flesh) with the redeemed (those who live according to the Spirit). In verses 7 & 8 Paul describes the condition of the unregenerate: hostile toward God, unable and unwilling to submit to His law, unable to please God. This is not how the redeemed are described in Scripture. We are reconciled to God, equipped by the Holy Spirit to will and to do what pleases Him (Phil 2:13).

The last statement leaves me wondering if the author is aware of the need for our own sin, in addition to the imputed sin of Adam, is worthy of condemnation and needs to be forgiven. He further wrote: “The old man (what we were in Adam), and the body of sin (the legal condemnation by imputation), are destroyed, Christ having borne it away in His obedience unto death.” The “body of sin” which needs to be dealt with is larger than “the legal condemnation by imputation.”

I think part of this brother’s error is his reliance on the KJV, without consultation of other translations. Here’s how the HCSB presents Romans 6:6 - For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin. Note that it is “sin’s dominion over the body” that must be abolished; “the body of sin” (as in the KJV) does not refer to a literal body (like man’s) but to a “body of evidence.” When this body of evidence is rendered impotent by the propitiating death of Christ, it no longer has power over us, having been nailed to His cross (Col. 2:13-14) and cannot condemn us any longer. In Romans 7:2, the wife whose husband has died is freed from the law (i.e., the law of marriage no longer has any power over her, in spite of what she may feel). A similar point seems to be made here.

Back to the “old man/self” that was crucified. The immediate context of Romans 6 sheds some light on this.

Rom 6:5-11 (HCSB) For if we have been joined with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. For in light of the fact that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in light of the fact that He lives, He lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Note the tenor of this passage – personal, related to the children of God and their relationship with Jesus. We have been joined with Christ; our old self has died; sin’s rule is finished; we died to sin; we died with Christ; we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. If Paul meant Adam had died; how did that death reconcile us to Christ? Our relationship to sin must change in order for us to be reconciled to God. That is the focus of Romans 6!

A quick review of some of the other passages that describe who died to sin should clarify who Paul spoke of in chapter 6 and verse 6.

Rom 6:2 (HCSB) How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Rom 7:6 (HCSB) But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.

2 Cor 5:14 (HCSB) For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died.

Gal 2:19-20 (HCSB) For through the law I have died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Eph 4:17-24 (HCSB) Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more. But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.

Col 2:20 (HCSB) If you died with the Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?

Col 3:5-11 (HCSB) Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God’s wrath comes on the disobedient, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. But now you must also put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

2 Tim 2:11 (HCSB) This saying is trustworthy: For if we have died with Him, we will also live with Him.

1 Pet 2:24 (HCSB) He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; you have been healed by His wounds.

There is no denial that we are twice-condemned: 1.) For the sin-nature we inherited from Adam and 2.) for the sin we commit. In being justified, the wrath due us for both of these was poured out on Christ. 2 Cor 5:17 would not be true if Adam’s death was meant in Romans 6:6 or any other of these passages. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. This is true for all who have been born from above! A new creation! Adam’s death didn’t bring us to that state; our death to sin and being made alive to Christ has wrought this.

In Romans 5, Adam is positioned against Christ. Nowhere is the death of Adam held out as our hope for peace with God. In verse 17, we see the condemnation that came from the one man’s trespass contrasted with the abundant grace we from Christ. Since by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. What is contrasted is consistently the condemnation of Adam with the righteousness of Christ, which is ours when we are given that faith to believe upon Him. Adam’s death plays NO PART in this reconciliation!

In all of these references, what the Spirit is pressing upon us is that a change has been wrought in us. We are no longer slaves to sin because we, being born from above, have died to that master. Just as another’s faith cannot save us, the death of another human (such as Adam) cannot redeem us. The life of the Christian is walked out in tension between who we were in Adam and who we are in Christ. All of the talk in these passages about us dying are exhortations to quit entertaining sin, stop submitting to that master. Read the Scriptures and ask yourself – who is being addressed? Who is the subject, who has “died to sin”? If you are in Christ, a new creation, that ought to be you!