CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Philippians 3:9. Through the faith of Christ.—Better without the article as R.V. Faith is the medium by which righteousness comes. The righteousness which is of God.—Which originates from God as the fount of all righteousness. By faith.—R.V. margin, “upon”; that is, resting upon faith as its condition; above it was the medium.
Philippians 3:10. The power of His resurrection.—The wide-reaching and conquering force and efficacy which render death inert (2 Timothy 1:10) and draw “the sting of death” (1 Corinthians 15). And the fellowship of His sufferings.—The apostle has no desire to go by any other way to his glory than that by which his Lord went—per crucem ad lucem. Being made comformable unto His death.—R.V. “becoming conformed.” The original is one word where we have three, “being made conformable,” taking that lowly guise which will agree with the bearing of Him who “took the form of a servant.” “The agony of Gethsemane, not less than the agony of Calvary, will be reproduced, however faintly, in the faithful servant of Christ.” (Lightfoot).
Philippians 3:11. If by any means I might attain.—How little is there here of the spirit of those who profess themselves “as sure of heaven as though they were there.” Meyer thinks the expression excludes moral security, but not the certitudo salutis in itself. Unto the resurrection of the dead.—By a very slight change “from the dead” instead of “of the dead” the R.V. indicates rather too feebly the only use of the term in the New Testament. “From amongst” would have been more likely to arrest attention. Whilst Meyer says the compound word for resurrection in no way differs from the ordinary one, Lightfoot thinks the form of expression implies and the context requires the meaning “the final resurrection of the righteous to a new and glorified life.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Philippians 3:9-11
Features of the Believer’s Life in Christ.
I. The believer’s life has its home and stronghold in Christ.—“And be found in Him” (Philippians 3:9). Once lost, now found: found by Christ; found in Him by others. Once homeless, now safely sheltered. One day Charles Wesley was sitting by an open window looking over the bright and beautiful fields in summertime. Presently a little bird, flitting about in the sunshine, attracted his attention. Just then a hawk came swooping down towards the little bird. The frightened thing was darting here and there, trying to find some place of refuge. In the bright sunny air, in the leafy trees or green fields, there was no hiding-place from the fierce grasp of the hawk. But seeing the open window and a man sitting by it, the bird, in its extreme terror, flew towards it, and with a beating heart and quivering wing found refuge in Wesley’s bosom. He sheltered it from the threatening danger, and saved it from a cruel death. Wesley was at that time suffering from severe trials, and was feeling the need of a refuge as much as the trembling bird that nestled safely in his bosom. So he took up his pen and wrote the well-known hymn—
“Jesu, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.”
To be found in Christ means more than mere shelter, more than external fellowship. It means a union as close and vital and abiding as between the members of the body and the head; a union effected by the Spirit, and being the very Spirit of Christ dwelling in us.
II. The believer’s life consists of righteousness, not self-acquired, but divinely inspired through faith.—“Not having mine own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ” (Philippians 3:9). The apostle now touches upon a theme—justification by faith—which he has argued out with a clearness and fulness unequalled by any other New Testament writer. The righteousness which was his own was out of the law, or originated by the law, and was acquired by his own effort; but the righteousness which he finds in Christ is not his own, but God’s, and is acquired, not by his own merits or efforts, but by faith in Christ. “This righteousness, divine in its origin, awful in its medium, and fraught with such results, was the essential element of Paul’s religion, and the distinctive tenet of his theology.” When a friend happening to say to the Rev. John Brown, of Haddington, “I suppose you make not your labours for the good of the Church the ground of your comfort,” he, with uncommon earnestness, replied, “No, no, no! it is the finished righteousness of Christ which is the only foundation of my hope; I have no more dependence on my labours than on my sins. I rather reckon it a wonder of mercy that God took any of my labours of my hand. Righteousness belongeth unto Him, but unto me shame and confusion of face.”
III. The believer’s life is the creation of divine power.—It is a life communicated by the exercise of the divine power that raised Christ from the dead. “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). The power exerted by Christ’s resurrection is exerted in raising the divine life in the believing soul, and raising it to still higher developments of power and enjoyment. The aspirations of the soul after Christ are aspirations to know more and more the power of His resurrection.
2. It is a life that will be consummated by the ultimate resurrection of the body.—“If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (Philippians 3:11). Towards this consummation the apostle yearns with intense desire. All his hopes, all his soul longed for, seem gathered up in this: perfect freedom for ever from sin and sorrow; knowledge of Christ up to the fullest measure of his capacity of knowledge; perfect experimental acquaintance with the power of His resurrection, through perfect fellowship of life with Him; the ineffable and everlasting blessedness of being with Him and like Him; to rise out of the ashes of the tomb and assume the glorious body of the resurrection. We can never forget a corridor in the Vatican Museum, exhibiting on the one side epitaphs and emblems of departed heathens and their gods, and on the other side mementoes of departed Christians. Face to face they stand, engaged, as it were, in conflict, the two armies clinging to their respective standards; hope against despair—death swallowed up in victory. Opposite to lions seizing on horses, emblems of destruction, are charming sculptures of the good Shepherd bearing home the lost lamb—a sign of salvation.
IV. The believer’s life is in sympathetic fellowship with the suffering Christ—“And to know the fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). The sufferings of Christ are not ended—they are prolonged in the sufferings of His people—and of these the apostle desired to know the fellowship. He longed so to suffer, for such fellowship gave him assimilation to his Lord, as he drank of His cup and was baptised with His baptism. It brought him into communion with Christ, purer, closer, and tenderer than simple service for Him could have achieved. It gave him such solace as Christ Himself enjoyed. To suffer together creates a dearer fellow-feeling than to labour together. Christ indeed cannot be known unless there be this fellowship in His sufferings (Eadie). An intimate friend of Handel’s called upon him just as he was in the middle of setting the words to music, “He was despised,” and found the great composer sobbing with tears, so greatly had this passage and the rest of his morning’s work affected the master.
Lessons.—
1. The soul finds its highest life in Christ.
2. Life in Christ is secured by the co-operation of man’s faith with Divine power.
3. To live in Christ is to share the fruits of His mysterious passion.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Philippians 3:10. Knowledge of the Power of Christ’s Resurrection.
I. To know Christ includes a clearly defined conception and familiar acquaintance with the special characteristics and unrivalled excellencies of His person.
II. To know the power of His resurrection.—
1. As it is a public and universal vindication of the proper dignity of His person.
2. As it seals the doom of human sin.
3. As it ensures the destruction of pain and death, and provides for the perpetuation of the believer in a state of immortal felicity.
The Power of Christ’s Resurrection—
I. As a miracle attesting His divine mission.
II. As an evidence of His divinity.—Resurrection does not always prove divinity, but in these circumstances (Romans 1:3-4).
III. As an indication of the acceptance of His sacrifice.
IV. As an incentive to the pursuit of holiness.—Risen with Christ; risen in Him, sharing His life.
V. As an instrument of social amelioration.—The gospel has civilised where it has not Christianised, has repressed and refined where it has not renewed or regenerated.
VI. As a pledge and preassurance of the glorious resurrection of His people.—G. Brooks.
The Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings.
I. We have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings in the pain caused by coming in contact with sin.
II. In having our motives misinterpreted and our conduct misjudged.
III. In the purifying influence of suffering.
Philippians 3:11. The Resurrection of the Dead as an Object to aim at.
I. The object which Paul contemplated.—
1. The resurrection as the proof of final escape from all evil.
2. The resurrection as the occasion of public recognition by the Saviour-Judges 3. The resurrection as the pledge of eternal happiness in heaven.
II. His desire for that object.—It supplies—
1. A high appreciation of its value.
2. A deep sense of its difficulty.
3. A persuasion that it may be attained in various degrees.
4. A submission to all the divine arrangements in reference to it.—G. Brooks.
The Resurrection of the Just.
I. What is that entire satisfaction and climax for which we are to long and labour?
II. What are the scriptural representations of its accompaniments and consequences?—
1. The power of recognising all those whom they have known in holy fellowship on earth.
2. The resemblance of our nature to Christ.
3. High honour is destined for Christians.
III. What are the determinations by which it is to be won?—
1. The relation which the present happy spiritualism of deceased saints bears to the resurrection.
2. The representation of the intermediate state. It is a relic and disadvantageous condition of death, though of death as far as possible mitigated. It shall be overthrown, not only as a state, but as a separate power, in the destruction of death.—R. W. Hamilton.
The Attainment of the Resurrection.
I. Paul’s aim.—“The resurrection of the dead.”
1. The risen Christ is the pledge of a risen life for man.
2. The rising of Christ is a power to elevate life.
3. Hence arises the gradual attainment of the resurrection.
II. Paul’s endeavour.—“If by any means.” The necessity for this agonising endeavour arises from—
1. The difficulty of accomplishing it.
2. The glory of its attainment.—E. L. Hull.