Warning concerning false teaching
3
📚Finally, my brethren, rejoice 📖 in the Lord. To write the same things 📖 to you again is no trouble for me, and for you it is safe. 2 📚Beware of dogs 📖! Beware of evil workers 📖! Beware of the mutilators 📖!
3:2 Paul here speaks of the same sort of people he wrote about to other churches – 2 Cor 11:13-15; Gal 1:7; 2:4; 5:12. See also Acts 15:1-2, 5.⚜
No confidence in the flesh
3 📚For we 📖 are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit 📖 and rejoice in Christ 📖 Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh 📖. 4 📚Though I too might have confidence in the flesh. If any one else thinks he has reasons for trusting in the flesh, I have more:
5 📚Circumcised the eighth day 📖, of the stock of Israel 📖, of the tribe of Benjamin 📖, a Hebrew of the Hebrews 📖; as touching the Law, a Pharisee 📖; 6 📚concerning zeal 📖, persecuting the church; as for the righteousness that is in the Law, blameless 📖.
7 📚But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
3:4-7 The Jewish false teachers put their confidence in themselves and in the observance of their religion. See Rom 2:17-20. Paul looks back at his past and says that he was in no way inferior to any of them. But, unlike them, he had learned to reject all that confidence in self and in religion. He lists seven ways in which he had been (in the eyes of the Jews) an ideal Jew.⚜
3:7 This new view of things began with his experience on the Damascus road – Acts 9:3-6. He was enlightened as to the true value of things. What he had considered spiritually profitable he now saw was loss. Self-confidence and pride had kept him from Christ. Now he renounced it all – pride of birth, pride of race, pride of religion, pride in attainments. With the opening of his spiritual eyes, what had been pleasing to him became useless and vile. Self had been the center of Paul’s life. Now Christ became the center. So it will be with all those who are truly enlightened and come to know Christ.⚜
Joyfully renouncing all things for Christ
8 📚Yes, indeed, and I count all things as 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 of the Law, but that which is through faith 📖 in Christ, the righteousness which comes 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 might attain to the resurrection from among the dead 📖.
Running for the goal
12 📚Not that I have already attained 📖, or have already been made perfect 📖. But I press on 📖 so that I may lay hold 📖 of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. 13 📚Brethren, I do not consider myself as having laid hold of it. But one thing I do: 📖 forgetting 📖 those things which are behind, and stretching 📖 forward to those things which are ahead, 14 📚I press toward the goal 📖 for the prize 📖 of the upward calling 📖 of God in Christ Jesus.
15 📚Therefore, let us, as many as are fully mature 📖, have this same mind. If you think differently in anything, God will reveal this also to you. 16 📚In any case, in the measure we have already attained, let us conduct ourselves by the same rule, let us have the same mind.
3:16 Believers should live up to the light they have. If they do so, God will surely give them more understanding of the truth.⚜
17 📚Brethren, you have us as an example 📖, so join others in following me, and take note 📖 of those who walk so.
Two kinds of persons, two different ends
18 📚(For many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I have often told you of them, and now tell you even weeping 📖. 19 📚Their end is destruction 📖, their God is their belly 📖, and their glory is in their shame 📖, and their mind is on earthly things.) 📖 20 📚But our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
3:20 Believers are in the world, but they do not belong to the world – John 17:6, 11, 14, 15. Their city, their country is above – Heb 11:10, 16; 13:14; Gal 4:26. They belong to heaven. Their hopes, their desires are fixed on it. God is their King. They look forward to the return of their Saviour – Acts 1:11; 1 Thess 4:14-18; Heb 9:28.⚜
21 📚who will transform 📖 our lowly body, that it may become like his glorious body 📖, according to the power that enables him to subdue 📖 all things under himself.