Paul's Ambition
Whatever others may claim for themselves, Paul knows that he has not attained perfection yet. So long as mortal life lasts, there is further progress to be made. Not until the end of the race is the prize awarded.
3:12 Paul now passes from the language of accountancy to that of athletic endeavor (cf. 2:16). He is running a race; he has not yet breasted the tape or won the prize, and he must keep on running until he does so. Some of his converts elsewhere imagined that they had attained perfection and entered into their kingly glory already: Paul tells them ironically that he wishes their claim were true, because then it would be true for him as well, but he knows that he is still exerting himself amid the dust and heat (1 Cor. 4:8–13). If some of his Philippian friends are tempted to make similarly premature claims of spiritual achievement, what he now says may be helpful to them. He illustrates the true nature of Christian existence on earth by reference to himself. His growing knowledge of Christ, his sharing here and now both in his sufferings and in the power of his risen life, are bringing him nearer the goal, but so long as he is in the body, that goal still lies ahead. He will never in this life attain perfection in the sense that no further spiritual progress is possible and nothing is left to aim at beyond the point he has reached. The purpose for which Christ Jesus took hold of him on the Damascus road remains for Paul to grasp.
Paul recalls his conversion as the occasion on which a powerful hand was laid on his shoulder, turning him right round in his tracks, and a voice that brooked no refusal spoke in his ear: “You must come along with me.” Paul was conscripted into the service of Christ, but never was there a more willing conscript. The passion of his life from that hour on was to serve this new Master and fulfill the purpose for which he had conscripted him—to “lay hold on that,” as he put it, “for which also I was laid hold on by Jesus Christ” (ASV). Every phase of Paul’s subsequent life and action, every element in his understanding and preaching of the gospel, can be traced back to the revelation of Jesus Christ that was granted to him there and then.
3:13 No indeed, he says, I do not imagine that I have gained perfection yet or fully attained the purpose for which I was summoned into the service of Christ; that is why I still press on. He speaks of himself as a runner with but one object in view: to finish the race and win the prize. A competitor in a race does not look over his or her shoulder to see how much ground has been covered already or how rivals are getting on: the runner keeps eyes fixed on the winning post. What is behind is that part of the race that has been completed so far, but it will not help a runner to outstrip the others for the first nine-tenths of the way only to falter and be overtaken in the last lap.
When Paul did contemplate what he had achieved in apostolic service, it was only to reinforce his resolution to go on as he had begun. When he recorded the completion of his ministry “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum,” it was to announce his plan to travel to Spain and repeat in the western Mediterranean the program he had accomplished in the eastern Mediterranean. So long as opportunity offered “to preach the gospel where Christ was not known,” his task remained unfinished (Rom. 15:19–24).
3:14 I press on toward the goal, he says, using a noun (Gk. skopos) not found elsewhere in the NT. There is a prize to be awarded, and he aims to secure it; he looks forward to hearing the president of the games call him up to his chair to receive it. On a special occasion in Rome this call might come from the emperor himself; how proudly the successful athlete would obey the summons and step up to the imperial box to accept the award! For Paul, the president of the games was none other than his Lord; the prize was that for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus, or, more simply, “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (RSV). In similar language Paul can speak later of “the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Tim. 4:8).
The word translated prize (Gk. brabeion) is used in 1 Corinthians 9:24, “all the runners run, but only one gets the prize.” But there is no such exclusiveness about this prize; it will be given, as Paul goes on to say about the wreath of victory in 2 Timothy 4:8, “not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” Paul aims to win his prize, but there is a prize for everyone who finishes this race; Paul recommends his example to his readers (1 Cor. 9:24), so that they may make his ambition their own.
And what can the prize be but that final gaining of Christ for the sake of which, as Paul has said, everything else is well lost?
Additional Notes
3:12 That I have already obtained (elabon); the verb is transitive, but the object is not expressed. The object is the ambition that he has stated at length in vv. 8–11, the ultimate and complete “gaining” of Christ, not to be distinguished from the prize of which he goes on to speak.
Been made perfect: “been perfected” (teteleiōmai). It may be that Paul is borrowing a term from the mystery religions (cf. 4:12), in which the person admitted to the highest grade was said to have been “perfected”; but as he uses it, the word has no mystery connotation here. Nor is he thinking primarily of his coming martyrdom, although Ignatius (To the Ephesians 3:1) uses a synonymous term as he contemplates exposure to the wild beasts in the arena: “I have not yet been perfected [apērtismai] in Jesus Christ,” he says; but he welcomes the prospect of martyrdom, whatever form it may take, “only that I may attain [epitychō] to Jesus Christ” (To the Romans 5:3). Paul’s outlook is saner: the perfection that he has not yet reached will be his when the time comes for him “to depart and be with Christ” (1:23).
Before or have already been made perfect the manuscripts P46 and D*, with Irenaeus (Latin translation) and Ambrosiaster, insert the clause “or have already been justified” (dedikaiōmai). This would be an un-Pauline use of the verb “justify”: Paul knew that together with all believers in Christ he had been “justified through faith” (Rom. 5:1, etc.; cf. v. 9 above). It resembles rather the Ignatian use: Ignatius, speaking of the hardships endured by him on his way to Rome, says, “I am not hereby justified” (dedikaiōmai), implying that he will at last be justified when he has undergone a martyr’s death (To the Romans 5:1).
I press on: Gk. diōkō; “I pursue,” “I follow on.”
To take hold of that for which …: Gk. ei kai katalabō, “if indeed I may lay hold of …”; the use of ei (“if”) to introduce a clause of purpose is similar to that in v. 11, “in hope that …” (Gk. ei pōs). The antecedent of for which is not expressed in the original, and is probably something like “the purpose,” in keeping with eph’ hō, “with a view to which.”
Christ Jesus took hold of me: Gk. katelēmphthēn hypo Christou Iēsou, “I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” The translator must find an appropriate verb to cover both senses of katalambanein (katalabō … katelēmphthēn). It is difficult to improve on the KJV choice of the verb “apprehend.” For the significance of Paul’s experience of being “apprehended by Christ Jesus” in relation to his subsequent ministry see J. Dupont, “The Conversion of Paul, and Its Influence on his Understanding of Salvation by Faith,” in W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin, eds., Apostolic History and the Gospel, pp. 176–94; G. Bornkamm, “The Revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus Road and Paul’s Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation,” in R. Banks, ed., Reconciliation and Hope, pp. 90–103; S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel.
3:13 There is a variant reading “not” (ou) for not … yet (oupō). Even though not … yet has early and wide attestation, it is more likely to have replaced an original not than vice versa.
3:14 The goal or skopos was so called because the competitor kept his eye fixed on it (skopein, “look”). The “upward call” to the victor came in Greek contests from the agōnothetēs, in the Panhellenic games (like those at Olympia) from the hellēnodikai.
Spiritual Maturity
Paul knows that not all his friends assess Christian issues as he himself does. He does not force his own assessment on them, but gives them helpful advice.
3:15 NIV is right in rendering teleioi (“perfect”) as mature here. It has been widely maintained that the reference is to those who claimed to have attained perfection in the sense that Paul has just disclaimed for himself (v. 13). But Paul now includes himself among the “perfect” just as in Romans 15:1 he includes himself among the “strong” (“we who are strong”). The repetition of a word or its derivative in a different sense within a short interval is a common literary phenomenon. There is no need to write the word in its present occurrence within quotation marks, as though Paul were not committing himself to its use. To be sure, if any of his readers claimed to be perfect in a sense that could not be achieved short of the day of Christ, there may be a word of admonition for them: it was a mark of the mature to recognize that such perfection was unattainable during mortal life.
Let no man think that sudden in a minute
All is accomplished and the work is done;
Though with thine earliest dawn thou shouldst begin it
Scarce were it ended in thy setting sun.
(F. W. H. Myers, “Saint Paul”)
But more positively, the Christ-centered ambition expressed by Paul should characterize every mature believer. No doubt Paul’s ambition, from the moment of his conversion, was to serve Christ and “be found in him”; but it took time for him to appreciate by experience what was involved in the pursuit of this ambition. Having attained spiritual maturity, however, he “no longer frets about weaknesses, failures and frustrations,” whether in himself or in others (Montefiore, Paul the Apostle, p. 30).
If some of Paul’s readers felt bound to admit that they could not express their ambition or attitude in Paul’s terms, let them not despair or resign themselves to eking out a second-rate Christian existence. Let the matter be committed to God, and that too God will make clear to you. Paul will not scold them or express disappointment that they have made such poor progress. He aims rather to encourage them.
That too (kai touto) God will make clear to you. On the supposition that Paul is taking issue with those who claimed a premature perfection, the “too” might mean that, over and above the “visions and revelations” they boasted of having received (cf. 2 Cor. 12:1), there were matters of practical Christian living that they required to have revealed to them. Otherwise, the point may be that, since they have accepted the divine revelation that leads to the attitude characteristic of spiritual maturity, they may trust God to give them whatever further revelation is necessary to remove any remaining inadequacies or inconsistencies in their Christian outlook.
3:16 If what we have already attained are the guidelines for Christian living which Paul habitually recommended to his converts—if they are, as he puts it elsewhere, “my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Cor. 4:17)—then let them continue to follow Paul’s “way” as their rule of life, and the desired spiritual growth will manifest itself. To those who walk in the light they already have, more light will be given.
There is no word in the Greek text here corresponding to “rule”; those versions which add it may have been influenced (and properly so) by the similar wording of Galatians 6:16, where the noun “rule” (Gk. kanōn) does occur: “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.”
To the question how this reference to a “rule” can be squared with Paul’s denial of any place for law in Christian life, let it be said that (1) this “rule” does not consist of regulations; it has rather the nature of guidelines or principles, and (2) over against “law” in the legal sense Paul sets “the law of Christ”—that is, the way of life exemplified by Christ and recorded for the imitation of his followers. The rule implied here, then, embraces the principles of living involved in “the law of Christ,” among which the carrying of one another’s burdens takes a leading place (Gal. 6:2). Paul encourages the Philippian Christians to continue to march forward as a united community, shoulder to shoulder, according to the teaching which they had received from him since first he brought them the gospel.
Additional Notes
3:15 Mature: Gk. teleioi, “perfect.” W. Lütgert (Die Vollkommenen im Philipperbrief und die Enthusiasten in Thessalonich, p. 19), W. Schmithals (Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 99–104), and others take the people so designated to be those of a Gnosticizing tendency, like the self-styled “spiritual persons” (pneumatikoi) at Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 2:13, 15; 3:1, etc.). According to them, Paul’s ostensible association of himself with them in the first person plural is at most a captatio benevolentiae. This is a strained interpretation of his words.
Should take such a view of things: Gk. touto phronōmen, “let us be thus minded.” In Aleph, L, and a few other manuscripts the indicative phronoumen is read: “we are thus minded” (but this variant has no claim to serious consideration). The attitude in question is explained by Chrysostom as readiness to “forget what is behind”; he adds, playing on the double sense of “perfect” (teleios): “it is the mark of one who is perfect not to consider himself perfect” (Homilies on Philippians, 12). To think differently may mean to have a wrong attitude; the adverb heterōs “seems to have the meaning ‘amiss’ ” (J. B. Lightfoot, ad loc.).
God will make clear: lit., “will reveal” (Gk. apokalypsei). Gk. kai touto (that too) might mean “this indeed,” as though the sense were: “This is the revelation you need; not revelations as understood in Gnosticizing schools” (cf. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, p. 104).
3:16 Let us live up to: lit., “let us march by the same (rule as we have followed) to the point we have already reached” (eis ho ephthasamen). With tō autō (“the same”) several witnesses read kanoni (“rule”), but the weight of the evidence favors its omission (although it represents the implied meaning). Cf. Gal. 6:16, “as many as will march by this rule” (Gk. hosoi tō kanoni toutō stoichēsousin), the influence of which is probably to be discerned in those authorities that add “rule” (kanoni) here. The verb stoichein (rendered live up to here in NIV) means “stand in line” or “march in line”; the implication is that this is not a matter of individual attainment, but one in which the whole community should move forward together.
Imitation of Paul
There are many itinerant teachers whose example it would be unsafe to follow. Paul recommends his own example and that of others who, like him, adhere to the way of Christ.
3:17 If Paul’s precept is not clear enough, let his example be followed. The “imitation of Paul” is a remarkable and recurring theme in his letters. He taught his converts by precept, spoken and written, how they ought to live; but a living example could be more telling than many words. If they desire to see Christian life in action, Paul directs their attention to his own conduct, as he does here: “join in imitating me.”
For a man like Paul to take this line meant that he had to be exceptionally careful about his conduct, lest his example be a spiritual stumbling block to others or even, without his intending it, lead them into sin. He urged his converts to be equally careful: “Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:32–11:1).
These last words are crucial: it was not that Paul wished to set his own life up as an ethical standard; he presented Christ as the absolute standard, in action and teaching alike. He himself was to be imitated only insofar as he imitated Christ, but the imitation of Christ was an exercise he cultivated daily. He knew that many of his converts would imitate him in any case, and he knew that, if his example led them astray, he would have to answer for it on the Day of Christ. Hence the care with which he practiced unremitting self-discipline, so that, “after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). See also 4:9 below.
Nor was it only his own example that he recommended. There were others who followed the same way of life and shared the same attitudes and principles: Timothy and Epaphroditus have been mentioned in this regard in 2:19–30. Men and women of their quality also presented examples that might be followed with confidence.
Additional Notes
3:17 Take note of: Gk. skopeite, “look,” “watch.” In Rom. 16:17 this verb is used in the sense “watch and avoid”; here it is used in the sense “watch and follow.”
According to the pattern we gave you: lit., “as you have us for an example.” In Greek “us” (hēmas) occupies an emphatic position as the last word in the sentence; it is probably implied that a different example is set by others—namely, those against whom a warning is issued in vv. 18, 19.
See W. P. DeBoer, The Imitation of Paul.
Warning Against Enemies
Paul warns the Philippians against those whose example is morally harmful, not helpful.
3:18 It was the behavior of the people now referred to that made them enemies of the cross of Christ. The men who tried to impose the Jewish law on Paul’s Gentile converts in the Galatian churches implied by their teaching (according to Paul) that Christ’s death was pointless and ineffectual (Gal. 2:21) and in that sense might have been called enemies of the cross, but nothing is said against their moral standards. The enemies of the cross denounced here are described in different terms from those people against whom the Philippians are put on their guard in verse 2 and need not be identified with them. It is useless to insist in this connection that “entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary” (the principle known as Occam’s razor), as though that dictated the identification of the two groups: real life is more complicated than logical argument.
It is evident from his general correspondence that Paul at times had to wage war on at least two fronts—at Corinth, for example, against ascetics on the one hand, who would have liked to forbid marriage (1 Cor. 7:1), and against libertines on the other hand, whose slogan was “everything is permissible” (1 Cor. 6:12). The grace of God is received in vain equally by those who continue to live under law and by those who think they should “go on sinning so that grace may increase” (Rom. 6:1). In verses 18 and 19 Paul is concerned about people who took the latter line, in practice and teaching alike. Christ endured the cross to free believers from sin and to reconcile them to God (Rom. 6:7; 2 Cor. 5:18–21); those who deliberately indulge in sin and repudiate the will of God deny all that the cross of Christ stands for.
Paul had warned the Philippian Christians against such people before—whether by word of mouth or in writing we cannot say. If he now repeats his warning, it is because he knows it to be necessary. Such people were exerting their influence in many churches, and they might make an appearance in the Philippian church, if they had not done so already. It is not suggested that the Philippian church was inclined to countenance them, but Paul knew how insidious their arguments were and how disastrous their example could be.
3:19 The destiny of such people, says Paul, is destruction; those who follow their bad example are likely to share their fate.
Their god is their stomach; compare Romans 16:18, where the Roman Christians are warned against undesirable characters who “are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites” (“appetites” there renders the same noun, Gk. koilia, as stomach renders here). The rendering stomach is perhaps less apt than “appetites,” because the latter indicates that gluttony is not the only vice with which the people in question are charged. Similarly in 1 Corinthians 6:13, where Paul quotes the libertine epigram, “Food is for the stomach [koilia], and the stomach [koilia] is for food,” the context makes it plain that sexual license, not freedom from food restrictions, is the subject under discussion. If their god is their “appetites,” that means that their “appetites” are their ultimate concern; they do not say so expressly, but that is the implication of their way of life.
Their glory is in their shame (a good instance of oxymoron): this confirms our understanding of the preceding clause. There is no hint at circumcision here, as though their shame denoted the part of the body that bore the seal of circumcision; a specific example of the situation deplored by Paul is provided in 1 Corinthians 5:2, where an irregular sexual union within the church that not only contravened Jewish law but also shocked the pagan sense of propriety (even in the permissive climate of Corinth) was regarded by some church members as rather a fine assertion of Christian liberty. “Your boasting is not good,” said Paul in that situation (1 Cor. 5:6), because they were proud of what they should have been ashamed of. A century and a half later Hippolytus of Rome speaks of a group called the Simonians who “actually congratulate themselves on their promiscuity, because (they say) that is what is meant by perfect love” (Refutation of Heresies 6.19.5).
Such people had no awareness of the call to Christians to exhibit a higher standard of behavior than that which their neighbors observed; they were content for their mind to be on earthly things. There was, in fact, no reason to think that they had ever been touched by the grace of God proclaimed in the gospel; their lives were far from yielding the fruit of the Spirit.
Additional Notes
3:18 Before the enemies of the cross of Christ P46 inserts “watch out for” (Gk. blepete, borrowed from v. 2). Polycarp quotes the phrase “enemies of the cross” (To the Philippians, 12:3); earlier in the same letter he declares that “whoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil” (7:1).
The identity of these enemies is disputed. W. Schmithals sees in them the same Jewish-Christian Gnostics as he discerns in “those men who do evil” of v. 2; like their counterparts in Corinth, they “put ‘knowledge’ in place of ‘the folly of the cross’ ” (Paul and the Gnostics, p. 107). W. Lueken (ad loc.) thinks of Christians who cannot break loose from the old familiar pagan immorality (similarly E. Haupt [ad loc.], and T. Zahn, Introduction to the NT, vol. 1, p. 539). E. Lohmeyer (ad loc.) considers them to be lapsed or apostate Christians; H. Appel more precisely (and correctly) identifies them as professing Christians who misuse the doctrine of grace as an occasion for libertinism (Einleitung in das NT, p. 57).
3:19 These enemies are bound for destruction (Gk. apōleia), the word used in 1:28 of the destiny of the church’s persecutors. Cf. the participial phrase hoi apollymenoi, “those who are perishing,” used in 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Cor. 2:15; 4:3 of those who reject the gospel. In 1 Cor. 1:18 it appears in a context that speaks of the cross as being “emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17).
A verbal parallel to the clause “whose god is their belly” comes in Euripides, Cyclops 334, 335, where the Cyclops says, “I offer sacrifice to no god but myself, and to this belly of mine, the greatest of divinities” (kai tē megistē gastri tēde daimonōn). Schmithals thinks the words point to “disregard for the rules concerning food” (Paul and the Gnostics, p. 109); but Paul himself shared that disregard. J.-F. Collange (ad loc.) suggests that the description is of self-worshipers who contemplate their own navels (not a natural meaning for koilia).
In contrast to those who glory … in their shame Paul speaks of himself and his associates as having “renounced secret and shameful ways” (2 Cor. 4:2). (In Jude 13 libertine teachers are compared to “wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame.”) J. A. Bengel (Gnomon, ad loc.) and some later writers have understood the reference here to be to circumcision, as though Gk. aischynē (“shame”) were synonymous with aidoia, but this sense is poorly attested for aischynē.
The earthly things may be contrasted with “things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,” on which Christians are directed to set their hearts (Col. 3:1, 2). This, in effect, is what Paul now goes on to say.
Heavenly Citizenship and Hope
True believers are citizens of heaven, where their Lord now is, and when he comes from there he will equip his people with bodies like his own, fitted for full entry upon their heavenly heritage.
3:20 In saying that our citizenship is in heaven, Paul uses the noun politeuma, not found elsewhere in the NT, but related to the verb politeuesthai, which he has used in 1:27 to denote the Philippian Christians’ “conduct,” with special reference to their responsibility as members of a community. So here, if their citizenship is in heaven, their way of life should be in keeping with that citizenship.
There may be an allusion here to the constitution of Philippi. Since Philippi was a colony of Rome, its politeuma, the register of its citizens, was kept in Rome, its mother city (Gk. mētropolis). No doubt only a minority of the church membership possessed this citizen status, but the constitution of the city would be well enough known to them all. Moffatt’s translation, “But we are a colony of heaven,” could express the general sense quite well. As citizens of a Roman colony were expected to promote the interests of their mother city and maintain its dignity, so citizens of heaven in an earthly environment should represent the interests of their true homeland and lead lives worthy of their citizenship. This citizenship was theirs already; they did not have to wait for it. But they did eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. This expectation was a constant element in the primitive apostolic preaching: the Thessalonian converts, for example, were taught “to wait for his [God’s] Son from heaven …—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:10).
It would be pressing Paul’s language here too far to infer that he himself expected to be still alive to greet the appearing Savior. In 1:20–24 he expects rather to die before the advent of Christ, and in verse 11 above he hopes to “attain to the resurrection from the dead.” So, in saying now that we eagerly await a Savior, he expresses the attitude of Christians in general, without special reference to his personal prospects.
3:21 When the Savior comes, he will transform our lowly bodies. A fuller statement is given in 1 Corinthians 15:42–53. Whether believers have died or are still alive at the time of the advent, they will have to undergo a change in order to inherit God’s eternal kingdom. Those who have died will receive a “spiritual body” to replace the “natural body” that has disintegrated; the mortality of those who are still alive will “clothe itself … with immortality.” Both the dead who are raised and the living who are changed, having hitherto “borne the likeness of the earthly man” (the first Adam, according to the narrative of Gen. 2:7), will henceforth “bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”
This last statement is expressed here in slightly different wording when Paul says that Christ will transform our lowly bodies (lit., “our body of humiliation”) to be like his glorious body (lit., “his body of glory”)—that is, his glorified body. The bodies that the people of Christ will wear in the age to come will belong to the same heavenly order as his own resurrection body. “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Rom. 8:19) because their revelation as the sons and daughters of God will be their participation in the glory in which he who is the Son of God par excellence will then be revealed. “When Christ, who is your life, appears,” says Paul to the Colossian Christians, “then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
The power that enables him to bring everything under his control is the power he shares with the Father. The almighty power of the Father, demonstrated in his raising his Son from death (see comment on v. 10 above, “the power of his resurrection”) is exercised by the Son in virtue of the authority he has received to give life to whom he chooses (cf. John 5:21, 25–29). The raising of his people to resurrection life is one phase of the Son’s exercise of this God-given authority: “For he must reign,” says Paul to the Corinthians, “until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Cor. 15:25, echoing Pss. 8:6; 110:1).
Paul did not know, nor did he pretend to know, when the advent would take place. Something has been said about his own changing perspective in the comment on 1:23. The so-called delay of the parousia involved no such agonizing reappraisal for him and his theology as has often been supposed. The certainty of the advent is accepted by faith; its timing is inaccessible to curious calculation. Each successive generation of the church has the privilege of living as though it were the generation that will greet the returning Christ.
Additional Notes
3:20 On Roman citizenship see A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, pp. 78–80 and The Roman Citizenship; on its relevance to Phil. 3:20 see E. Stauffer, New Testament Theology, pp. 296, 297. For the heavenly metropolis cf. Gal. 4:25 (“the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother”). For Gentile analogues see Plato, Republic 9.592B (on the pattern of the ideal city laid up in heaven); and Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.11 (“dear city of God”).
E. Lohmeyer (ad loc.) draws attention to the rhythmic structure of the words beginning we eagerly await a Savior, as though Paul were quoting a Christian hymn or confession without necessarily committing himself to every one of its details (so also E. Güttgemanns, Der leidende Apostel und sein Herr, pp. 246, 247; J. Becker, “Erwägungen zu Phil 3, 20–21,” TZ 27 [1971], pp. 16–29). Moreover, the word Savior (Gk. sōtēr) does not appear elsewhere in the Pauline corpus apart from Eph. 5:23 and the Pastoral Letters. But the wording of Phil. 3:20, 21 (especially as regards the body in v. 21) is completely consistent with Paul’s general teaching; see R. H. Gundry, “Sōma” in Biblical Theology, pp. 177–83.
J.-F. Collange (ad loc.), R. P. Martin (ad loc.), and others point to a striking series of parallels between this passage and 2:6–11. Among those others M. D. Hooker sees 3:20, 21 as carrying on the line of thought in 2:6–11: in 2:6–8 we have a description of Christ’s becoming like us, in 2:9–11 we have an account of what he now is, in 3:20, 21 we are told how, by the power bestowed on him, he will make us like himself (“Interchange in Christ,” JTS n.s. 22 [1971], pp. 356, 357; and in Jesus und Paulus, ed. E. E. Ellis and E. Grässer, p. 155).
When Paul says that “our citizenship is already (Gk. hyparchei) in heaven” and yet points forward to its consummation at the advent of Christ, he illustrates the interplay of realized and future eschatology in the NT; on this and other features of the present passage see A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet, pp. 87–109.
3:21 The “body of our humiliation” (sōma tēs tapeinōseōs hēmōn) is identical with the “natural (lit., ‘soulish’) body” (sōma psychikon) of 1 Cor. 15:44, so called because it is inherited from the first Adam, who became a “living soul” psychē zōsa, Gen. 2:7, LXX). The “spiritual body” (sōma pneumatikon) of 1 Cor. 15:44 is so called because Christ, the “last Adam,” became in resurrection a “life-giving spirit” (pneuma zōopoioun, 1 Cor. 15:45). In 1 Cor. 15:42–50, as in the present passage, it is to Christ’s resurrection body that the believer’s body is to be conformed.
With so that they will be like (Gk. symmorphon, “conformable”) may be compared “being conformed [symmorphizomenos] to his death” in v. 10 above. “If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5).
Through the power (Gk. energeia) that enables him to bring everything under his control he fulfills what is said of man in Ps. 8:6 (“You [God] made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet”) and to the Davidic king in Ps. 110:1 (“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”). See 1 Cor. 15:24–28; Heb. 2:5–9.
On the imminence and “delay” of the advent see A. L. Moore, The Parousia in the New Testament, pp. 108–74; also S. S. Smalley, “The Delay of the Parousia,” JBL 83 (1964), pp. 41–54.
Exhortation to Stand Firm
4:1 Paul once more expresses his joy and pride in his Philippian friends and encourages them afresh to be steadfast in their Christian life (cf. 1:27). More particularly in the present context he encourages them to be steadfast in resistance to those influences against which he has just warned them—influences that would undermine their Christian stability. But the delight he finds in these friends as he addresses them and calls them to mind suggests that those harmful influences had not made serious inroads among them, as they had done in some other churches.
Additional Notes
4:1 Whom I … long for renders the verbal adjective epipothētos, “longed for”. While this form does not appear elsewhere in NT, the verb epipothein is more common: it has occurred twice earlier in this letter—in 1:8, where Paul speaks of his “longing for” them all (see additional note 1:8), and in 2:26, where he speaks of Epaphroditus’s anxiety to see them.
My joy and crown; cf. 1 Thess. 2:19, where Paul and his companions, with an eye on the advent of Christ, call the Thessalonian believers their “joy and crown of exultation” (NIV: “our joy, or the crown in which we will glory”). In both places the “crown” is the stephanos, the wreath awarded to the victor in the games (not the diadēma, the symbol of sovereignty).
