Paul felt constrained to
write a letter to the Philippian "ecclesia" or
Church. It was a good Church. It is clear he had a great
affection for it. The reason for writing the letter was
not to record a new piece of doctrine, nor to emphasise
doctrinal truths he had already recorded in letters to
the Romans, Corinthians and Galatians. It is apparent
from Chap. 1:28 and 3:2 that Paul was concerned at
hearing that the Philippians were suffering some
persecution, and also that their faith was being attacked
by people he calls "evil workers", who Were
probably Jewish, for he says "beware of the
maimcision". Unable to visit this much loved Church,
because he was in custody in Rome, he resorts to writing
to them to strengthen their faith.
What mostly concerns him
is to reinforce their morale, in clarifying what their
conduct, as Christian believers, should be in the face of
nagging and harmful opposition: In 1:27 he says,
"Behave as citizens (note, in chap. 3:20, "Our
citizenship inheres in the heavens") walking
worthily of the evangel of Christ... stand firm in one
spirit, one soul, competing together (like athletes
running the race) in the faith of the evangel."
(C.V.)
The simile of an athletic
race for our conduct in the Christian life was a
favourite with Paul. He uses it again in this letter
(3:14), and also in 2 Tim. 2:5 and 4:7. There
was nothing happening to the Philippians that Paul had
not personally suffered in greater degree. So be goes on
in his letter to exhort this Church to follow his own
example.
Those reading this article
should at this point read through the whole Philippian
letter, for it consists in our Bible of only four
chapters. It is a most important letter, with which every
present-day believer should be familiar. Like the
Philippians, we have to live today with our faith in
Christ, and with a desire to be worthy of Him, in the
face of social conditions that increasingly are tending
to devalue this faith and debase standards of conduct.
The whole core of Paul's
recommendations in the letter can be found in Chap.
3:8-14, using himself as an example. In most wonderful
words he describes what he has gained from the knowledge
of Christ. "That I should be:—
Gaining Christ,
Found in Him,
Credited with the
righteousness which is from God.
(i.e., a righteousness arising from Christ's
faith.),
Knowing Christ,
Knowing the power
of His resurrection,
Knowing the
fellowship of His sufferings,
Conforming to His
death.
Eventually
attaining to the resurrection 'out from among the
dead'."
We know of no other
portion of the New Testament that more fully or more
concisely sums up the comprehensiveness of the individual
believers spiritual riches in Christ. It is because these
riches are the gracious, unmerited, gift of God that we
should conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Giver.
You will note that right
in the heart of the list given by Paul of his
"gains" (4 above) is "KNOWING
CHRIST", So we have to ask ourselves the question,
"Do we really know Christ ?" Not know about
Him, but know Him, The Greek word used is GINOSKO,
which means knowing by experience, as we know our
relatives and friends, as distinct from another Greek
word meaning intuitive knowledge, or effortless
knowledge. It is a reasonable assumption that all
believers are united in wanting to get to know Christ
more fully and intimately. But it is just at this point
that a wide divergence becomes apparent in Christendom as
to the method employed. There are those who are satisfied
to know Christ as the Jesus of the four Gospels. There
are others for whom this is not enough, and Paul is among
them, and so should we be. Let us see how Paul deals with
this divergence among believers.
In reading the book of
Acts, we see how Paul, after his conversion, spent many
years as a new Jewish believer addressing himself to
those of the Hebrew faith and their foreign proselytes.
In short, he confined himself to endeavouring to convert
to the new Christian faith people who were
synagogue-going keepers of the old Israelite traditions;
in fact, the sort of people who flocked to hear Jesus
when He was alive, but rejected Him and acquiesced in His
crucifixion (Acts 9:20-22). After the events of Acts
13, Paul's ministry widens, both in geographical and
human terms. Increasingly Gentiles attached themselves to
the then new faith, and increasingly the Jews resented
this, as it detracted from the feeling of fleshly
superiority they had hitherto enjoyed as heirs to the
promises.
Paul indeed faced a
formidable task. Essentially "his gospel" was a
"spiritual" one. It did not pander to the
flesh. It preached a new attitude to life and heralded a
future glory "in Christ"; it emphasised the
grace of God, and the inefficacy of righteousness through
Law and works. The people to whom he preached and wrote
were quite unaccustomed to think in terms of spiritual
values; rather did they value worldly benefits and
privileges. Hence the immediate results (with some
notable exceptions) tended to disappoint the fleshly
pride of the Jews and to inflate that of the Gentile
converts, who could now consider themselves on equality
with Israel! Therefore Paul, that "spiritual"
man, found himself facing very fleshly converts. This is
highlighted in the first Corinthian letter.
That church typifies the
difficulty Paul was up against — the mind of flesh.
These converts accepted Christ, but they knew Him
"after the flesh" (2 Cor. 5:16). How
different were the Corinthians soon after conversion from
what they were before ? On the evidence of paul himself,
the answer must be, "very little". They were
quarrelsome (Chap. 1:10-12); they were sectarian and
immature in thinking (Ch. 3:1-4); they were gluttonous
(Ch.11); they were still subject to many fleshly vices
(Ch.5). It is clear that they valued Christ in terms of
the flesh; they enjoyed the status and liberty which they
understood the new faith accorded to them in the flesh.
But they did not "KNOW" Christ in Paul's
terms of the spirit (Ch. 3:1).
Paul's first letter to
them, together with the corrective ministry among them of
those associates of Paul named in the 16th chapter,
wrought a distinct and quick change in the behaviour and
understanding of the Corinthians by the time Paul sat
down to write his second letter. By then he felt able to
speak to them as "spiritual", as to mature and
not "minors" in Christ, for in the fifth
chapter of the second letter comes that wonderful
declaration, "We, from now on, are acquainted with
no one ACCORDING TO FLESH. Yet even if we have known
Christ according to flesh, nevertheless now we know Him
so no longer. So that, if anyone is IN CHRIST there
is a NEW CREATION: the primitive passed by. Lo! there
has come new!"" (vs. 16,17, C.V.) Then he goes
on to explain that in Christ God conciliates the world to
Himself, followed by many other highly spiritual matters
that he could not possible have written of in the first
letter, when they only knew Christ "after the
flesh."
Paul's gospel, which he
describes in Rom. 1:16 as God's power for salvation to
everyone who is believing, is based upon:—
(a) CHRIST CRUCIFIED
—
(with Him also the OLD HUMANITY).
and
(b) CHRIST ROUSED
—
(with Him also the NEW HUMANITY).
(Read Rom. 6:2-7;
Rom. 8:1-14; 2 Cor. 5:14-17;
Gal. 6:15).
This gospel, Paul
declares, is "stupidity to those who are perishing,
yet to us who are being saved it is the POWER OF
GOD" (1 Cor. 1:18, CV). To believe this,
and to identify one's old self with Christ in both death
and rousing is to be "IN CHRIST". This is a
spiritual concept, which can only be comprehended in the
heart of a believer in Christ, and it is communicated to
the believer by the spirit of God
(1 Cor. 2:10-13). It is not a worldly truth,
nor is it of man's rational comprehension, however clever
and intellectual he may be; on the contrary the natural
man sees it as a "stupidity"
(1 Cor. 2:14). The believer's comprehension
does not stem from his own natural mind; indeed, he can
only enter into this spiritual truth because he has the
"mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16).
Paul had much more to
teach of spiritual truths for those who are in Christ in
his later writings, rising to a sublime peak in the
letters from his prison in Rome (Ephesians, Philippians
and Colossians). This is not the occasion to go into
those revelations. We started with the thought of what it
means to KNOW CHRIST. We submit that it is only the
believer who goes on to study Paul's gospel in all its
richness, who can hope to say, with him, "O, the
depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of
God!" (Rom. 11:33).
It is a sad fact that
Christendom as a whole seems content to know Christ
"after the flesh", like those early
Corinthians. Of course it knows OF Christ; it
knows that Christ died, and was roused from the dead. As
facts, it preaches both these truths; but there
everything seems to rest and stay. It seems to have no
spiritual comprehension of the POWER of the gospel to
transport the individual believer into a fuller knowledge
of God's wisdom and love in Christ; of the POWER which
destroys sin utterly, and with it the old humanity, to be
replaced by a NEW CREATION (2 Cor. 5:17); of
the POWER to seat the believer in heavenly places"
(Eph. 2:6), in spirit now, but in fact, when Christ
shall call all that are His to Himself - when we shall
"KNOW" even as also we are known"
(1 Cor. 13:12).
To get back to where we
started our considerations, in Philippians 3, it is no
wonder that, in verse 7, Paul declares that all the
fleshly advantages recited by him in verses 5 and 6 he
gladly threw over in exchange for being found "IN
CHRIST" and for "KNOWING" Him. That
man will be wise indeed who follows Paul"s example.
To know Christ "after the flesh" is not enough.
Christendom, with its cathedrals, churches, beautiful
adornments, sacred music, rites and ceremonies,
vestments, and endless meetings and conventions, will
witness to Christ "after the flesh". But in
these there is no "POWER" for
Salvation". Only as we allow the spirit of God to
speak to us through the revelations given by Christ
Himself to Paul (Gal. 1:12) will we be able to
comprehend the things which are "taught by the
spirit" (1 Cor. 2:13). In this way only
can we come to KNOW CHRIST as Paul had done when he
wrote to the Philippians.
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