PHILIPPIANS 3:7-11
PAUL CALLS PEDIGREE “POO POO” COMPARED TO COMPREHENDING CHRIST
Philippians 3:7 (NIV) But whatever were gains to me I now consider lossG2209 for the sake of Christ.
Philippians 3:7 (Berean Study Bible) But whatever was an asset to me I count as lossG2209 for the sake of Christ.
Philippians 3:7 (CJB) But the things that used to be advantages for me, I have, because of the Messiah, come to consider a disadvantage.G2209
Greek 2209: Damage, loss, detriment. Probably akin to the base of damazo; detriment.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
SUSAN: Paul counts all his former achievements as loss—even a detriment, disadvantage, disability—compared to the extravagant, superlative, insurmountable value of knowing Christ.
Q – Is there anything you used to boast about that you now count as loss, detrimental, compared to knowing Jesus? In what accomplishment do you take the greatest pride? How does that measure up to the importance of Jesus in your life?
SUSIE: The goals the Lord has allowed us to reach, the tasks accomplished, find their true value and meaning in how the Lord uses them to His glory. I though getting a master’s degree would enable me to be a better elementary school teacher, and it did. However, the more important aspect of my education is how God is using it in the work to which I am now called. My accomplishment is NOTHING compared to what Jesus Christ is working in and through me.
Philippians 3:8-9 (NIV) What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbageG4657, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
Greek 4657: Refuse, dregs, dung. Neuter of a presumed derivative of eis and kuon and ballo; what is thrown to the dogs, i.e. Refuse.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
SUSAN: Paul says that he considers all these worthy deeds he listed previously, all his accomplishments in the flesh, as refuse, actually cow-patties, dung, or as we would say in our house, poo-poo.
SUSIE: What we consider to be greatness means absolutely nothing! Paul realized he could never be righteous enough in his own efforts to merit salvation by keeping the Mosaic Law. We only enter into the presence of the Almighty, All-knowing, All-powerful Lord of the universe because He extends grace to us and enables us to believe on the Lord Jesus by faith.
SUSAN: We must reject self-righteousness which in truth is impossible to live up to and maintain, and embrace the righteousness of Christ imputed—credited—to us by the grace of God through faith in Jesus’s finished work on the cross and His resurrection to life from the dead. The righteousness of Christ is placed upon us like a covering. When God sees the believer, He sees the righteousness only Jesus could achieve rather than our paltry attempts to be right with Him on our own.
Isaiah 61:10-11 (NASB) I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise To spring up before all the nations.
Isaiah 61:10-11 (MSG) I will sing for joy in God, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara. For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations.
Q – Is there something that you believe makes you “worthy” of Salvation? Or, as the old hymn by Edward Mote says, are you “clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne?” Are you standing on the solid rock of Jesus or on the shaky ground of your own merit?
Listen to the full hymn as sung by Phillips, Craig, and Dean:
Philippians 3:10-11 (NIV) I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:10-11 (AMPC) [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].
SUSIE: In the One on One with God discipleship book, the learner is urged to examine verse ten DAILY, to meditate on it, internalize it, and live it. I will include our page from the book at the end of this lesson. Perhaps you will want to internalize this verse as well.
SUSAN: Paul wants to know Jesus intimately, tapping into His power, almost as if they are moving as one heart. And they are by the Holy Spirit. Paul wanted to understand Jesus from all facets of His life, the good and the bad. That is the only way you truly know a person is to take not only their best, but the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unmentionable as well. That is exactly how Jesus knows us! We live in the benefit of the infusion, the infilling, of Jesus’s righteousness through His sacrifice as the Perfect Lamb of God in our place on the cross. Jesus’s death as our substitute and His resurrection are two sides of the same coin. He died in order that we might live to God’s glory and ultimately live with Him forever. His Holy Spirit makes us one with Him and with God the Father, enabling us to live as obedient sons and daughters even while we live in this fallen world. Jesus prayed we would have this oneness, this unity with Him, in His High Priestly prayer:
John 17:21-22 (VOICE) Father, may they all be one as You are in Me and I am in You; may they be in Us, for by this unity the world will believe that You sent Me. All the glory You have given to Me, I pass on to them. May that glory unify them and make them one as We are one,
John 17:15-16 (VOICE) Do not take them out of this world; protect them from the evil one. Like Me, they are not products of the corrupt world order.
John 17:15-16 (NASB) I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
SUSIE: Paul is willing to suffer because of his affiliation with and commitment to Christ. He wants to be intertwined with Jesus to the point of following Him in death. Paul knows that if his body dies, he WILL be resurrected, but he wants to get to that point triumphantly, standing firm in the Lord all the way. It does not matter to Paul HOW the Lord gets him to the point of resurrection, just that He does.
SUSAN: Developing a more intimate knowledge of Christ increases our confidence in the salvation He has already freely given to us by dying on the cross. Sharing in His sufferings is a privilege even though in our finite understanding we have difficulty comprehending this truth. However, we trust that it is a privilege because God only wants the best for His children, for us as well as our Brother, Jesus.
SUSIE: Even now, we enjoy life more abundantly because we live in the power and grace of our Lord. Eternal life begins the moment we submit our lives to His will.
John 10:10b (NASB) I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
Romans 8:17 (VOICE) If we are God’s children, that means we are His heirs along with the Anointed, set to inherit everything that is His. If we share His sufferings, we know that we will ultimately share in His glory.
SUSAN: Verse 11 made my head spin because it seemed that Paul had some doubt as to whether he would make the cut on being resurrected which seemed to conflict with all his other teaching on salvation being a free gift, not gained by works. We turned to some commentaries to help us dissect this verse.
The form of this statement poses a problem for interpreters, perhaps suggesting that, though Paul is hopeful of experiencing the resurrection, he has some doubt about it. This is difficult to harmonize with his strong affirmations of faith elsewhere (e.g., 1Co 15:1-34). Some have explained the expression as an indication of Paul’s humility. But it is also possible to regard the clause as expressing sincere expectation rather than doubt.
“The resurrection from the dead” is not the usual NT expression for this event. Its use here suggests Paul is thinking not in terms of a general resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, but of believers only (cf. Rev 20:4-15). He is uncertain whether he will participate in the resurrection because he will have died by then, or whether he will receive his transformed body without dying because the Lord comes before his death (see 1Th 4:13-17).
Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Abridged Edition): New Testament Copyright 2004.
SUSAN: Paul is wondering whether he will get to experience resurrection from the grave or will be “caught up in the clouds” (1 Thessalonians 4:17) without having died on this earth. Here is another commentary:
Paul now moves from knowing Christ in the present to its full realization in the future, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. The point of this final clause is easy enough: conformity to Christ’s death in the present, made possible because of the power of Christ’s resurrection in the present, will be followed by our own resurrection from [among] the dead at the end. But the way Paul says it is a bit puzzling: somehow seems to imply doubt.
The reason for this way of putting it seems to be twofold and interrelated. First, this hesitation is not to be understood as lack of confidence about his own—or their and our—future; rather, it emphasizes that the resurrection of believers is integrally tied to their first “being conformed to his death.” Without “death” of this kind, there is no resurrection. This is another way of saying “we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). But the future itself is not in doubt—everything in Paul, including verses 12-21 that follow, refutes such a notion. What is uncertain for him is whether his certain future is to be realized by resurrection or by transformation (as implied in vv. 20-21). This matter is in God’s hands, to which Paul gladly submits by this use of language.
Second, this is his way of moving toward the concern that the Philippians “stand firm” in the present (4:1; cf. 1:27) and especially not lose their clear focus on, and keen anticipation of, their certain future in Christ. Hence this last clause also serves as the direct lead-in to the final section of the narrative (vv. 12-14) and its final application (3:15—4:1). In whatever way the future is realized—through resurrection or transformation at the parousia (vv. 20-21)—the present involves knowing the power of Christ’s resurrection as key to participating in Christ’s sufferings. The final, complete knowing of Christ is “not yet”; neither he nor they have attained to it. Nonetheless, such a future prize is the one certain reality of present existence and is thus worth bending every effort to realize, which is what the end of the story (vv. 12-14) is all about.
The IVP New Testament Commentary Series quoted from www.BibleGateway.com
SUSIE: if we have died to self and have new life in Christ, do we have hope of being resurrected. That hope is secure and certain for all who believe.
Romans 6:4 (NASB) Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
APPLY THIS TO YOUR LIFE:
- In a study on Philippians taught by my (Susie’s) former singles’ minister, we were handed a single sheet of toilet paper. He read us the passage about counting it all as dung and said, “Whatever you might think is good enough, whatever achievement you are most proud of in your life, write it on this toilet paper and place it on this page of the Bible to remind you that it is dung compared to knowing Jesus.” My (Susie’s) paper with “intellect” written on it is still there. I challenge you do to the same.
- Are you willing to identify with Jesus, not only in His power, but in His suffering? Pray the Lord would work this intimacy with Him into your life.
