21) Strength in Suffering Series
Previously, Paul addressed the loss Christians feel at not being everything we were meant to be. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, he told the Christians in Rome (3:23). He expressed to the Philippian Christians that he was still trying to lay hold on the prize of the high calling of God. This is a reminder that the Christian’s focus is on attaining Heaven; her focus is not on trying to right past wrongs. Paul is a spiritually mature Christian who is reaching for a prize that he can’t grasp on his own. Dear sister, you are not made whole by your own wisdom. Through your faith, God makes you whole in Him.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you:only, whereunto we have attained, by that same rule let us walk.
Philippians 3:15-16
Chapter three of Philippians began with a warning, and echoes of that warning sound in these verses. Judaizers were peddling the circumcision doctrine, and they were selling it to Christians by saying, “You are lacking.” Like listening to a snake oil salesman, the Philippian Christians were wondering if what these false teachers had to offer wasn’t better than what they already had. Paul warns these Gentile Christians that they had to combat this wrong thinking. They had to combat this particular false doctrine, but, more importantly, they had to combat the belief that Christ’s covenant wasn’t enough. The Judaizers infiltrating their assembly promoted their spiritual “superiority.” It caused these Christians to doubt they were doing enough or being enough to get to heaven. Paul tells them not to be moved by the false idea that there is a superior, more advanced Christianity—one that requires physical circumcision or secret knowledge or special jobs and training.
It’s sad to see how this type of thinking has long been part of our battle in God’s Church today. This false belief of “leveling up” as a Christian happened in Paul’s time and it continues to shake a Christian and make her doubt. Today, false teachers aren’t preaching circumcision as the way to gain “full salvation.” Now, they preach that a “spiritual” event must occur in your life in which the spirit of God enlightens you. They teach people to seek this greater, “abundant life” and to testify about their special “calling” from God. There is abundant life in Christ and we are called by God to be His people, but those terms are being twisted to mean something other than God’s definition. Those who study their Bibles can know this is a doctrine that does not come from Christ, and yet this “greater salvation” finds its way into our thinking anyway. It causes us to question if we lack something in the true Church of Christ, in the same way the Judaizers caused the first-century Christians to doubt. The truth is: there is no salvation in any other but Christ, and it is His covenant alone that saves. Anything else is a slick trick the devil uses to con you out of what is God’s perfect gift.
To carry out their deception, Judaizers relied on the idea that one had to do more than God commands to be a “real” Christian. But Paul reminds his brothers and sisters that they all have the same standard, or rule. There isn’t a secret message or greater act for superior Christians. No Christian is superior to another, rather every Christian is walking by faith toward maturity or completeness in God. Christians are to reach out to attain and press on against hard situations. If one thinks she has finished pressing on and has attained something higher than her brothers and sisters, then God is going to reveal to her the truth: she has more growing to do. This was Paul’s logical dead end for these false teachers who presented themselves as perfect. He points out that if any Christian thinks he or she is lacking nothing and needing no more instruction or guidance—if a Christian thinks she is finished and spiritually more superior to other Christians—then that is a sure sign of lacking the completeness God provides! Paul assures the faithful at Philippi that they are walking in the right course. They are not to turn from what they know to be God’s perfect way.
Brethren, be ye imitators together of me…
Philippians 3:17
Paul knows he’s serving God, and he exhorts his Christian family to imitate him in knowing they serve God, too. A Christian must stand by what she knows is truth and not be drawn away from God’s standard. The apostle John says that even the heart can deceive you into believing you are inferior to a false teacher’s “holiness.” He writes, “Hereby shall we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before him: because if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:19-120). Assurance in Christ rests in God’s word. No matter how false thinking may cause you to doubt, your heart is not the authority. God’s promise is the authority. So, when Paul instructs the Philippian Christians, who are battling feelings of inferiority, to know God’s way by his example, he is reminding them that he looks to God’s word to tell him he is complete in Christ.
Those who were preaching a “better” way through circumcision were not depending on God’s promises. They were depending on their own ideas, their own man-made religion. Beloved sister, you are to depend wholly on what God tells you. He has given you all things that grant you holiness in daily living, and He promises to wholly save you. It’s not your job to come up with a backup plan or look for a better idea. His is the only way that will succeed.
The next post will focus on the last part of verse seventeen and what the Christians in Philippi were to do to keep their hearts from falling for these lies.
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