Striving for Perfection

Lets quickly get caught up in this wonderful book. If you’ll recall, we made note that the major theme of Philippians is Christ. Paul showed us that the gospel and the Christ of the gospel is the life of the Christian. For to me, to live is Christ. As we moved into chapter two and three, we learned that Christ is our highest example. As we look to Christ, and are found in him, we are to have his mind of selfless service towards the other. And in our last two sections, we are learning that Christ is the goal of the Christian. He is that to which we strive for. We are in union, but have not arrived yet. We keep in mind another major theme of this epistle, that of Joy. Joy as one put it, is the atmosphere, it is the aura of Philippians. Joy permeates this epistle. In suffering for the gospel, in giving up one self over to service, in persecution, opposition, even in the face of death, we are to be marked by joy. A certain conviction that in all these things God is working our good, and his glory, as the gospel is kept and advanced.

Todays title is……….Striving for Perfection

Unconvinced not only of his previous righteousness, he is dissatisfied with the standard. Perhaps a sense of satisfaction was floating around the church as to growth. Paul is convinced that the new standard, is one much greater, much loftier, much more glorious. And is to be persued with much more zeal and vigor.

We could say onward and upward in the Spirit captures the text.

Paul is not there and he’s not going to get there until glory. Yet that does not deter him from ceasing to strive for maturity even perfection.

12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect,

The question is; does this justifying faith, does union with Christ give me license to stop striving? To have an antinomian spirit? Have I reached such a point were I can stop pressing on toward further sanctification. Can I just kick my legs up and sit back in like a “Christian retirement”. Has he worked long enough as a Christian to sit on a “christian social security check and retirement account?” The answer is no. An emphatic no. I haven’t attained the resurrection, and have not attained Christian perfection.

Now it seems obvious that he has not achieved “it” ressurection previous verse. He is currently writing after all. What he has in mind is fulness, as the text will bear out.

but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

He is not deterred by this fact. Nor lazy or presumptuous. He is eager to arrive. He lays hold on it. Stretches for it. This is games language. Like a runner stretching his whole body forward to the finish. Think of an olympic sprinter stretching to the finish.

Yet, it is towards something certain.

Vincent: “The pursuit is no groping after something undefined, nor is it prosecuted with any feeling of doubt as to the attainment of its end. Though he had zealously pursued the 'law of righteousness' (Rom. ix. 31) as a son of Israel, he was now pursuing the righteousness of faith with even greater zeal, under a mightier impulse, and with a clearer view of his goal.”

His pursuit flows out of the work of Christ’s Spirit in him. Out of God’s work in him. Work out your salvation.

I think we naturally assume that if something is strove for or eagerly pursued, that it implies doubt. But that is not always the case. It is certainly not the case in the Christian life as we learned from Phil 2:12-13.

Vincent:

The divine grace in Paul's conversion is the moving power of his Christian development. The fulfilment of the ideal contemplated by Christ when he transformed him from a persecutor to an apostle is the goal which invites him. He desires to grasp that for which he was grasped by Christ. The aorist marks the time of his conversion, which was literally a seizure.

Christ laid hold of me in my conversion, so that I might lay hold of him, that his suffering and death might be filled up in me as he says.

12-14 form an ABAB chiasm

A-Not attained

B-I press on

A-I do not regard myself as having laid hold

B-Forgetting whats behind I press on

13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind

He’s not unthankful, not unappreciative of what God has done in him. It’s not holding on to what he used to do in Judaism. He doesn’t get hung up on past achievements, he understands that sanctification is a progressive work of God in the Christian. More than progressive, he also understands the transcendent greatness of what the Christian is called to. How embarrassing what certain folks consider perfection or holiness. Aren’t you glad the bar and goal are set so much higher? Aren’t you glad that the perfection we strive for is not merely horizontal. Aren’t you glad the fulness of it, is beyond even your full mental grasp in this life. God has heights much more glorious for us in mind. What we experience in this life of likeness to Christ is just a taste, just a drop of the ocean of delights and glories that we will experience in our resurrected bodies. the holiest of men have made but little progress. As believers, we have yet to experience anything that is not affected by remaining sin. Everything we do personally or collectively is marked by sin. That’s why he leaves any past attainments behind. Paul is setting our sights on that blessed and certain hope. One day it will not be that way. That is the glorious reality Paul strives for.

His achievements as a Christian, stimulate him toward more strenuous efforts(one commentator). Repeat. How could he be satisfied knowing what he knows about Christ and the resurrection to come.

and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

Again, reaching toward glorification. Every Christian should be busy reaching toward what awaits him in glory. Elsewhere, Paul refers to this as groaning. Are you reaching in this way? If you are, then you will groan. Groan for what? Long for what? To be set free from this body of death. There is a sense of frustration here. To finally be altogether free of the old man. The old man and new man, the flesh and the Spirit are stuck together throughout the life of the Christian. They are like twins conjoined at the hip, and they don’t get along. The only thing that will end the feud is death or second coming.

Until then.

14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Towards the mark, something to which someone fixes their look. the bullseye.

Theophylact says:

"Most appropriately did he say diokeiv(press toward); for he who pursues sees nothing but that towards which he is hastening, and passes by all things, for the dearest and the most necessary"

This is what the believer is called to. Called by God to Christ. Now in Christ.

God has called the believer into the sphere which is Christ Jesus. Christ your life, your example, your hope, your goal. That is the mark. The fulness of resurrection power. Fulness of conformity to his death. Death to sin. Sin vanquished.

The prize is the sharing in his exaltation. For this reason( suffering and obedience to death), for this reason also, God highly exalted him. But what came before exaltation. Suffering. Fellowship in suffering and conformity to death before the prize.

Fix your eyes on the mark to attain the prize. In 1 Cor 9 Paul uses the analogy of the grecian games and the singleness of mind for those who desiring to win a perishable wreath.

1 Corinthians 9:24 “24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.”

This is what the new creature is made for. We are created to run, called by God to run toward and for glory.

Ephesians 2:10 “10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Conclude this section with Calvin quoted by Zanchi:

It is asked, 'What is it that Paul says he has not yet obtained?" For certainly as soon as we are grafted onto Christ's body by means of faith, we have already entered God's kingdom, as is uttered to the Ephesians: "Through hope, we are already sitting in the heavenly places." I respond that, for now, our salvation is situated in hope, such that our inberitance is, indeed, certain, but as yet we do not enjoy possession of it.

Nevertheless, Paul here is focusing on something else, namely, the progress of faith and mortification that he had mentioned. He had said that be contended and strove toward the resurrection of the dead through fellow ship with the cross of Christ, and he adds that he had not yet achieved it. Achieved what? Having undivided fellowship with Christ's sufferings and a full draught of the power of the resurrection so that he might know Him (Christ) completely. Accordingb, by bis own example, [Paul teaches] that one ought to make progress and that knowing Christ is an enterprise so vast that those who labor in nothing else still do not attain perfection (in this, that is, in knowledge of Christ) while they live.

Zanchi:

Hence, the thing that Paul said he had not yet attained and in pursuit of which he was continually exerting himself was (in Calvin's opinion) the perfect knowledge of Christ about which he had previously said: In order that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection.”

There is an already not yet tension in the christian life. One that if you do not understand will not allow you to make sense of much of the NT or christian experience. We have and are experiencing resurrection power. But we are not yet to the resurrection. We have and are experiencing freedom from the power and dominion of sin. But we are not freed from its presence yet. We have certainty about the perfection and fulness of these things, so we press on with great alacrity and eagerness, and zeal.

Again, Paul here is not at odds with Paul in Romans 8:28–30 “28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” (passed tense)

Romans 8:37–39 “37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Motivation. If I know that full retirement benefits are coming after one more year of work, then you press in to that final year. If you sit around, you won’t make it. If a football team is up 50-0 at the half they don’t stop playing in the second half. Jesus has conquered the devil, and sin, and hell on our behalf, so we with confidence war with, and mortify, and strive to enter the blessed state of glory.

15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; 16 however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.”

Paraphrase: And if, in any particular, your ideal of the possibilities of Christian attainment and of your proper attitude towards these differs from that which I have held up to you, God will correct this by future revelations(illumination); but only on the condition that you act up to the ideal which you already have, and follow the rule which it imposes.

There are mature Christians. There is spiritual maturity. That have come to grasp the whole of the Christian walk. Not perfect as sinless, but perfect in a well-rounded sense. Perfect in understanding the Christian walk and goal. Mature in the sense of conforming in their minds and lives to what Paul has just laid out. Which is certainly a humble approach.

They are not children in the faith. The implication is that they are not children, not childish and weak. This is what we strive for, and are called to stir each other up to this. None is exempt from this ideal, this standard. Mature, spiritually minded in this way christians. And a spiritually mindedness or knowledge that is combined with godliness. The only true spirituality and maturity.

What is the attitude, what is the standard. It evokes the mind of Christ.

Philippians 2:2–6 “2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,”

If you are different in anything pertaining to the standard, God will reveal it to you. Assuming you keep with what you already have. Don’t backslide in other words. If you relax in pressing forward, you should not expect greater maturity. But if you acknowledge where you are, and your needs, and know that God is in you, and walk in step with the Spirit and in prayer, then be confident that God will teach you. They shall all be taught be God. Who shall be taught by God. Israel, which you are. God is in you to will and work for his good pleasure. And not only can we have this confidence for ourselves, but for our brothers and sisters as well. You can be confident that God will here you on their behalf. Because it’s his will that we grow up together.

Lets pray.