Easter 2017 (Phil 3:3-11)
In the letters Paul wrote, there are fifty-three references to the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is the event that sets and keeps in motion the entire gospel enterprise. Most of these resurrection texts assert either the centrality of Jesus’ resurrection or the certainty of our final resurrection from the dead, or both. But six of these resurrection citations explicitly identify our present and ongoing spiritual formation with Jesus’ resurrection (see Romans 6:4; 8:11; Ephesians 2:6; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 2:12; 3:1). In other words, this is not a future resurrection but a present resurrection—which is what we’re interested in right now.
Clearly, Paul’s witness is that resurrection is not only a doctrinal/historical truth to be believed about Jesus, and not only a doctrinal/eschatological truth to be believed about our final destiny, but also the focus for our spiritual formation—formation-by-resurrection.
Paul thus joins the company of resurrection friends whom we have met in the Gospel accounts, friends for whom Christian spiritual formation is, essentially, the practice of resurrection.
Resurrection brings our lives into the operations of the gospel. Resurrection gives spiritual formation its energy and character. Here are the six texts:
• Romans 6:4: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
• Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.”
• Ephesians 2:5–6: “[God] made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
• Philippians 3:10: “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”
• Colossians 2:12: “You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
• Colossians 3:1: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
Here are the elements to notice:
• “As Christ was raised … we too”
• “He who raised Christ … will give life to your mortal bodies”
• “Raised us up with him”
• “That I may know … the power of his resurrection”
• “You were also raised with him”
• “If then you have been raised with Christ”
All of Paul’s pronouns are in the plural—we, us, you, your. The one exception—Paul’s “I” in Philippians—is hardly an exception, for he is giving witness to what he is intending for them to experience. He’s not setting himself apart as an expert or as a privileged example of resurrection living.
Paul, here as elsewhere, had thought through the present life and vocation of Christians in terms of a resurrection life which had already, in one sense, begun, even though it was to be completed in the bodily resurrection itself.
Indwelling by life, not just by teaching
God the Son rose again from the dead! Thus He can now take up residence through the Spirit in the hearts of believers. A dead Saviour has nothing to offer.
Some may argue that a master-teacher, great leader, or popular celebrity may live on after his death by his teachings—or his recordings—in his most dedicated and devoted disciples. If they mean it in a literal sense they are either on the verge of insanity, or living in an unreal world, or are dangerously influenced by the evil of spiritism, or a combination of all three.
This claim that the hero lives on is a pale, limited, lifeless, and powerless thing compared to the indwelling of the ever living Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection is as much a historical fact as His birth, life and death. People say that Hitler lives on. They mean his teachings influence people. The matchless teachings of Jesus do influence even those who do not know Him as their Lord, but we are not looking at influence but indwelling.
Far above the wonderful influence of His words, as the Spirit of God still uses them today to convict, convert, comfort and challenge men and women, is the miracle of His actual indwelling presence in the life of anyone who turns to Him. Jesus can so enter and transform a life that, with the apostle Paul, one can experience and proclaim, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’! The rotting corpse of a failed teacher could never do that! In words from the same letter, we can experience the peace of God, guarding our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. No wonder Paul rejoices that ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ nor that, having come to know the risen Christ, his aim is now to better know Him and the power of His resurrection.69 He cannot spend enough time with the living ‘lover of his soul!’
10 That I may know him, (This is a knowledge not gained at college,) and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; (To be ready to die as Jesus did, and so to have fellowship with him in death, is a glorious lesson in the learning of grace.)
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (The resurrection of the blessed was the prize towards which the Apostle pressed forward. This he sought for in God’s fashion, not by his own works, but by the righteousness which is of God by faith.)
“The power of his resurrection.”
—Philippians 3:10
The doctrine of a risen Saviour is exceedingly precious. The resurrection is the corner-stone of the entire building of Christianity. It is the key-stone of the arch of our salvation. It would take a volume to set forth all the streams of living water which flow from this one sacred source, the resurrection of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; but to know that he has risen, and to have fellowship with him as such—communing with the risen Saviour by possessing a risen life—seeing him leave the tomb by leaving the tomb of worldliness ourselves, this is even still more precious. The doctrine is the basis of the experience, but as the flower is more lovely than the root, so is the experience of fellowship with the risen Saviour more lovely than the doctrine itself. I would have you believe that Christ rose from the dead so as to sing of it, and derive all the consolation which it is possible for you to extract from this well-ascertained and well-witnessed fact; but I beseech you, rest not contented even there. Though you cannot, like the disciples, see him visibly, yet I bid you aspire to see Christ Jesus by the eye of faith; and though, like Mary Magdalene, you may not “touch” him, yet may you be privileged to converse with him, and to know that he is risen, you yourselves being risen in him to newness of life. To know a crucified Saviour as having crucified all my sins, is a high degree of knowledge; but to know a risen Saviour as having justified me, and to realize that he has bestowed upon me new life, having given me to be a new creature through his own newness of life, this is a noble style of experience: short of it, none ought to rest satisfied. May you both “know him, and the power of his resurrection.” Why should souls who are quickened with Jesus, wear the grave-clothes of worldliness and unbelief? Rise, for the Lord is risen.
The spiritual saint
That I may know Him. Phil. 3:10.
The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realization, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his life as secular and sacred; he sees everything he is dumped down in as the means of securing the knowledge of Jesus Christ. There is a reckless abandonment about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work. Whether it be eating or drinking or washing disciples’ feet, whatever it is, we have to take the initiative of realizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our actual life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial work. “Jesus knowing … that He was come from God, and went to God; … took a towel, … and began to wash the disciples feet.”
The aim of the spiritual saint is “that I may know Him.” Do I know Him where I am to-day? If not, I am failing Him. I am here not to realize myself, but to know Jesus. In Christian work the initiative is too often the realization that something has to be done and I must do it. That is never the attitude of the spiritual saint, his aim is to secure the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances he is in.
3:9 Found in him means being spiritually united to Christ and therefore found not guilty before God as divine judge. Paul had trusted in a righteousness of my own based on obedience to the law rather than the right standing before God that comes through faith in Christ. God “imputes” Christ’s lifelong record of perfect obedience to the person who trusts in him for salvation; that is, he thinks of Christ’s obedience as belonging to that person, and therefore that person stands before God not as “guilty” but as “righteous.” This is the basis on which justification by faith alone is considered “fair” in God’s sight. As explained in Rom. 10:1–8, righteousness cannot come by the law because all human beings sin, and therefore right standing before God as the divine judge is possible only through faith in Jesus Christ, who is the believer’s righteousness before God. See note on Gal. 2:16.
3:10–11 The goal of trusting in Christ is to know him, that is, to know Christ in a personal relationship, and also to know the power of his resurrection—namely, the power Christ exerts now from the right hand of God. But this power is made known as the believer shares the same kind of sufferings Jesus faced—the sufferings that attend faithful witness in a fallen world. The good news is that those who suffer with and for Christ will attain the resurrection from the dead, even as he did.
That I may know Him (τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν). Know is taken up from knowledge, ver. 8, and is joined with be found in Him, qualified by not having, etc. That I may be found in Him not having, etc., but having the righteousness which is of God so as to know Him, etc.
the aorist or point tense usually indicating definiteness,
In the NT ginosko frequently indicates a relation between the person “knowing” and the object known; in this respect, what is “known” is of value or importance to the one who knows, and hence the establishment of the relationship
The power of His resurrection (τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ). Power of His resurrection and fellowship of His sufferings furnish two specific points further defining the knowledge of Him. By the power of Christ’s resurrection is meant the power which it exerts over believers. Here, more especially, according to the context, in assuring their present justification, and its outcome in their final glorification. See Rom. 4:24, 25; 8:11, 30; 1 Cor. 15:17; Col. 3:4; Philip. 3:21.
We learn that Christ does not become ours by effort but by rejection of effort. No-one had ever striven for righteousness as did Paul, and yet he does not see Christ as the prize standing just above the top rung of the ladder of self-advancement. He cannot have Christ until he has totted up all his works of righteousness and admitted the answer to be loss. ‘Not the labours of my hands can fulfil thy law’s demands … Foul (in spite of all my efforts), I to the fountain fly.’
In scriptural terms, our definition of ‘knowledge’ as truth held in the mind offers only a third of the total. The Bible would add, first, a practical dimension. Nothing is truly known until it becomes part of daily conduct: ‘To depart from evil is understanding.’ Secondly, the Bible would add a personal dimension. In personal relationships, to ‘know’ is to enter into the deepest personal intimacy and union: ‘Adam knew Eve his wife.’11 The Bible speaks in this way, not through reticence on sexual matters, but because this is what marriage is and this is what knowledge between persons is—deep, intimate union. Consequently, having been saved wholly and solely by Christ, Paul wants to enter into the deepest possible union with him. He wants to know him
“Surpassing greatness” and “knowing” are in apposition—two ways of describing the same reality. The content of this experience is given in verses 9–11. “Knowing” here, therefore, included personal involvement—love, obedience and blessing. It was not just a detached intellectual awareness. Paul never knew Jesus in the flesh, though he did see him on the Damascus Road. But he knew him.
This piling up of genitives has as its ultimate goal “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” which so far surpasses all other things in value that their net worth is zero; they are a total loss. As v. 10 will clarify, “knowing Christ” does not mean to have head knowledge about him, but to “know him” personally (BAGD) and relationally. Paul has thus taken up the Old Testament theme of “knowing God” and applied it to Christ. It means to know him as children and parent know each other, or wives and husbands—knowledge that has to do with personal experience and intimate relationship. It is such knowledge that makes Christ “trust-worthy.” The intimacy will be expressed in v. 10 in terms of “participation in his sufferings.” In the light of such expansive language, therefore, the object of his “knowing” is not simply “Christ,” nor even “Christ Jesus,” but “Christ Jesus my Lord.”
the bare mention of Christ has been filled out over years of experience of him, so that it is now the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Glorying in Christ Jesus is not a static thing. Joy in the Lord keeps company with progress in the Lord.
This is not simply coming to know the deity—it is that, of course—but even more so, it is to know the one whose love for Paul, expressed in the cross and in his arrest on the Damascus road, has transformed the former persecutor of the church into Christ’s “love slave,” whose lifelong ambition is to “know him” in return, and to love him by loving his people. There is something unfortunate about a cerebral Christianity that “knows” but does not “know” in this way.
His power. First, there is “the power of his resurrection.” Two thousand years ago on the first day of the week, Christ’s cold body lay on chilled stone in the arms of death. His heart was stilled in the icy grip of the grave, whatever blood remained was congealed in his veins, his eyes were fixed and dilated, and his body was bound tightly with spices and graveclothes. Then, before dawn, his vacant eyes blinked open and coursed with light, focused and glittering life. And with the ease of omnipotence, his body left the wrappings like an empty cocoon.
In Paul’s usage, the “power of his resurrection” is the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. According to Paul, that same “incomparably great power” (Eph. 1:19)—the power that raised Jesus from the dead—is the power that is at work in us to make us holy, to make us a fit place for Jesus to dwell, to enable us to grasp the limitless dimensions of God’s love for us (Eph. 3:14–19), to strengthen us so that we have great endurance and faith and lives constantly characterized by thanksgiving (Col. 1:11–12). It takes extraordinary power to change us to become like that. In fact, it takes nothing less than the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead. What the apostle wants, then, is not power so that he might be thought powerful, but power so that he might be conformed to the will of God. Only the power that brought Jesus back from death will do.
“Power of his resurrection” probably did not mean Paul’s resurrection, of which he speaks in the next verse. Rather the stress was on “power”—”power” so mighty that by it Jesus was victor over death. That power both energizes the life and sets its hope. In this context the special significance may be to the ability to endure suffering.
The power of Christ’s resurrection first provides the strength and motivation for suffering. No man or woman can embrace the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings who does not first know the power of Christ’s resurrection. If you have come to Christ and know the power of his resurrection, if you’ve been raised from the dead, if you are experiencing the ongoing resurrection of new life in Christ, you can do it!
The spiritual reality is this: suffering is the lot of every true believer, a fact that Paul referenced frequently. Luke tells us that he and Paul returned to the churches of Asia Minor, “encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Paul told the Thessalonians, “For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know” (1 Thessalonians 3:3, 4). Paul also informed the Romans that suffering is a prerequisite to being glorified with Christ: … and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17).
The suffering that comes to a Christian (as a Christian) is not a sign of God’s neglect but rather proof that grace is at work in his or her life—sacred intimacy.
He wants “the fellowship of sharing in [Christ’s] sufferings” (3:10). Here again is the word “fellowship” or “partnership” that we considered in the first chapter. Paul wants to identify with Christ in his sufferings, to participate in those sufferings, to know Christ better by experiencing sufferings just as Jesus did. After all, this is the apostle who earlier wrote, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him . . .” (1:29).
he wants us to see that in desiring to follow him as faithful cross-bearers we are not left alone; he keeps fellowship with us; we are not copying a dead Model but walking in fellowship with a living Saviour
On the contrary, the power of Christ’s resurrection was the greater reality for him. So certain was Paul that it had happened—after all, he had been accosted and claimed by the Risen Lord on the Damascus Road—and that Christ’s resurrection guaranteed his own, that he could throw himself into the present with a kind of holy abandon, full of rejoicing and thanksgiving; and that not because he enjoyed suffering, but because Christ’s resurrection had given him a unique perspective on present suffering (spelled out in the next two lines) as well as an empowering presence whereby the suffering was transformed into intimate fellowship with Christ himself.
Either way, “somehow,” he will “attain to the resurrection from the dead.” And in Paul’s mind, attaining that glorious end, the final resurrection, the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness, is bound up with persevering in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. So for knowledge of Christ Paul yearns.
In verse 11 the word has a little preposition in front of it—the preposition ek which is equivalent to our word ‘out.’ The word resurrection literally means to ‘place’ or ‘stand up.’ To the Greek mind, living people were standing up, dead people were lying down. So, making a Greek pun, Paul says, ‘I want to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering that I may give the spiritually dead a preview of eternal life in action as I am standing up outstanding among those who are spiritually on their backs—spiritually dead.’
Is it your desire to be so living for Christ that you will appear as a resurrected person among those who are spiritually dead? It should be, for it is God’s desire for you.