Pressing on Toward the Goal
Pressing on Toward the Goal
Paul’s encounter with the resurrected and living Christ created within him not only a consuming desire to know Christ intimately and fully, but also an awareness that this was something that could not be achieved in a moment. To know the incomprehensible greatness of Christ demands a lifetime of arduous inquiry.
Paul has just said that his supreme desire is to know Christ (and this is a worthy goal for any Christian). But lest some should assume that he (or anyone else for that matter) had already attained complete knowledge of Christ, he immediately proceeds to disabuse them of such an assumption. Christ is too great to be grasped in a single lifetime. And yet this fact does not discourage Paul or dampen his ardor. Rather, it drives him on to know more. The more he knows about Christ, the more he wishes to know. Hence he views his future as a race course stretching out before a runner who is pressing on to reach the goal and win the prize. Thus, the incomprehensible majesty of Christ is no deterrent to Paul’s quest, but a spur, urging him to press on to a still greater knowledge of Christ until it is finally complete when he is called up to receive the prize.
At the same time that Paul continues to bare his soul and disclose the motive that drives him, he may also intend his words to be a warning against any claim that “perfection” is possible in the present. Those same Jewish teachers, whom he attacked so vehemently in vv 2–3, were known to state repeatedly that a person who has been circumcised and is true to the law can reach perfection (Rigaux, NTS 4 [1957–58] 237–62). Hence if they were teaching this in Philippi, Paul, who now knows that “perfection” cannot be attained in this way, surely would wish to remind his friends that “perfection” comes only through Jesus Christ and at the resurrection at the last day (cf. Phil 3:21). There is no need, then, to suppose that in addition to such Jewish or Jewish-Christian propagandists the Philippian Christians were beset by still another group of opponents—gnostics, who also believed and taught that perfection could be attained on earth now without waiting for, or without any need for, the resurrection (Friedrich, 120; Koester, NTS 8 [1961–62] 324).
this verb gives expression to the greatness of the effort required, whether it is to make a catch, to win a race, or, in this instance, to know Christ.
First, Paul states his goal: it is to grasp Christ Jesus for good and all, but to grasp (καταλάβω, “I may apprehend”) him with his mind and heart and to comprehend him with the full comprehension of faith (cf. R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John, trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971] 48). But second, in giving a motive for this driving force within him, Paul states that it was because he himself had been grasped (κατελήμφθην, “I was apprehended”) by Christ. Now the meaning of this verb shifts slightly. As Paul uses it here, he may intend it to retain some overtones of grasping with the mind, hence of being known by Christ, i.e., of being chosen by Christ for a specific task (Gal 1:15–16; 4:9; cf. Amos 3:2). But Paul seems now to be using it primarily to refer to that Christ-encounter he experienced on the Damascus road, at which time Christ laid hands on him, so to speak, forcefully arresting him and setting him off in a new lifelong direction
The church lives between these poles of an initial event and the final outcome, and in the interim there are battles to be fought and both gains and reversals to be registered.
He means to say, therefore, that as many of us “as suppose we have reached perfection” (cf. JB) must nevertheless take the following view of things: we must forget the past and continuously push forward toward the goal. He is saying that “Christian perfection really consists only in this constant striving for perfection” (Weiss, ad loc), that “it is the mark of the perfect man, not to reckon himself perfect” (Chrysostom, cited in Beare, 131), that “the nature of a Christian does not lie in what he has become but in what he is becoming” (Luther, cited in Beare, 131).
In adding up all these details, one arrives at the conclusion that Paul is saying: “All of us who claim to be perfect must have the attitude that Christian perfection is in reality a constant striving for perfection.
καὶ τοῦτο ὁ θεὸς ὑμῖν ἀποκαλύψει, “God will surely reveal to you the truth even about this.” The sentence, which in the beginning sounded discouraging, finishes with this note of confidence. By this clause the apostle says, in effect, to the Philippians: (1) I know what the correct attitude toward “perfection” is that must be held by all who would be “perfect.” (2) I know, too, that you hold a different attitude from mine. (3) I know I cannot convince you to change your attitude by logical arguments or apostolic commands. (4) But I know that God can; for he is at work within you. By his gracious activity of unveiling he will reveal (ἀποκαλύψει) even this (καὶ τοῦτο; καί has other meanings than the simple copulative, as here and in Phil 2:5; see Comment on Phil 2:5) to you as he did to me, namely, what the truth about perfection really is.
He is spurred on in his endeavor not only because he is fully known by Christ but also because he was forcefully taken hold of by Christ, saved from ruining his life, and set off in a new direction of useful service to God and people. Christian hymnody has made this a stirring call to endeavor and action. As an example we may cite the once-popular hymn “Fight the Good Fight with All Thy Might” (J. S. B. Monsell [1863]) with the stanza:
Run the straight race through God’s good grace.
Lift up thine eyes to seek His face.
Life with its path before thee lies.
Christ is the path and Christ the prize.
Thus, although Paul again disclaims having achieved perfect knowledge of Christ, even after a careful evaluation of his successful life as Christ’s apostle, he also reaffirms the one course of action open before him: to forget the past with all its failures and successes—all those things that could paralyze him with guilt or impede him with pride—and to stretch out to the future.
Paul hopes to be called up to receive from God the award he coveted: full knowledge of Christ Jesus. Such perfection, he had come to realize, could only be achieved beyond this life at the end of the race.