In Philippians 3:9, Paul has been looking back to Christ for that perfect righteousness obtained by faith in Christ. This is positional salvation truth, the basis of our justification before God. In verses 10-14, Paul is looking presently to Christ for sanctification, with a view to being separated unto Christ, knowing Him more experientially, enjoying closer fellowship with Him, and becoming increasingly morally conformed to the Saviour. These verses repeatedly express the apostle’s singular spiritual ambition, the absolute priority for his life, even above his great apostolic service for Christ. The apostle’s example should be a challenge to all believers; Paul says in verse 15, “Be thus minded,” and in verse 17, “Be followers [imitators] together of me.”1 We should have spiritual desires and ambitions that are centred upon Christ as the supreme object of our lives.
The position of being placed in Christ (v9) speaks of our eternal union to Him through salvation. The striving for progressive sanctification of life (vv10-14) is based upon the believer’s spiritual identification or association with Christ. God views us from the time of our salvation as identified with His own beloved Son, in particular with His death, burial, resurrection and heavenly exaltation. But like the apostle in Philippians 3, we all should be exercised about the practical implications and spiritual challenge of this positional truth in our lives.
Knowing Christ Experientially
As Paul expresses these spiritual ambitions, he first makes the general statement “that I may know him” (v10). He knew Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour from the moment of salvation, as expressed in verse 8 (“the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”). But Paul desired to know much more of His blessed Person experientially through personal communion and practical daily living in fellowship with Christ. Such deepening experiential knowledge of our blessed Saviour is based upon the conscious appreciation of His abiding presence with us. It means being continually captivated by the beauty, glory and majesty of Christ, as revealed to us in the Word of God. Christ becomes everything to us, as we “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Pe 3:18). The apostle John says twice of the spiritually mature fathers in God’s family, “because ye have known him that is from the beginning” (1Jn 2:13-14). May we all be challenged to go in for knowing more of Him each day.
Knowing the Risen Exalted Christ
Paul further wanted to know more of being identified with the present heavenly life of Christ, and the power and ministry of the risen Christ experienced in daily life, that is, “the power of his resurrection” (Php 3:10). Ephesians chapters 1-2 teach that we experienced that resurrection power when we were saved, spiritually quickened from being dead in sins, raised and seated together in heavenly places in Christ. That same resurrection power is to empower us daily, knowing that we are vitally linked with the risen Man in heavenly exaltation who lives in the power of an endless life, interceding for us as our Great High Priest. Paul encouraged Timothy, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2Ti 2:1), the strength found in the risen Christ who ministers grace to us daily. As we are occupied daily with the risen, glorified Christ, we can live in the power of His risen life; the only alternative is the weakness of the sinful flesh.
Knowing the Sufferings of Christ
Salvation brings us into a wonderfully blessed fellowship with divine Persons (see 1Co 1:9; 1Jn 1:3). In Philippians 1:29, Paul links our salvation with expected sufferings: “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” Our fellowship with divine Persons, whilst we live in an evil world that is wholly anti-God and anti-Christ, makes it inevitable that we will “suffer as a Christian” (1Pe 4:16).
The risen Saviour said concerning the newly converted Saul of Tarsus, “I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Act 9:16). No doubt Ananias conveyed this message, and Paul embraced the reality of being brought into “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Php 3:10) by association with the cross of Christ, and bearing His reproach daily. The character of this world has never changed; the place of our Saviour’s suffering and rejection is the place of our own suffering and rejection. We do not share anything of those atoning sufferings for sin that He endured upon the cross, but we share in the reproach of the world that gave our Saviour that cross. We believe in the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and ungodly men have no time for those living in touch with the risen Christ and in the power of His risen life. The more we know “the power of his resurrection” (v10), the more we will be brought to experience suffering in fellowship with Him.
We can accept the reality of “the fellowship of his sufferings” (v10), knowing that “if so be that we suffer with him, … we may be also glorified together” (Rom 8:17). Paul desired to know in his life the reality of suffering in fellowship with Christ, because it reinforced to him the truth that he was eternally linked with the risen Lord Jesus, and that he would be openly glorified together with Christ in a future day and share in the fellowship of His revealed glory. The apostle Peter gives the same perspective: “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1Pe 4:13).
Knowing Conformity to Christ’s Death
Paul also speaks of the reality of identification with the death of Christ: “being made conformable unto his death” (Php 3:10). He was willing to be physically obedient unto death and ultimately martyred as a Christian. Also, in whatever time he yet had to live for Christ, Paul desired to die spiritually with Christ to all that Christ died in His accomplished death at Calvary. He wanted to know the reality of dying with Christ to this ungodly world, to law-keeping and to the indwelling sinful flesh. This important truth of the believer’s spiritual identification with the death of Christ is developed in greater detail in other Pauline writings (Rom 6-7; Gal 2; Col 2), helping us to know deliverance practically from the dominion of sin, from self and the sinful flesh, and from this ungodly world.
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
